Inorganic Chemistry

Where can I buy potassium permanganate without a chemist's licence? I know it won't be in a very high concentration, so is there a way to purify it? I heard it can be found in the plumbing section of some stores. What brand is best? Is it possible to prepare KMnO4 at home?

I heard my teacher say that copper(II) iodide is very unstable and form copper(I) iodide easily, but why? I've checked the standard electrode potential of [Math] Cu^{2+}+e^---->Cu^+ [/Math] [Math] Cu^{2+}+2e^----> Cu [/Math] I found that the reaction is not spontaneous. Anyone helps me?

is there anything that will react with epsom salt which is MgSO4??? it seems like it could be a good oxidizer hence the four oxygens. or is this molecule stable? could it be used as an oxidizer for solid rocket fuel????

It is not a rumor or an urban legend that someone invented a paint that is so resistant to heat that it can protect an egg from being cooked by a propane torch held to it for several minutes. It's not even physically that implausible. I can easily imagine that some mixture of chemicals can form a barrier that refuses heat. Something that contains a mixture of borates and silicates could form a sort of borosilicate glass when it cures. Pores could make it difficult for heat to penetrate, the glass-like substance could radiate heat away quickly and be a physical barrier that keeps the flame away from what it is protecting. If it is mixed with glass spheres to begin wit…

sorry to ask such a simple question, but I've been screwing with plasmas and a microwave, and I got this greyish ash when copper and salt were put into a microwave, some of the ash also had a bronze hew to it, I don't know if that was just a mixture of copper and whatever the ash was, but anyway just wondering if anybody could help me out here P.S. the microwave proides enough energy to both make the copper enter a gaseous state and ionize it, so energy is not a problem

I tryed to dissolve nickel plating on coin. So i put it to 40% sulfuric acid. Nothing happened. After that i heated acid in water path to 80 C and waited. Still nothing happened. Then i placed coin into 23% nitric acid. Nothing. 20% hydrochloric acid even when heated made only slightest bubbling and no remarkable harm to nikcel surface. So i put a drop of 85% sulfuric acid onto coin surface - nothing but when i heated the coin, just before decomposition of sulfuric acid reaction started and almost instantly nicel plating disapeared under drop of sulfuric acid. Is nickel trully so unreactive or maybe that plating was some especially inert alloy? Your thoughts?

If a solution containing carbonate is being electrolysed, does not decomposition of carbonate into carbon dioxide become more favourable?

Out of curiosity, what's the density of deuterium oxide (heavy water)? Or even tritium oxide (radioactive heavy water)?

When we electroplate something with silver, we usually put silver as anode and the object going to be sticked on as the cathode. Moreover, an aqueous silver solution is also preferred. If we need to electoplate iron spoon with silver, we can't use silver nitrate solution. There's a direct reaction become the silver ions and iron atoms. We ought to use silver cyanide as solution. Can anyone figure out why this solution has the function of forbidding the reaction between the two ions?

Making thermite using magnetite produces a more intense reaction, so I'm told. I've been using hematite, which is a pain in the buttocks to make in large quantities, but I've heard that magnetite can be found in beach sand and is easy to extract with a large magnet. Can magnetite be found in the desert sand as well? If not, then why does it occur in beach sand?

i got my new toy today(bought it on ebay sunday). it is a small butane torch. i melted a penny with it. the coating completely vaporized and the inside(zinc?) melted and such. when i tried to melt a dime, however, it didn't melt. every part of the dime, except where the flame actually touched it, changed colours(multiple times). what causes the discolouration?

Long time ago, I was made to carry out an experiment on the rusting of iron. I was given potassium hexacyanoferrate(III) as rust indicator. Is it toxic? I touched the gel with my naked hands.

Hi. What harmless material attached to a moving object or animal, could be useable for tracking by detecting its emission of particles, waves, radiation or anything from the largest possible distance by modern sensing technology, without being electronic at all ? Sort of some tracer to locate/find which in thousands of packages or vehicles passing by carries such material inside ? Like the body heat detection used from aircraft while searching for lost persons in a forest, but not being obstructed by common materials, trees, buildings, and producing a recognizable signature. Miguel

(This is a completely different topic from Edwards) My friend once told me that during the Gulf war, US government issued uranium bullets to its soldiers. After the war, there was so much spent ammo in that soil in Iraq and Kuwait, that it was unsafe to inhabit, so our government just buried all of it in a layer of sand. This story sounded absurd to me, but is it even possible to make uranium bullets, and were they ever commisssioned for use in arms?

Well my bank manager wont allow me to go element collecting so ive decided to collect metals instead. Simple, i smelt the ore, and make a bar out of it. Im thinking; Fe, Cu, and what other metals are easy to smelt (argh mental block) Anyway, thats my idea, firstly where (in the UK) can i get some ores and secondly any tips on smelting (im thinking the mediaeval bellows and bonfire technique).

energizer e2 lithium batteries have this very dark green crap, mostly black but green wen diluted in water. so, waht is this stuff? i assume its some hydroxide.

How to purify Iron Oxide *Rust* ? Ok im getting rust out of a barral in my backyard Its quite dirty but when i grind it up with my fingers it turns into a fine powder *good* but there are a lot of other things like earth and grass, so i was wondering how to get it out of there with out messing up the Iron Oxide . Well thx for that help

The only thermite I knew of until recently was the ferroaluminum thermite. I now know that any oxide can be used (as is stated in the definition of thermite). Does this mean that V205 or MnO2 can be used in thermites? What are some other strange thermites that you've heard of?

Though reactivity series has been taught to us from grade 6 , I found a problem not in learning but something else. The last metal was gold but I want to know why can't platinum be there at the bottom.Is it someyhing to do with its radioactivity , please reply me back Thanks

Hi! i had a query on the oxidation of ethylethanoate by H2O2 I made this rough n ready ester by reacting excess ethanol, with some ethanoic acid in an excess of Sulphuric acid. I then let it cool, and in the same solution added an equal part of hydrogen peroxide: placed it on ice to observe properly, and now notice inmiscible swirls in the solution. At room temperature, the characteristic smell of the ester has gone and a fine white ppte is left in suspension. Any ideas?

My uncule says that if you put Oxigen and Nitrogen in a bollon and light the string as soon as the string hits the bollon there will be a HUGE and very power full shockwave. Is this true ?

Hi! I created this thread for all of the element collectors out there. If you know how to extract different elements, post the element name, its host material, items needed, and the procedure!

how can i make powdered zinc out of a solid piece of zinc?

Hi, I am interested in knowing how pure nitrogen is synthesize/produce. I've been searching the web but got no luck. Would anyone please give me an explaination or some resources. thanks Toan

my friends dad who works at a hazardous waste plant had tfound this liquid of that i dotn know tghe use for but would dissolve almost anything it was a concentrated sulfuric acid with superionized metal like H2SO4 andCr+8 lets play pick your corrosive!