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the mad chemist
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main chemicals for home lab setup
hi everyone,
just wondering any possible way to have some main chemicals(specially house hold ones) that help me make a lot of other complex chemicals and if you
have any experience with these things please share it here or send me link to it
wish the best
the mad chemist
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woelen
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Reading this page may be helpful if you are starting and want to set up a home lab:
http://woelen.homescience.net/science/chem/misc/homelab.html
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j_sum1
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No time for a full reply right now.
Your answer: it depends on what you are wanting to do.
I suggest you search. This Q gets asked regularly. It won't take too long before you find a list or a link to a list.
My suggestion: build stock and equipment project by project.
(edit)
I was going to recommend woelen's link.
[Edited on 22-9-2015 by j_sum1]
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the mad chemist
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good website but i mean if any one know the main key chemicals for making a lot of other chemicals
cheers
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the mad chemist
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more interested in making chemical for low prices and extraction of organic and inorganic compounds
also wow i got replys fairly fast thanks
[Edited on 22-9-2015 by the mad chemist]
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100PercentChemistry
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Basic supplies
When is started off I just scavenged the food, drug, and hardware stores. You'll need baking soda, and vinegar for spills and reactions. You will also
need lye(drain cleaner) and sulfuric acid (drain cleaner). These two may not be pure, but will still work ok. Please go to
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commonly_available_c...
I started by picking an experiment, and then buying the chemicals at the store, or online. After awhile I had a large selection of them.
For supplies I started out with a funnel, a glass rod, filter paper, some flasks and beakers, a graduated cylinder, and an alcohol burner.
Finally, for saftey get some good goggles, a face shield, a respirator(hardware store, a fire extinguisher, some latex gloves, and some chemical
resistant gloves. Search up glove compatability chart.
Most chemicals a hard to find at a store, so buy them from Amazon, eBay, home science tools etc.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xjbwk9f9mcY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0k7-drcTl4M
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zhDypc8SCoE
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the mad chemist
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thanks just needed that i wish i could have the setup easy
regards the mad chemist
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ave369
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In case if sulfuric acid drain opener is not available where you live (in my country, conc. sulfuric is a FSKN List IV chemical, which makes it
illegal as an OTC consumer product), you should learn to "Boil the Bat". That is, boil down battery acid to concentrate it. This is what will become
your new Pater Noster.
Smells like ammonia....
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Upsilon
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FYI you don't need to buy straight-up lye (NaOH), you can make it out of regular table salt via electrolysis.
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ave369
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Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon  | | FYI you don't need to buy straight-up lye (NaOH), you can make it out of regular table salt via electrolysis. |
Even that is not required. Regular drain openers (as opposed to those with sulfuric acid) are usually NaOH based. Especially convenient are dry and
granulated ones, in which NaOH is in granules and everything else is a fine powder. Any old kitchen sieve can be used to separate NaOH from everything
else. Sometimes you can find "Pure Lye Bead" openers, with these you do not even need the sieve.
KOH on the other hand... This you have to either buy, electrolyze from potassium fertilizers or sodium-free salt, or leach from old alkaline cells and
then concentrate by boiling down.
[Edited on 23-9-2015 by ave369]
Smells like ammonia....
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woelen
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| Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon | | FYI you don't need to buy straight-up lye (NaOH), you can make it out of regular table salt via electrolysis. |
Please, try it and report back on your results!
if you do some practical chemistry then you soon will discover that making (and isolating!!) basic chemicals can be very hard.
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Upsilon
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| Quote: Originally posted by woelen | | Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon | | FYI you don't need to buy straight-up lye (NaOH), you can make it out of regular table salt via electrolysis. |
Please, try it and report back on your results!
if you do some practical chemistry then you soon will discover that making (and isolating!!) basic chemicals can be very hard. |
If you separate the setup into half cells connected by a salt bridge then it's really not that bad. As long as you can run the cathode cell to
completion, there shouldn't be too much NaCl contamination left over. And there are ways to deal with any NaCl contamination if you need even higher
purity.
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macckone
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Electrolysis for even a lab scale quantity is not easy.
Various forms of salt bridge are possible but you get contamination.
From my experience you can get a couple of percent out of an agar
bridge. And you have some agar in your solution as well as salt.
Membranes make it easy but they are very expensive. They give
a really high purity product. The cost of up to US$300 per sq ft
is a major drawback. You can purify a lot of drain cleaner for that price.
A mercury cell is not that easy either as the mercury amalgam will
solidify if it gets too high in sodium. And mercury is toxic.
A diaphram cell is much easier than the others and purifying your
sodium hydroxide then becomes the problem.
Having said all of that, purifying drain cleaner is not the worst way
to go if you have more time than money.
The other big chemical is sulfuric acid. If you master electrolysis,
then epsom salt is your friend. A diaphram cell or membrane cell
is necessary here. Epsom salt can also be decomposed to sulfur
trioxide and dioxide gas at extreme temperature (1100+C).
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woelen
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| Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon | | Quote: Originally posted by woelen | | Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon | | FYI you don't need to buy straight-up lye (NaOH), you can make it out of regular table salt via electrolysis. |
Please, try it and report back on your results!
if you do some practical chemistry then you soon will discover that making (and isolating!!) basic chemicals can be very hard. |
If you separate the setup into half cells connected by a salt bridge then it's really not that bad. As long as you can run the cathode cell to
completion, there shouldn't be too much NaCl contamination left over. And there are ways to deal with any NaCl contamination if you need even higher
purity. |
On paper many syntheses look simple and of course, there always are ways to purify things. But in practice this is HARD, very HARD! Try it, then you
will see yourself. You can buy pure (99% NaOH) for a few euros (or dollars) per pound, and there is no substitute for that. I am doing home chemistry
for 20 years or so by now and from experience I know that making, isolating and purifying new chemicals in many cases is very hard and requires a lot
of work, decent equipment and a lot of patience. Many chemicals which are made from naturally occuring simple stuff like NaCl, CaCO3, N2 from air,
water, etc. by the multitonne on an industrial scale are amazingly hard to make at home (e.g. NaOH, H2SO4, conc. HCl, HNO3). The basic reactions are
very simple, but from an engineering perspective it is extemely hard.
NaOH and H2SO4 really are basic chemicals you need to buy. With these as starting point, you can make many other interesting chemicals relatively
easily, using easy to obtain chemicals (e.g. HCl from NaCl, NH3 from NH4Cl or (NH4)2SO4, HNO3 from KNO3 or NaNO3). Many of these chemicals, however,
also can be purchased easily in many countries (HNO3 becomes harder to obtain nowadays due to anti-terrorism regulations).
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Upsilon
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I actually am in the middle of an NaCl electrolysis right now. It's taking an extremely long time (about 2L of highly concentrated NaCl solution,
using a 24V 0.5A DC adapter). I've separated the half cells and connected them with a salt bridge, and I'm using graphite electrodes I extracted from
regular pencils. It's going to take several days of collective runtime to go all the way, so it'll be a while before I can share any results.
HNO3 is easier to create than NaOH, though. If you're able to work with a slightly contaminated sample, you can react a solution of calcium nitrate
with sulfuric acid (both pretty cheap). Then just filter the calcium sulfate precipitate. A small amount of it will dissolve and contaminate the HNO3
(it's not much, it will be about 2.4 grams of calcium sulfate contamination per liter of acid); to prevent this barium nitrate can be used in place of
calcium nitrate. Barium nitrate is a little expensive, though.
EDIT: It might be possible to use oxalic acid (still cheap) instead of sulfuric acid, since calcium oxalate is much less soluble than calcium sulfate.
I have suspicions though that nitric acid would attack the calcium oxalate. This would be something to experiment with.
[Edited on 24-9-2015 by Upsilon]
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ave369
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| Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon |
HNO3 is easier to create than NaOH, though. If you're able to work with a slightly contaminated sample, you can react a solution of calcium nitrate
with sulfuric acid (both pretty cheap). Then just filter the calcium sulfate precipitate. A small amount of it will dissolve and contaminate the HNO3
(it's not much, it will be about 2.4 grams of calcium sulfate contamination per liter of acid); to prevent this barium nitrate can be used in place of
calcium nitrate. Barium nitrate is a little expensive, though.
[Edited on 24-9-2015 by Upsilon] |
Do you have a Buchner set for that? The precipitate of CaSO4 is huge and messy, and it's a pain in the ass to filter it through paper.
Smells like ammonia....
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Upsilon
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| Quote: Originally posted by ave369 | | Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon |
HNO3 is easier to create than NaOH, though. If you're able to work with a slightly contaminated sample, you can react a solution of calcium nitrate
with sulfuric acid (both pretty cheap). Then just filter the calcium sulfate precipitate. A small amount of it will dissolve and contaminate the HNO3
(it's not much, it will be about 2.4 grams of calcium sulfate contamination per liter of acid); to prevent this barium nitrate can be used in place of
calcium nitrate. Barium nitrate is a little expensive, though.
[Edited on 24-9-2015 by Upsilon] |
Do you have a Buchner set for that? The precipitate of CaSO4 is huge and messy, and it's a pain in the ass to filter it through paper.
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It's doable with just a Buchner funnel and some filter paper. You'll just need some object to squeeze the liquid from the calcium sulfate while it's
in the funnel. Sure, you'll get more out of it with vacuum distillation, but it gets pretty expensive for a working setup.
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gdflp
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| Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon |
It's doable with just a Buchner funnel and some filter paper. You'll just need some object to squeeze the liquid from the calcium sulfate while it's
in the funnel. Sure, you'll get more out of it with vacuum distillation, but it gets pretty expensive for a working setup. |
No it's not possible at all, have you ever actually tried that before? There's no way you'll be able to filter a mixture that acidic with filter
paper, it will tear in under a second. You will need at the very minimum a glass frit with the correct pore size so as not to get clogged. And
removing calcium sulfate from a frit will be a pain in the ass, not to mention that decently sized frits aren't cheap. There's a reason that
distillation is the common way to go when making nitric acid, and a distillation setup is not that expensive. If you buy Chinese glass, you can
typically get one for under $40, and it can be used for a lot more than preparing nitric acid.
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ave369
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It's possible if the acid is dilute enough. Say, battery acid diluted with equal amount of water, with calcium nitrate in stoichiometric amount. Did
this, didn't eat through any paper, but getting rid of calcium sulfate is hell. I'd better distill some nitric acid from sulfuric & saltpeter in a
retort. Did this yesterday, prepared 90+% nitric acid.
Smells like ammonia....
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gdflp
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| Quote: Originally posted by ave369 | | It's possible if the acid is dilute enough. Say, battery acid diluted with equal amount of water, with calcium nitrate in stoichiometric amount. Did
this, didn't eat through any paper, but getting rid of calcium sulfate is hell. I'd better distill some nitric acid from sulfuric & saltpeter in a
retort. Did this yesterday, prepared 90+% nitric acid. |
I was talking about making acid of a reasonable
concentration, but I could see it being possible to filter a dilute solution. But as you saw for yourself, distillation is the easier method, and the
only method if you want acid of a decent conc. in a good yield.
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Upsilon
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I do have a rough distillation setup (it uses rubber stoppers instead of glass joints, but I have all of the glassware needed). In theory, I could
make a 68% solution by adding correct amounts of sulfuric acid, calcium nitrate, and water, which would then boil at exactly 121C? Sounds fairly
simple.
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gdflp
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| Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon | | I do have a rough distillation setup (it uses rubber stoppers instead of glass joints, but I have all of the glassware needed). In theory, I could
make a 68% solution by adding correct amounts of sulfuric acid, calcium nitrate, and water, which would then boil at exactly 121C? Sounds fairly
simple. |
Yes, but you can't distill conc. nitric acid in an apparatus where the vapors will come into contact
with rubber. The hot vapors will destroy rubber quite rapidly.
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Upsilon
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| Quote: Originally posted by gdflp | | Quote: Originally posted by Upsilon | | I do have a rough distillation setup (it uses rubber stoppers instead of glass joints, but I have all of the glassware needed). In theory, I could
make a 68% solution by adding correct amounts of sulfuric acid, calcium nitrate, and water, which would then boil at exactly 121C? Sounds fairly
simple. |
Yes, but you can't distill conc. nitric acid in an apparatus where the vapors will come into contact
with rubber. The hot vapors will destroy rubber quite rapidly. |
Would it be feasible, then, to wrap the rubber stoppers in Teflon tape? The vapors are traveling through glass tubes, so I would only need to worry
about covering the exposed surfaces of the rubber. It'll make the stoppers slippery as hell in the flask opening, but it'll save me from buying extra
glassware.
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gdflp
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I doubt that would work. In my experience, the nitric vapors have gotten through a ground glass joint greased with conc. sulfuric acid and destroyed
my Keck clips every time. Attempting this with rubber fittings, even coated in Teflon tape, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
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macckone
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It is possible with the rubber stoppers wrapped in teflon tape.
But you need a special heat gun with an inert gas supply (plastic welder)
to make the tape actually fuse to itself and the rubber stoppers.
But don't plan on using the rubber stoppers more than
a couple of times.
You can do this in a crude manner with a hair dryer in an
aquarium filled with carbon dioxide.
You might be able to achieve the same thing in a toaster oven
with baking soda which would act as a carbon dioxide source.
I haven't tried either of these methods. A plastic welder
with inert gas isn't cheap though.
It is really easier to buy a glass vacuum
distillation set and a water aspirator vacuum pump.
You can get one of these for under $200, which isn't
cheap but is a lot better than breathing nitric.
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