Today I bougt my first laboratory set.
So my question is: What is the standard chemicals all beginners should have or start with?
My second questions is: Is there any good webpage or book about experiments for beginners?
BOOK
chloric1 - 4-7-2005 at 12:28
OK, THe best book for beginers I would recommend is the following:
"How to Make and Use a Small Chemical Laboratory" by Raymond Francis Yates. It was one sold by Lindsays publications but I am not finding it
now. Try amazon.
Anywho, this book is written clearly and it even tells you how much space to have ready and the construction of fume hoods and such. This is dated
material but the advice is universal as far as the lab construction goes. I chuckled a bit when it stated to go to the Pharmacy to get your
chemicals. But my closest Ace had 3 different brands of sulfuric acid drain cleaner as well as pure chems as well. Potassium Permangenate, copper
sulfate, muriatic acid, 10% ammonia, sodium hydroxide,acetone, toluene,xylene, kerosene, Denatured alcohol,calcium chloride, and steel wool are a good
startneutrino - 4-7-2005 at 12:52
Most of us get chemicals on a per-experiment basis. The bigger question is what equipment you will need (glassware, etc).
Just read around. I’m sure all your questions will be answered.IrC - 4-7-2005 at 18:51
Get the book titled "Grandad's Wonderful Book of Chemistry" by Kurt Saxon. Great section in there on building a small lab and teaching
you what to actually do with the stuff. Plus a lot of info on experiments, other stuff, and making many chemicals which are hard to get. I remember
seeing a link around here somewhere, I don't remember if it was in the library section, axehandles FTP, or just a link on a page in a thread
here, but that is what the search function is for. One thing though, much is vintage, and back then they were very cavalier with their chemistry and
many of the instructions can be very dangerous (or just plain stupid - OK in all fairness maybe they just didn't know but in chemistry what you
don't know CAN hurt you).
"Grandad's Wonderful Book of Chemistry" by Kurt Saxon is 97.60 mb, and "Construction and use of a small chemistry lab" by
Kurt Saxon is 7.09 mb.
Kurt Saxon is a man full of miracles. He once made "Armstrong's mixture" by mixing red phosphorus and Potasium chlorate in a plastic,
24X36 mm film, photo canister. He dry-mixed them together. And quess what,.... he can't please his wife anymore, for he has blown off a few
fingers. A man full of miracles, who has a recipy discribed in "The poor man's James Bond" for making Phosgene gas to poison and kill
people with. All you have to do, is to put a saucer filed with Carbon tetrachloride on the heater in a house, and all will drop dead. I think
it's all in his head, all dead, a miracle indeed mister Saxon. And then that Ricin story......
Be cautious what has been written by his hand, but the books that he has pasted in his books are amusing and nice reads. Allso very informative at
times, for "The chemistry of powder and explosives" are part of "The poor man's James Bond" volume one. Many books he has
used are from the begining of the 20th century and late 19th century, but allso as recent as round about 1970 "Viet Cong Equipements and
Explosive Devices".
Remark: Carbon tetrachloride was used in early automobile fire extinguishers untill it was discovered, that when you try and extinguish very hot
fires, that Phosgene gas is developed.
[Edited on 6-7-2005 by Lambda]
Important chemicals
chromium - 4-7-2005 at 22:53
Must have chemical is probably sulfuric acid. Other acids, such as hüdrochloric, nitric and acetic are also very useful. Some alkalis like NaOH and
Ca(OH)2. Some oxidisers ( KMnO4, K2Cr207, KNO3).
Soda is very important if you spill some acid to floor and also as source for sodium ions. From organics maybe ethanol is first to get.
Of course you need specific chemicals due of your particular interests but these are (in my opinion) very frequently needed.
Construction and use of a small chemistry lab
Lambda - 6-7-2005 at 12:42
The book "Construction and use of a small chemistry lab" by Kurt Saxon, 7.09 mb and 89 pages (31 scanned double pages) is now available via
Rapid Share for download.
If there is demand for:
"Grandad's Wonderful Book of Chemistry" by Kurt Saxon (97.60 mb), then I will make this book available too.
However, you will have to give me one or two weeks to find this file.
[Edited on 6-7-2005 by Lambda]IrC - 6-7-2005 at 16:38
"Grandad's Wonderful Book of Chemistry" by Kurt Saxon is in the upload directory on axehandles ftp.sparkgap - 6-7-2005 at 21:22
"...He once made "Armstrong's mixture" by mixing red phosphorus and Potassium chlorate in a plastic, 24X36 mm film, photo
canister. He dry-mixed them together. And guess what,... he can't please his wife anymore, for he has blown off a few fingers..."
MadHatter must've been very lucky then. All that happened was that his eyebrows got seared off.
Oh, and he uses his fingers to "please his wife"?
sparky (~_~)
Glassware
Ajantis - 14-7-2005 at 01:05
What is the difference between pyrex glass and Duran? Until which temperature they resist?neutrino - 14-7-2005 at 04:36
They're both very high quality glasses. As far as I can tell, they have the same softening point (~800*C).
Books
Danne123 - 23-7-2005 at 11:45
Okay, now I have downloaded some books that you recommended.
What do you recommend now? That I shall print those books out or read them at the computer.neutrino - 23-7-2005 at 13:01
The whole point of e-books (besides easy sharing) is to save trees. Save the rainforest and use your computer!ChemGrl5 - 30-10-2005 at 02:56
hello
I would like to download a copy of "grandad's wonderful book of chemistry".
Quote:
"Grandad's Wonderful Book of Chemistry" by Kurt Saxon is in the upload directory on axehandles ftp.
I don't know hoe to get here. Any assistance would be appeciated. thanks
FTP Access
MadHatter - 2-11-2005 at 20:49
Check your U2U. That book can be found under the "CHEMISTRY - ORGANIC" subdirectory. Enjoy !woelen - 3-11-2005 at 02:55
On my website I give some suggestions on the choice of chemicals. Ideally, a chem only has one property stronly developed and nothing else. This gives
the largest freedom and makes the chemical versatile. Combination of properties then can be realized by combining chems.
Just an example: Suppose you want oxidizers and acids. Now you can obtain a strongly oxidizing acid. Lateron you need a strong acid, but don't
want the oxidizing properties. Then your initial choice proved to be sub-optimal. So, it is better to buy two chems, one being a strong soluble
oxidizer and the other being a strong acid without strongly developed oxidizing properties. Of course, this reasoning does not always hold and some
chemicals are simply interesting because of their very specific and individual properties, but as a first start I strongly suggest you to carefully
design your set of chems, such that each chem only has one strongly developed property. On my site this principle is explained in more detail with
concrete examples.
As the title of the site mentions, it is just the most basic setup. In a later stage you want more, but it is a nice start and allows you to do a lot
of experiments already.
I hope this helps you a little further.quicksilver - 4-11-2005 at 06:39
This may seem like a unique piece of advice but I would suggest that you collect books (& Ebooks, better still).
I now have about a full bookshelf filled with rare stuff and about 2Gb of Ebooks. They present an opportunity to continue to learn when you can't
be in a lab.
IMO - "No experiment is a waste. Something is learned at every experiment". Don't chase a result until you have learned what went wrong
and don't chastize yourself for a failure. Because there really is no "failure" in the learning sence...only more data!.
Kurt Saxon could have a whole thread.....his web site is a political sand storm. Bits and pieces whirling everywhere......He is not so much into
chemistry as politics, it seems.
hello