Sciencemadness Discussion Board

suggestions?

scrubs2009 - 10-12-2014 at 08:03

heres a complete list of the chemicals I own, any suggestions as to some intrestng experiments I could do?


12mol H2SO4
1mol,.5mol,con HNO3
2mol NaOh
CuSO4
C3H6O
C2HcO
3mol,1mol HCL
Methyl Orange
C3H8O3
CH4O
chromatography solvent
2mol Na2CO3
potassium phosphate (not sure what type)
CoCl2
2mol NH4CL
large NaCL crystals >1in
C3H8O
Cu
Mg
Si
Pb
S
Cu(NO3)2

Note: All of these chemicals are stored safely and in proper containers

Any combintations I should be careful to avoid? (aside from the obvious)

[Edited on 10-12-2014 by scrubs2009]

[Edited on 10-12-2014 by scrubs2009]

Bert - 10-12-2014 at 09:03

Welcome!

I moved your thread to "beginnings", as you are looking for a place to begin?

Well, what interests you? Why did you decide to accumulate those chemicals... What caught your fancy. Do you have any chemistry/science related dreams or plans, be they education/career or hobby related.

And what equipment did you get to go with all those chemicals?

Please read the FAQ on posting new threads before starting another thread outside of "beginnings".

http://www.sciencemadness.org/madscifaq.html#2.1_Board_topic...

And remember:

IT IS NEARLY ALLWAYS BETTER TO POST A QUESTION IN AN EXISTING THREAD THAN TO START A NEW ONE!

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting

MrHomeScientist - 10-12-2014 at 09:23

A better strategy is to look around for an experiment that interests you, then buy the appropriate chemicals and equipment. Following this method, I have slowly built up my lab to the point where now, if I see a new experiment to try, I most likely already have everything I need.

Also being new here I wanted to point out that proper notation for chemical formulas is very important. What is C2HcO? There is no element Hc! Is COCl2 "carbonyl dichloride", or perhaps you meant cobalt chloride, CoCl<sub>2</sub>? We might be able to figure out what you mean, but it's a lot easier for everybody if you pay attention to capitalization!

One fun activity I see you could try is the 'copper cycle':
1) Dissolve Cu metal in nitric acid to form copper nitrate.
2) Add sodium hydroxide to this solution to precipitate copper(II) hydroxide.
3) Heat the test tube containing the copper hydroxide to decompose it into copper(II) oxide.
4) Add sulfuric acid to dissolve the oxide into copper(II) sulfate.
5) Add Mg metal to precipitate copper metal, coming back to where you started!

I leave the equation balancing and stoichiometry to you as an important exercise. This would be a good candidate for a YouTube video, actually.

scrubs2009 - 10-12-2014 at 10:29

Funny thing is that Nitric acid and Copper is what led me here in the first place. I think it was sunday night when I put a chunk of copper into some concentrated nitric acid. I had accidentally done this before and had took the copper out as soon as I could grab tongs. This time I wanted to see it through. After I put it in my dog started barking at the mailman. About a minute later when I got back there was a huge orange cloud over my desk. I didn't know off the top of my head that nitrogen dioxide was produced by copper and nitric acid. Unfortunately by then I had had a face full of it. After clearing out my room I made ammonia by mixing Ammonium sulphate and NaOH in a bowl and took a deep breath to neutralize the nitrogen dioxide. Ammonia is bad but nitrogen dioxide is worse. Then I came here for the first time looking for symptoms of nitrogen dioxide poisoning. So thats how I found this place! :)

Zyklon-A - 10-12-2014 at 10:40

Ah the lovely sight and smell of NO2 hovering over your desk! I remember those days...
You could make copper carbonate from copper sulfate and sodium carbonate.

Then with copper carb. you can make any salt of copper by neutralizing it with the acid anion of the desired salt. Hydroxide works fine for this too.

MrHomeScientist - 10-12-2014 at 10:56

I don't think I'd recommend a "deep breath" of one poison in response to another one. Fresh air is always what the MSDS instructs.
Before doing anything in the lab, you need to research your reaction and its potential products. The steps I follow are: (1) Research the planned reaction, (2) write out and balance the chemical equation, (3) think about and plan for the worst case scenario, and (4) don all appropriate PPE (safety gear). Most any reaction that produces any kind of gas, I perform outside. Chemistry can be very fun and quite safe, if you respect your chemicals and their hazards!

scrubs2009 - 10-12-2014 at 11:27

Of course I normally wouldn't inhale ammonia but it neutralizes nitrogen oxides and seeing that nitrogen dioxide is much worse for you than aamoniaI chose the lesser of 2 evils. Kindof like pouring boiling water on someone who is on fire lol

woelen - 10-12-2014 at 12:43

COCl2??? I hope you don't have that in your house if you value your life :o

I assume that it is CoCl2 instead of COCl2.

With CoCl2 you can do a nice experiment:
Dissolve some CoCl2 in 3 mol/l HCl. This will give a pink solution. Next, heat the liquid. It will turn deep blue. Allow it to cool down again. It will turn pink again. You can repeat the heating/cooling cycle as many times as you want. The hot liquid is deep blue, the cold liquid is pink.

If the solution in your HCl already is blue (or purplish) at room temperature, then add a drop of water and swirl. Keep adding drops of water until the liquid is pink. Then perform the experiment as described above. But I expect the complication of adding water drops not to be necessary if your acid really is 3 M HCl.

What happens is that in the cold you have [Co(H2O)6](2+) ions, which are pink. In the hot solution, H2O-ligands are replaced by chloride ligands and the more water molecules are replaced by chloride, the more there is a shift from pink to blue. When fully replaced, you get the ion CoCl4(2-), which is deep blue. Intermediate complex ions, such as [CoCl(H2O)4](+) are somewhere between pink and blue.

DraconicAcid - 10-12-2014 at 13:12

Quote: Originally posted by woelen  

What happens is that in the cold you have [Co(H2O)6](2+) ions, which are pink. In the hot solution, H2O-ligands are replaced by chloride ligands and the more water molecules are replaced by chloride, the more there is a shift from pink to blue. When fully replaced, you get the ion CoCl4(2-), which is deep blue. Intermediate complex ions, such as [CoCl(H2O)4](+) are somewhere between pink and blue.


I think the blue that you see is actually [Co(H2O)2Cl2]; apparently, it can be extracted into solvents such as butanol. It takes a much higher concentration of chloride to replace all of the aquo ligands with chloride. I don't know if you can make a five-coordinate complex ion with this system, but the tetrahedral ones tend to be blue, and the octahedral ones are pink.

scrubs2009 - 10-12-2014 at 13:48

Quote: Originally posted by woelen  
COCl2??? I hope you don't have that in your house if you value your life :o

I assume that it is CoCl2 instead of COCl2.

With CoCl2 you can do a nice experiment:
Dissolve some CoCl2 in 3 mol/l HCl. This will give a pink solution. Next, heat the liquid. It will turn deep blue. Allow it to cool down again. It will turn pink again. You can repeat the heating/cooling cycle as many times as you want. The hot liquid is deep blue, the cold liquid is pink.

If the solution in your HCl already is blue (or purplish) at room temperature, then add a drop of water and swirl. Keep adding drops of water until the liquid is pink. Then perform the experiment as described above. But I expect the complication of adding water drops not to be necessary if your acid really is 3 M HCl.

What happens is that in the cold you have [Co(H2O)6](2+) ions, which are pink. In the hot solution, H2O-ligands are replaced by chloride ligands and the more water molecules are replaced by chloride, the more there is a shift from pink to blue. When fully replaced, you get the ion CoCl4(2-), which is deep blue. Intermediate complex ions, such as [CoCl(H2O)4](+) are somewhere between pink and blue.



Of course I have COCl2 in my house!...did I forget to mention that I am John Davy? Lol Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try that out now :)

diddi - 10-12-2014 at 15:09

ligand chem is great for colours. get your hands on a few more of the 3d transition metals from scrap here and there. vanadium has heaps of colour due to variable oxidation states as well as ligands, as does chromium.
another way of building up you range of reagents cheaply is to use electrolysis.
also there are lots of OTC reagents like vinegar that provides a great acetate ligand. or oxalic acid from the paint store for oxalate ligands.

DraconicAcid - 10-12-2014 at 15:23

You have ammonium chloride and sodium hydroxide- you can make ammonia solutions, and make ammonia complexes of copper and of cobalt. You could even make the deep green tricarbonatocobalt(III) complex.

[Edited on 10-12-2014 by DraconicAcid]

Endo - 10-12-2014 at 15:29

Quote: Originally posted by MrHomeScientist  


One fun activity I see you could try is the 'copper cycle':
1) Dissolve Cu metal in nitric acid to form copper nitrate.
2) Add sodium hydroxide to this solution to precipitate copper(II) hydroxide.
3) Heat the test tube containing the copper hydroxide to decompose it into copper(II) oxide.
4) Add sulfuric acid to dissolve the oxide into copper(II) sulfate.
5) Add Mg metal to precipitate copper metal, coming back to where you started!

I leave the equation balancing and stoichiometry to you as an important exercise. This would be a good candidate for a YouTube video, actually.


A suggestion, after precipitating the copper as Cu(OH)<sub>2</sub> in step 2 decant and rinse the newly formed copper hydroxide to remove any remaining nitrate ions, You can lose some of the copper back into solution when heating to change to black copper oxide if nitrate is still present.