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ave369
Eastern European Lady of Mad Science
Posts: 596
Registered: 8-7-2015
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This is a minor problem compared to what I have. I live in a country known for high latitudes, and this means both short day and cold climate. Right
now, any outdoor lab for me means bitter cold, not just darkness.
Smells like ammonia....
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The Volatile Chemist
International Hazard
Posts: 1981
Registered: 22-3-2014
Location: 'Stil' in the lab...
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Mood: Copious
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Ouch. Our humidity is bad here in the summer, though not half as bad as south of here. Very wet, nothing evaporates on its own accord...except the
things you don't want to evaporate.
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mayko
International Hazard
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Registered: 17-1-2013
Location: Carrboro, NC
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Mood: anomalous (Euclid class)
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I made a batch of trisodium phosphate a few days ago from phosphoric acid and sodium hydroxide. I let the reaction mixture cool overnight, and found
some very lovely crystals in the bottom of the beaker.
Here began the comedy of errors. I poured off the supernatant into a funnel with filter paper, then broke up the crystals in the beaker. When I turned
back to the funnel, I learned that the mother liquor had been supersaturated, and had solidifed halfway through the filtration!
To wash the solids of excess sodium hydroxide, I added some dry ethanol and stirred the slurry. Sadly, I did not use a proper stirring rod, and
instead picked up a piece of glass tubing. It promptly snapped and I got a puncture/slice in my finger! (However, the blood dripping in the water of
the wash basin made some very pretty patterns!)
I also managed to splatter silver nitrate solution all over myself in an unrelated incident and now have purple splash marks all over me. I didn't
realize I had one on my forehead, though, until I'd been walking around with it for a day!
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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The Volatile Chemist
International Hazard
Posts: 1981
Registered: 22-3-2014
Location: 'Stil' in the lab...
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Haha, not fun...glad we have a place to joke about it, as I've found not many other people find the mistakes funny or are sympathetic.
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aga
Forum Drunkard
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Registered: 25-3-2014
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Was running out of sulphuric acid so went looking for some today.
25 litres of 36% for 16 euros, and i get to keep the container !
Very clear as well, unlike the drain cleaner stuff.
So, boiling some down is the obvious thing to do.
Add a Fan to speed things up ! Why not ?
BECAUSE THE BEAKER WAS TOO FULL YOU IMPATIENT CRETIN !
Quite a bit of acid got dumped straight onto the hotplate.
Never reached 98% conc so fast !
Sadly it rapidly decomposed, overwhelming the fume hood fan with choking thick white vapour.
First time i've had to clean up the hotplate whilst still very hot, and wearing a gas mask.
If it were not for the fume hood and gas mask, the best i could have done would be to pull the mains fuse out of the electricity meter 100m from the
shed and wait for the choking SO2 to dissipate.
[Edited on 31-12-2015 by aga]
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The Volatile Chemist
International Hazard
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Location: 'Stil' in the lab...
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Ouch...
I've been hating the rate at which things evaporate here. 50 mLs of Zinc Acetate evaporating for 3 weeks, down to a little under 40 mLs...
I don't want to waste my NaOH or CaCl2, so I dessicated it in some anhydrous Copper(II) Sulfate. Turns out anhydrous copper(II) Sulfate is
a terrible desiccant... going to do desiccant research as soon as the dumb stuff crystallizes...
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aga
Forum Drunkard
Posts: 7030
Registered: 25-3-2014
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CaCl2 is wonderful stuff.
Make a LOT of it and keep it dry.
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The Volatile Chemist
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Location: 'Stil' in the lab...
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Tis a good plan, I should buy a bunch of CaO.
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ave369
Eastern European Lady of Mad Science
Posts: 596
Registered: 8-7-2015
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Boiling the Bat requires sobriety.
Smells like ammonia....
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kt5000
Hazard to Others
Posts: 133
Registered: 27-3-2013
Location: Southwest US
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Mood: Final exams
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Towards the end of selling my house, with an offer on the table, I got the itch to test an extraction in my office. A Soxhlet would have been awesome
for the task, but I didn't have one and settled for a 250 mL flask on a hot plate with the window open. After heating slowly for maybe 15 minutes, I
noticed there was no boiling chip in the flask. I grabbed a couple boiling chips, tossed them in, and WHOOSH--a jet of hot acetone that must have
been 5 feet tall (hit the ceiling). If I'd had an open flame, it would have caught fire.
Lesson learned. I've never forgot the boiling chips since.
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Atrum
Hazard to Self
Posts: 73
Registered: 7-12-2014
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Mood: Tired AF
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Quote: Originally posted by kt5000  | Towards the end of selling my house, with an offer on the table, I got the itch to test an extraction in my office. A Soxhlet would have been awesome
for the task, but I didn't have one and settled for a 250 mL flask on a hot plate with the window open. After heating slowly for maybe 15 minutes, I
noticed there was no boiling chip in the flask. I grabbed a couple boiling chips, tossed them in, and WHOOSH--a jet of hot acetone that must have
been 5 feet tall (hit the ceiling). If I'd had an open flame, it would have caught fire.
Lesson learned. I've never forgot the boiling chips since.
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That is certainly one way to learn to always use boiling chips. Glad nothing serious came from that incident.
"Experience is my one true mistress and I will cite her in all cases. Only through experimentation can we all truly know anything." ~Leonardo da Vinci
My inventory
Recently acquired elements: Iodine , Cobalt, Tungsten, Silicon |
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Atrum
Hazard to Self
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Registered: 7-12-2014
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Mood: Tired AF
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Keeping it dry is the easy part. It is drying it in the first place that always makes me bang my head on a desk.
First time I prepared that stuff it turned into a solid brick. Then by the time I got it crushed up again, it had already become soggy.
"Experience is my one true mistress and I will cite her in all cases. Only through experimentation can we all truly know anything." ~Leonardo da Vinci
My inventory
Recently acquired elements: Iodine , Cobalt, Tungsten, Silicon |
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The Volatile Chemist
International Hazard
Posts: 1981
Registered: 22-3-2014
Location: 'Stil' in the lab...
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| Quote: Originally posted by Atrum |
Keeping it dry is the easy part. It is drying it in the first place that always makes me bang my head on a desk.
First time I prepared that stuff it turned into a solid brick. Then by the time I got it crushed up again, it had already become soggy.
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Hammer time? 
In regards to boiling chips, I've found that adding some of the solid reagent being used to the solution works to start up boiling as long as it is
added before starting.
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j_sum1
Administrator
Posts: 6333
Registered: 4-10-2014
Location: At home
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Mood: Most of the ducks are in a row
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I think this qualifies for this thread.
Today I learned yet again that glass at 300C looks exactly the same as cold glassware.
I picked up a flask and have some decent blisters on finger and thumb. (Typing is interesting.) happened at work so all costs are covered. It could
be a bit painful and annoying for a few days.
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JJay
International Hazard
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It doesn't look that much different at 800C either... I've picked up red-hot glass with only minimal hardening of the skin on my fingertips. How did
you get such serious burns?
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j_sum1
Administrator
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A bit of pressure nakes a difference as well as a decent contact area. 300C is just a guess. It had been in a Bunsen flame.
First aid office was rather thorough and enthusiastic. There are blisters but I think it will amount to nothing after a couple of days. The dressing
means I can't bend my fingers though.
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Loptr
International Hazard
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I don't know about 300C, but as glass gets towards the top end of my hot plate it has a different sheen to it, almost like a flame polish effect.
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j_sum1
Administrator
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Yeah. but my problem was that I was distracted talking with someone and not thinking about what I was doing. It could have been purole and I wouldn"t
have boticed.
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Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
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Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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It's not good to leave your radio on top of your muffle furnace when using the furnace. The radio became a puddle of melted plastic.  This was removed using acetone and a chisel.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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pepe
Harmless
Posts: 35
Registered: 5-6-2016
Location: Memeisland
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Mood: REEEEEEE
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About a week ago I broke my only Erlenmeyer. Granted I set it in a dumb spot and it will be easy to replace but it still sucks to break one of your
only pieces of something and have to wait for backups.
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Geocachmaster
Hazard to Others
Posts: 146
Registered: 5-3-2016
Location: Maine, USA
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Mood: Corroded, just like my spatulas
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Yes, I had just finished cleaning my largest and only 2L beaker when I dropped it in the sink. It only fell about 10 cm but it didn't survive and
broke into many pieces. Very fun! The bigger they are the harder they fall...
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RocksInHead
Harmless
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Registered: 16-6-2016
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Mood: Highly Nitrated
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Just yesterday broke 2 test tubes by knocking over the rack, then 5 minutes later broke the stem off of a 1000ml seperatory funnel.
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mayko
International Hazard
Posts: 1218
Registered: 17-1-2013
Location: Carrboro, NC
Member Is Offline
Mood: anomalous (Euclid class)
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The nice thing about gravity funnels is that if you drop one, you get a stemless funnel for crystallization and a few inches of glass tubing!
ps guess what i did yesterday
[Edited on 20-7-2016 by mayko]
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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MrHomeScientist
International Hazard
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Registered: 24-10-2010
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A few days ago I was the victim of a comical series of events that led to some broken glass. I was carrying a crystallization dish and a beaker back
inside after washing them down outside, when I fumbled the wet glass and clanged the two together. Everything seemed fine, so I breathed a sigh of
relief and put the beaker down so as to only carry one thing at a time. I took a few steps and fumbled the wet crystallization dish a second time, but
caught it right away. Breathing another sigh of relief, I took a few more steps then fumbled it a THIRD time, this time dropping it on the concrete
and shattering it into a million pieces.
After cleaning this up and carrying the beaker inside, I discovered that I had also put a huge crack in it from the first fumbling. I need to
reevaluate my "one-trip" mentality.
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mayko
International Hazard
Posts: 1218
Registered: 17-1-2013
Location: Carrboro, NC
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Mood: anomalous (Euclid class)
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This has been a bad *summer* in the lab, or rather out of it b/c it's so hot in the shed that the hot surface warning sensor on the hot plate trips
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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