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Author: Subject: Supposed chemists assume a home still and sulfuric acid is a meth lab
cabal
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[*] posted on 3-7-2017 at 23:43


Quote: Originally posted by Melgar  
That's the thing, he DID ask his roommate what he was doing, and the roommate said it was for school. OP then immediately became suspicious, because that didn't seem like it could be right. Once it's clear the roommate is lying, he went to reddit for help about what to do next.

Again, where do you get that from? I read the whole thread, I didn't see OP stating that he asked his roommate or that the roommate said it was for school. OP actually stated the opposite as far as I can tell.
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[*] posted on 4-7-2017 at 01:01


I look at it this way: While the roommate probably shouldn't have lied, no one wants to be stuck in a situation where he has to explain to his roommate that he may not, under any circumstances, try taking some ether.



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Melgar
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[*] posted on 5-7-2017 at 21:17


Quote: Originally posted by cabal  

Again, where do you get that from? I read the whole thread, I didn't see OP stating that he asked his roommate or that the roommate said it was for school. OP actually stated the opposite as far as I can tell.

Crap, I just realized I read the thread out of order, since it's reddit and replies aren't chronological by default, and sort of made up details to fill in the gaps so that the responses made sense in the order that I read them. I think that's the only detail I did that with and left it that way in my head though. Sorry if I just went and confused everyone even more with this post than my last one.

In reality, someone from the campus was asking about stolen chemicals that could be used for cookery, and OP gets worried because his roommate has some sort of setup on his desk that (like virtually any chemical, including distilled water) could theoretically have been used for that, but probably wasn't. Most responses were something to the effect of "whatever he's doing definitely isn't school-related, but it's probably not cookery either". OP asked if it was likely to be school-related, hence all the responses saying it's not. And really, it's obviously not school-related. A bunch of responses by people who claimed they do similar things at home, and not to be overly worried. OP goes and tells campus police anyway, inconveniences the entire street and himself for the day, when he learns what happens when you go to the authorities with these things. Fortunately, nobody gets in any trouble.

[Edited on 7/6/17 by Melgar]




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MrHomeScientist
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[*] posted on 7-7-2017 at 05:46


macckone, do you have a reference for your fire code information? Is that a federal thing or does it vary by state? I'd be interested to read more about it.
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macckone
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[*] posted on 23-7-2017 at 11:04


MrHomeScientist,
Fire code varies by jurisdiction including state, city and county.
Most base it off of the NFPA guidance but there is variation as
there are different years and code is usually tied to a specific year.
In addition many jurisdictions add stuff to the NFPA guidance.

So going by the NFPA specs may or may not be sufficient.
You have to check which version your locality uses and if
you have 'home rule' which means your city overrides the
county and state laws or not which means the state code prevails
over county which prevails over city.

I am not a lawyer and if you think you might be in violation
I would strongly suggest retaining one. You can beat the
charge but not the ride. Even if it is just a 250ml glass bottle
of finger nail polish remover in a multifamily dwelling.
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[*] posted on 23-7-2017 at 21:53


In /r/chemistry's defense, 1: He stole the glassware from the university, and 2: Why the hell would he be doing anything at home, when the lucky duck has access to a goddamn university chemistry lab?

I dislike how /r/chemistry looks down on home chemistry, but these are some other reasons they are suspicious, not 100% the fact that it's at home

[Edited on 24-7-2017 by Cou]




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[*] posted on 24-7-2017 at 07:46


Quote: Originally posted by Cou  
Why the hell would he be doing anything at home, when the lucky duck has access to a goddamn university chemistry lab?
That's an easy one. I work in a research lab, but I still like doing stuff at home because it's not like the university labs are playgrounds. You don't get to do whatever you want; you have to do whatever the professor in charge wants you to, at least up until you get to graduate school and propose your own thesis.



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[*] posted on 24-7-2017 at 15:51


Quote: Originally posted by zts16  
Quote: Originally posted by Cou  
Why the hell would he be doing anything at home, when the lucky duck has access to a goddamn university chemistry lab?
That's an easy one. I work in a research lab, but I still like doing stuff at home because it's not like the university labs are playgrounds. You don't get to do whatever you want; you have to do whatever the professor in charge wants you to, at least up until you get to graduate school and propose your own thesis.


^ That right there, I worked in a good deal of jobs where I got to handle stuff most the guys in the energetic forums would wet their pants for, but on the job it is paint by numbers and work forms in triplicate, and you can't sneeze with out filing an incident report.

Kills the joy of it, Hence why I have my home lab where I can enjoy such endeavors with out the OHS mandatory environmental suite and 5k reports for every movement I make!

At work or school you're on their terms and rules, very few are lucky to be employed by some one that allowes them to have fun at work. So at home will all ways be best IMO
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[*] posted on 24-7-2017 at 17:25


I hear stories of liters of anhydrous hydrazine, phosgene, osmium, and explosive nitrostyrenes. Doing a dissertation in chemistry does sound like fun.



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[*] posted on 29-7-2017 at 08:07


I really don't understand why home (or armature) chemistry should be looked on with such suspicion. I get there are some that don't help the issue by producing illegal products, but really it is not the only thing to produce. I mainly work in food chemistry, and if you were to observe some of the chemistry I was doing without any knowledge of basic chemistry I could be accused of illegal actions. Admittedly I could easily be doing something wrong, but really I don't feel the need to. I have a range of chemicals that could be considered precursors, but are also basic reagents for reactions that used in standard chemical synthesis. Stupidity and over reaction has to be more damaging than a vile of the strongest acid that could exist. Oh and before the flame mail comes in, you are in titled to you opinion as I am. But if you are going to flame you should understand the science of chemistry otherwise you are just commenting on a subject you don't know and should keep your mouth shut.
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[*] posted on 29-7-2017 at 08:52


Quote: Originally posted by Cou  

I dislike how /r/chemistry looks down on home chemistry, but these are some other reasons they are suspicious, not 100% the fact that it's at home
[Edited on 24-7-2017 by Cou]


It is 500% because it's done at home. Anything and everything that's done by a chemist without a PhD (I'm quoting from several users on the r/chemistry Discord chat) is 'insane' and the person should be immediately arrested. Their reasoning behind this is that they've seen stupid people in the lab - no shit? Turns out not everyone with a chemistry degree is interested enough in chemistry to take it seriously.

They're little more than circlejerkers who get off on looking down at people who aren't 'real' chemists. There was even a proposed motion to add groups by educational major to the chat, and the first and most-discussed question people asked were whether to exclude the 'fake' sciences such as biology, any form of engineering, etc. That was about when I left the chat, as I couldn't stand the sheer entitlement anymore.




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Melgar
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[*] posted on 3-8-2017 at 12:07


Quote: Originally posted by Cou  
In /r/chemistry's defense, 1: He stole the glassware from the university

Labs throw out cracked and unused glassware all the time, and it's generally considered okay for anyone who works there to take any of that stuff they might want. I worked in a lab that wasn't a chemistry lab, and was able to take home an old Hewlett-Packard DC power supply that just had a frayed cord, some radio transmission equipment, a professional audio equalizer, a device that allowed you to convert telephone-line audio to the type of audio signal used in professional audio equipment, several Phantom Omni haptic devices that had various minor problems, and more that I can't remember. It all would have been thrown away if I hadn't taken it.




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[*] posted on 3-8-2017 at 12:30


I have explicit permission from my employer to salvage what I like from stuff destined for the skip (dumpster)
much to the dislike of my wife ;)

If you do not have permission then it is likely to be considered as theft.




CAUTION : Hobby Chemist, not Professional or even Amateur
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[*] posted on 4-8-2017 at 05:13


I salvage stuff from the broken glassware bin at work all the time (with permission). Normally I just get bits that look like they'd be usable for making custom pieces if I get into glassblowing (complete joints and stopcocks that could be fused onto new pieces) but once I was lucky enough to score an unbroken 500 mL sep funnel that just had a broken stopper frozen in it. Popped right out after hitting it with my propane torch!



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[*] posted on 4-8-2017 at 10:59


I have a box I use to hold my broken glassware collection. I'd throw it away but then the local dumpster divers would be peeking through every window in my neighborhood trying to find a meth lab.



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[*] posted on 20-11-2017 at 00:52


holy shit this part of the conversation... circle jerk is right!!!! i would say go read the original link but you'll probably puke and become stupider afterwords!!!!!!!



- I do know that one of the steps of various homemade meth approaches is to mix sodium chloride and sulfuric acid and then bubble the resulting hydrochloric acid gas through an organic phase of freebase meth to crash it out as the hydrochloride salt.

-Why in the world would you make HCl that way when you could just buy muriatic acid (35% HCl) cheaper than the sulfuric acid based drain cleaner? Any amateur chemist would know better.

-Because you can filter a solid product out of a solvent.

If you dump in aqueous HCl you end up with an aqueous solution of the hydrochloride salt, and people don't want highly acidic vials of meth solution, they want powder/crystals.


-35% HCl

boils at what, about 66 °C?


-Aqueous HCl boils as an azeotrope, though. Sulfuric acid is much more effective at gassing a much drier HCl stream from the process described.

- Even at 35% HCL and low heat?

TIL

That sulphuric acid can't be very concentrated. Seem like using drain cleaner wouldn't produce much gas but I guess if you only need a little it would work.

- Commercial drain cleaners can be >90% purity, approach technical grade relatively commonly, and are less encumbered by azeotropic issues than HCl.

-You can make your meth however you want to, I'm just saying that the process I mentioned is the most common approach to ending up with a solid product.

-Aq HCl boils much higher. It azeotropes at about 20% near 110C iirc.

-Because you need anhydrous hcl. Any amateur chemist would know you don't know what you're talking about.

-Wow that went from helpful to asshole real quick.

-Sodium chloride and sulfuric acid make what??? You lost my attention there. Hopefully you meant sodium hypochlorite.

-No.
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