Luciangamer - 9-10-2007 at 19:55
I discovered this forum a couple weeks ago and it seemed like a cool place where I can spend some time.
Well I'm new here so thought I should introduce myself, I'm a freshman in college majoring in biochemistry. Basically I'm hoping to get into some
amateur chemistry experimentation once school is out, so I hope you guys can give me a little guidance and some pointers for any ideas I have 
UnintentionalChaos - 9-10-2007 at 20:08
If you're not in college near where you live, check out the local stores for materials that you may not find near home. Example: I am in New Jersey
right now. My potassium permanganate is from deleware (not available as far as i know in this state), my ammonium nitrate from a CVS in pennsylvania
(other than buying it as a fertilizer in huge sacks which I have no use for). I found n-heptane much cheaper than near home in an art supply store in
town by my school, etc. See if there are any clubs at your school involving chemistry to keep you interested in the meantime.
Luciangamer - 25-10-2007 at 20:04
I go to college in the same state that I live (New York). I found in one section of the forums a list of where to obtain an assload of chemicals from
their normal uses and think I should get by on that for a while
UnintentionalChaos - 25-10-2007 at 20:23
Its often not as easy as it sounds to get decent quality chemicals from those sources (if you can find some of them at all). They often require
extensive purification if you intend to use them for more than "look at the pretty colors and then dump the reaction mix" inorganic reactions.
Example: sure, you can buy sulfur at the garden store, but it is 90% pure. A water washing and two filterings and recrystallizations from boiling
xylene later, I have material that I would consider good for most basic experiments. I would look into subliming the sulfur or other purification
methods if it was needed for a touchy organic reaction.
In the meantime, you could try making soap or something else that is chemistry at the core but relatively non-hazardous. I went through natural dyes
(which have some great chemistry behind them), soap, and crystal growing before I finally got to some real flask and beaker chemistry.
Welcome to the forum, by the way.
-UC
[Edited on 10-25-07 by UnintentionalChaos]
woelen - 25-10-2007 at 23:02
I also want to welcome you. It is always good to have new members, who are willing to learn things and who are eager to get some hands-on experience.
As UnintentionalChaos said, obtaining decent quality chemicals is not easy. The stuff from hardware stores, kitchen cleaners, gardening houses, etc.
usually are very impure, full of surfactants, perfumes, detergents and whatever more. Some people on this forum make a sport of purifying such
chemicals and indeed get nice results. I prefer "real" chemicals, not cleaner XYZ, which has a named chemical as one of its ingredients, but
something, which is named as the chemical and usually is better than 95% pure.
A very good source for a starter are the ceramics/pottery suppliers and raw chemicals from photography suppliers. The chemicals from such suppliers
are not reagent grade, but they definitely are useful for home science purposes, sometimes after simple purification (e.g. a single recrystallization
step from distilled water).
A good source in New York is this: www.artcraftchemicals.com
Also keep in mind, that chemicals are not cheap. As a starter, buy small quantities (e.g. 50 to 100 gram per chemical) and do your experiments on a
small scale (test tubes, not marmelade jars).
I wrote a few pages for a beginning home chemist. It might be of help to you:
http://woelen.scheikunde.net/science/chem/misc/homelab.html
http://woelen.scheikunde.net/science/chem/exps/equipment.htm...