Jackpot from abandoned institute of inorganic chemistry

Scored some good stuff from abandoned place, had some day job business there, decided to take a look around and found some useful stuff.

Most of it is cleared out, but still. ( sadly went past empty storage room of hydrates).

No pictures of the place itself, because it was mostly empty and was not that interesting.


Sorting it all out right now, I'll update what did I got!

That looks like a nice find.

Best of luck with everything there.

This is what I got, lazy excel, sorry for that! Quantity is approximate and given in grams.


There is a mistake:
C4H2N2O4 · H2O Alloxan monohydrate 100g



As a Bonuss - I give you 2 mystery substances:

A and B (both might be related in some way)

A is a grey powder, not really soluble in water.
B is dark brown powder even less soluble in water.



A substance dissolves in HCl forming yellow solution.
B substance is not dissolving well in HCl.



A substance dissolves in H2SO4 and forms pinkish solution.
B substance dissolves in H2SO4 and gives brownish solution.


A substance colors flame greenish, confirms suspicion of boron being present.
B substance decomposes in flame giving black foam, might be organic compound. colors flame yellow, not really a hint. might be carbon.


What should I do next?




[Edited on 10-7-2018 by TheMrbunGee]

[Edited on 10-7-2018 by TheMrbunGee]

Quote: Originally posted by RogueRose

Looks like someone may have made custom fireworks??

Quote: Originally posted by Tdep

350g of rubidium salts? Not that useful honestly, but that's a small fortune!

And the Cs !
But I wouldnt know what to do with 1400g of Mercury salts except be scared!

I'm still jealous though

Quote: Originally posted by CobaltChloride

Wow... A kilo and a half of mercury salt... Weren't you even a bit scared to take that thing home? ...........

Excitement was overwhelming. haven't opened any of Hg containers yet.

__________________________________________________
I have a strong feeling that both of them are related to boron. (because of location where I got them)

B barely decomposes H2O2 (10%)
,


It does, when I added NaOH solution, but not as intensive as it should.



Today I looked at B in daylight and it is more like dark brown-yellow. maybe a hint of green.



B powder dropped in warm concentrated NaOH solution clumps it op and makes it almost black,


After stirring it partially dissolves, (same solution more exposed on the right)



In 28% HCl after warming, it dissolves and forms solution in the color of baby vomit (left pic.)
Something sinks down, but its much lighter in color.
I don't have distilled water, but after I added tap water to the HCl solution yellow color was gone, and some white-ish particles formed and sank to the bottom, next to the particles that did not dissolve in the first place(right).


Wouldn't carbonate release CO2 in acid?

And I don't think any of them are chromates.



[Edited on 11-7-2018 by TheMrbunGee]

Quote: Originally posted by CobaltChloride

I don't think either of them contains boron because they should be inorganic considering they are from an inorganic chemistry institution, and the only inorganic compounds of boron which are stable in water and acid solution are the borates, but those would be colorless. [Edited on 11-7-2018 by CobaltChloride]

They might not, true. but the place had plenty of organic stuff, so it might be organic.

_______________________________________
A substance slowly decompose H2O2,


After I heated the mixture, decomposition was fast and self sustaining.


And I'm left with yellowish solid after H2O2 was spent.



Also I found that substance A reacts with methanol, forming greenish solution (it does not dissolve completely, but colors both - methanol and solid dirty green color) which after an hour have turned more brown.


After shaking up.


Nothing interesting happens with both substances in:
Ethanol
Methanol (for substance B)
DCM


__________________________________________
Edit:

More on MeOH and substance A:

On combining of two, solution and solid turns green


On heating turns brown in about 30 secounds


Solution burns with green flame


[Edited on 11-7-2018 by TheMrbunGee]

Quote: Originally posted by Hunterman2244

WishI had stuff like that around me. The substance a seems like something copper containing, maybe some complex. Was thinking organic, but its an inorganic chem institute.

Quote: Originally posted by CobaltChloride

That flame definitely looks like something containing either boron or copper (as hunterman said). I would be more inclined to think it is copper as all the organics you had there were common chemicals (nothing exotic), but boranes and borate esters are somewhat more exotic. The results of the test you did are very weird. Both substances behave as a mix of different compounds, especially regarding color. [Edited on 11-7-2018 by CobaltChloride]

Quote: Originally posted by phlogiston

Note that thallium imparts a similarly green color to flames. I don't know enough about Tl chemistry to tell if your other tests are compatible with it being a compound of Tl, but you might want to be careful about handling it until you know its identity.

You actually got me scared for a minute.
___________________________________________________
Ok, did some tests.

First I combined both substances with ammonia solution.

A gained a slight blue hint. (B left; A right)



B actually dissolved. Left Pine green solution. (shining light trough B solution)



Next I decomposed both substances by heating (yes, both of them decomposes:
A leaves black clumps, releases quite a lot of water and some tar. ;

B foams up, releases some water and leaves black to dark brown solid foam . )

Products of decomposition Were added to HCl 28%:

A - turned copper sulfate blue


B - nothing.


Added some H2O2 (10%) :

A turned copper chloride green


B turned yellow,

After mixing,

After heating some hint of green was observed.


A is copper for sure.

B - Not sure yet. But maybe.

Both organic.

[Edited on 11-7-2018 by TheMrbunGee]

Quote: Originally posted by Metallus

Substance A has the appearance of copper Iodide, CuI. It's a water insoluble beige/gray solid where Cu has +1 oxidation state and can give rise to intermediate complexes with different colorations (among which even the yellow you see with HCl). The pink in H2SO4 actually reminded me of cobalt, but that green flame is a giveaway of copper. In many of those reactions something turns Brown. That could be iodine forming. Did you smell any iodine? Usually the smell is very distinct. On heating, do you get purple vapors? Substance B is a bit unusual if it's only inorganic. It Looks like manganese oxide but the reaction products you get afterwards look more like some iron II/III mix, while that teal green coloration you get with ammonia looks like nickel II. If you want to carry out additional tests, I'd separate any solid from that solution and attempt some redox reaction of whatever is leftover. Also try and see if Aqua regia destroys the black lumps.

Good find. In Germany I suppose?

Went on the hunt here too 2 or 3 years ago. But was not very lucky.
Indeed I was very unlucky.

Here I came appr. 1 year too late:





In another similar one I came just a few months too late and got only a handful of nice empty Merck bottles and an empty 5l benzene flask (former GDR).




Former Eastern Germany has still some "treasures", there was so much chemical industry in the former GDR, which only got abandoned at some point after 1990.

Same here, I searched these abandoned labs, factories etc. on youtube etc. and tried to locate them on google maps through different hints.

In one case they just started to tear off or rebuild the place only a few months before I came there. The pictures with the full chemicals cabinets I found on the internet were taken only a few months before.
In another case at the outskirts of Berlin I met some people who still used the buildings (illegaly?) there. It was a former tire factory. They told me authorieties came one year earlier and brought out the chemicals from the storage rooms with wheelbarrows. Nobody cared about these storage rooms before, since most people don't know what to do with loads of different chemicals. The only thing left was an empty black plastic canister hand labeled with "KOH solution"
The former tire factory also suffered from a few cases of arson is now gone.