Chemistry

I was browsing the internet and came upon this fantastic quote from Ira Remsen: source

I am looking for a method which will corrode steel within a few days. I've searched the web and got a ton of possibilities, but mostly from artists who purposely create rust for their sculptures (i.e. they aren't chemists). The latest method I tried is a bucket of Bleach, Vinegar, and Salt. It produced a surface rust within hours, but it's been about 36 hours and I gave one of my test specimens (bolt + nut) an inspection and found the rust easily wiped off (it's also 20 degrees F out there so that isn't helping the chemical rxn) I have 3 dozen bolt + nut (hand tightened) combos which I need to corrode to a point where the nut seizes and needs penetrating oil …

i live close to a large electronics store which sells 1kg bottles of sodium and ammonium persulfate (for etching copper)... these are very good oxidizers (sprinkled on a piece of paper, the paper burns bright as a firework)... question is... is there any way to make sulfuric acid out of them? im thinking maybe something like Na2S2O8 + Cu > Na2SO4 + CuSO4 then, CuSO4 + 2HCl > CuCl2 + 2H2SO4 oh and i mixed Na2S2O8 + HCl once, that does not react... (i was hoping to make a very corrosive mixture)

I already have this experiment running- 20.2% HCl + excess ammonium nitrate = poor man's aqua regia It is slowly eating a piece of copper pipe (and we all know HCl could not do this by itself)... the solution is becoming a very dark greenish, anybody know what this copper compound is? a little bit of chlorine is being produced- you can see its distinctive color on the surface is it really just copper chloride? then how does ammonium nitrate come into play?

can an element dissolve in water without reacting with it? element by itself is nonpolar, yes? even if its diatomic, theres no difference in electronegativity...

What is the net energy gain in biofuel production from corn. If there is a gain of 50 %. and an internal combustion engine uses only 40 % of the availeble energy it dont make much sense to take this route. Can anybody comment on it.

In wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry Learn about the world of chemistry. Get facts for the elements in the periodic table chemistry.about.com Chem4Kids.com! The web site that teaches the basics of chemistry to everyone! www.chem4kids.com WWW Chemistry Resources. Please note that the new Virtual Library www.chem.ucla.edu/chempointers.html Chemistry site is located at www.chem.ucla.edu/chempointers.html Wiley InterScience :: JOURNALS :: Chemistry - A European Journal www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/26293/home Eric Weisstein's World of Chemistry. ... ChemistryWorld Eric We…

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about preparation, and methods of synthesis for various compounds, and amongst these, I've thought of producing sulfur dioxide, in some way, and then bubbling it, through a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution. As a result, this ought to yield a dilute solution of sulfuric acid, (about 5%, based upon the type of hydrogen peroxide I have) which I can then boil down, to a more feasible concentration of approximately 15%. (roughly) My only question, is in the generation of the sulfur dioxide. The obvious way, would be simply to burn sulfur crystals, however, I am unsure where these can be obtained. I do have various sulfides, (FeS2), which I s…

is it possible to extract magnesium from epsom salt (MgSO4) by electrolysis? i know that it is very hard to oxidize sulfate ion and in solution, water would much rather get split up then magnesium sulfate... which is why im thinking, what if i put table salt in the solution along with it, i would assume 2NaCl + MgSO4 > Na2SO4 + MgCl2, which would then make magnesium plate the cathode when electrolysing.... i assume that if magnesium hydroxide tries to form, it would just get electrolized also would this work? i'm very interested to handle magnesium.

Hello everyone, I was recently preparing a concentrated (1 molal) solution of CaCl24H2O, which involved putting 184 g of the salt into a liter of water. The amount of salt being all but negligible, the final volume of my solution was more than a liter, something like 1,2 liters. I was wondering: is this volume bigger or smaller than that occupied by my initial dry salt + the liter of water ? A few thoughts 1) The hydration shell that builds up around very ion would tend to increase the volume occupied by the ionic solution: it makes the water less densily packed. 2) However, the voids between the dry crystal lattice get filled by water, which would tend …

I'm not sure if this is in the right forum so apologies if it isn't. I'm looking for two things. Firstly, some form of edible chemical or material treated with a chemical that would either turn translucent/transparent or break up when exposed to air, but be visible and cohesive when in an acidic liquid (i.e. fruit juice). Secondly, I'm looking for something that does the opposite of the above. Something that is translucent/transparent in liquid, but when exposed to air becomes visible. If these two things happen to be the same chemical, that would be great, but it's just as useful if they happen to be two separate things. The chemical and/or material must be e…

Hey guys If I had a solar-powered charger something like this... http://apexdistribution.stores.yahoo.net/6wasopage.html ...or something similar... If I hooked it directly up to the electrodes in an electrolytic cell, for all intensive purposes platinum or graphite would it be damaged or ruined or would it stop working? The reason that I ask this is because the last time that I had to do electrolysis for something, I used a transformer from an old appliance that hooked up to the AC wall socket, and I hooked it up to my electrodes. The problem was, after about 4 hours or so, everything stopped working and the transformer no longer worked... any id…

I am a curious junior in high school. I just finished my first semester of chemistry but have always loved it. Here is a LARGE block of questions I would love to have answered by anyone who can. Here goes: 1) Why is mercury a liquid? It is surrounded by solids! 2) How are cyclics (cyclopropane, cyclohexane, etc...) made from ordinary hydrocarbons? Why can cyclopropane be used as an anesthetic? 3) Why would KNO2 reduce the number of H+ ions in a solution of HNO2? 4) How can arsenic be considered to have 5 valence electrons? Are not valence electrons those in the s and p orbitals? 5) Does exothermic truly mean the reaction releases heat? Could it also be…

Hello Everyone, I'm currently in need of a mentor/chemist to help me formulate a skin care cream for acne. However, I do not have any experience in compounding this is all new to me. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

how do you know what the strongest intermolecular force present for a compound???

for a while, i had assumed that a substance's reactivity depends on its electrongativity... but i'm starting to find some faults with this... for example, what is more reactive, copper or hydrogen? copper has lower electronegativity but is lower in the reactivity series. And if hydrogen is more reactive, shouldn't copper chloride or copper sulfate be a stronger lewis acid then hcl or h2so4, respectively? and what's more reactive, chlorine or oxygen? oxygen has higher electronegativity, but say preheated aluminum foil will burn in chlorine but usually not in oxygen... and for example sulfur, iodine, and carbon all have similar electronegativity, but I2 will r…

Hi all I wonder what 'experimental uncertainty' means here. 'All measurements are approximations--no measuring device can give perfect measurements without experimental uncertainty.' Thank you

An interesting thought, has recently occured to me, an idea of how to synthesize ammonia, by means of two salts I had in my possession, Ammonium Chloride, and Calcium Hydroxide, my proposition, is to create ammonia, by heating the two salts to the necessary degree, and thus, a reaction like the one below would ensue: 2NH4Cl + Ca(OH)2 > 2NH3 + CaCl2 + H2O I know that ammonia has a high solubility in water, and thus, I could perform the reaction in an erlenmeyer flask, with a holey stopper, where a glass tube would be inserted, and the ammonia, thus bubbled into water, forming NH4OH (Ammonia dissolved in water) However I am confused. Is a reaction like this rea…

Ether properties? Does anyone know about its endothermic and exothermic reactions? I'm kind of new here. So hi.

Hello, What kind of chemical would be able to be put in water, in a see-thru tube, and as it passes a certain point, through some force whether magnetic or heat or something, it changes color. I mean it has to be visible color change. The water is in a loop and needs to be able to change back and forth in color.. it doesn't necessarily need to be color.. maybe turns really murky or really dark or something. Nothing can be added to the tube to change it after the assembly.. this colour change needs to be done by something outside of the tube.

Got a kg of sodium persulfate recently, which although expensive was an easier oxidizer to find (at an electronics store) then any nitrate or chlorate or perchlorate... It was quite interesting, when put on a piece of paper, it made that paper burn extremely bright...(it decomposes below 451 F) But what I really bought it for was trying to make a violent reaction with powdered aluminum.... This should have worked perfectly- the principal decomposition of persulfate is to donate a sulfate radical: Na2S2O8 + Al > Na2SO4 + Al2(SO4)3 Of course in the heat of this reaction and excess aluminum, the sulfates should decompose into sulfides and oxygen, makin…

just out of curiosity, what would you consider to be your top 10 favorite chemicals (single element's fine too)? here's my list 1. potassium nitrate 2. hydrogen peroxide 3. sulfuric acid 4. ammonium nitrate 5. iron oxide 6. hydrochloric acid 7. potassium sulfate 8. copper 9. aluminium 10. water

I have a few questions in regards to this: What happens in the electrolysis of Ethanoic Acid? What happens when Ethanoic Acid is reacted with Sodium Hydroxide? What happens when reacted with magnesium ribbon ? Many Thanks Pieter

I have old Aqua regia, don´t excatly know how long it´s been stored, but a guess is for several years. Now I have to neutralize it, beacause the chemicalwaste-firm dont take Aqua regia. But I´m not sure how to do it properly. Any suggestions? I have several amount of KOH -pellets, can I use them? What can happen? What are the risks?

I have been thinking about buying a water oxygenator. But they're so expensive, and all they look like are modified regular kitchen blenders. I was looking at a product and It talks about the "Hexaganol" "super wetting" effect. But this may be hype! I honestly don't know. If you were going to make one of these things, how would you do it? Thanks,, (ps: I think it contains some kind of magnet to turn the water to alkaline which is also supposed to be good for you)