latentheat

Wow, I guess my liking the smell of ozone is odd. Too bad it destroys the lungs. I forgot some. I also hate sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and acetone. I like menthol.

Good cinnamaldehyde: Great smell. I put some cinnamon bark in water and boiled it to fill the house with wonderful vapors of this aromatic aldehyde the other day. My mother, for once, did not object. vanillin: People look at me strange when I sniff vanilla extract. dilute ozone: Our hot tub has a corona discharge ozonator. I get a whiff of the gas every time I open the lid. dilute chloroform: Working with this is pleasant. However, it becomes nasty as your nose approaches the container in which it is in. ethanol: I always sniff my glass of wine before I drink it. Lovely smell. toluene: This is pleasant to work with, eg when marking something with spray paint. Bad ethanoic acid: Vinegar, ugh, one of the nastiest things I've ever smelled. hydrogen sulfide: I think most people would agree about this being bad. bromine: Possibly the worst smell ever. methanal: Fetal pig dissection was unbearable because of this chem hydrochloric acid: Nasty, corrosive. Just disgusting. ammonia: very annoying.

FeO Fe2O3 : that is rust Fe3O4 : I think it's a mixture of FeO and Fe2O3

Oh, I see. I know that, I was talking about if he was to allow an organic to come in contact with the H2O2, then it could form a shock sensitive substance.

Organic peroxides are sensitive to being bumped into or dropped, etc. They're 'shock sensitive'.

Be careful not to spill concentrated hydrogen peroxide on your hands. It's really nasty stuff. Also, please keep organic material away from conc. H2O2. You run a high risk of blowing yourself up. I am being serious. I know it sounds fun, but shock sensitive substances really aren't too fun when they blow up in your face just from looking at them wrong.

Yeah the computer duster is tetrafluoroethane I think. Anyway, if you turn the can upside down and spray into the water it will freeze. It's really fun to do actually.

This worked perfectly. I extracted acetylsalicylic acid from Bayer aspirin with acetone, and it worked. Then, I prepared a strong solution of sodium hydroxide and dissolved the acetylsalicylic acid in it. I heated it to a slight boil and let it do that for a minute. Upon removing it from the heat, I smelled vinegar strongly. I cooled the solution and then added dilute HCl cooled with ice cubes. The salicylic acid instantly precipitated. After filtering, the liquid solution smelled strongly of vinegar. I'm not going to try any esters with it until ThermiteMan is at my house again.

Thanks for the detailed responses, woelen. I knew you would respond because you seem to do a lot of work with complexes. I love the experiments on your site with pictures. That way if we don't have the reagents to do the experiment ourselves we still get to see what happens. So, just at of curiosity, because of the hydroscopic nature of Na2CuBr4, how is it prepared in industry? Is it prepared at all?

Ok, decided to play with it a little. I heated it and just as the liquid begain to boil it got all weird lookin. I though I had just screwed everything up so I began to dilute it to get rid of it. Then, as I was going to pour it away, I noticed a greenish/blueish powder had precipitated. Copper bromide maybe? Any ideas?

I added an excess of sodium bromide to a solution of copper sulfate to produce this complex ion. I think that's how it's supposed to look... it's a deep purple. If I was to evaporate the water would I get a mixture of sodium sulfate and sodium tetrabromocuprate(II)? Would it be possible to get one to crystallize before the other?

Maybe the oxide layer isn't wearing off the foil? The problem with aluminum foil is it forms an annoying oxide layer that resists corrosion. If that's the case, try adding a little sulfuric acid to help it along.

Chlorates are fun, but KNO3 is much easier to find. My local Lowes has it as Greenlight stump remover, $3 for one pound. I think the neighbors wonder what the thick clouds of smoke that originate from my backyard are from

Well yeah, water is amphoteric. I was just saying, with water the naming system for compounds doesn't work so well. That's what I was trying to prove. I guess hydrogen hydroxide would be an ok name for it, because it shows that it is acid and base at the same time when it dissociates.

Yeah but if you go by that it could also be called hydrohydrogeic acid(?)

That site is a joke site. Dihydrogen monoxide is water.

The iron is going from +3 to +6 in the first reaction. In the second reaction the manganese is going from +4 to +7. That's what he means by further oxidation - they are losing more electrons. Heat is the activation energy for the reaction.

Also if you really like electrochemistry you can make a voltaic cell. It involves two beakers and some kind of salt bridge - be creative with that. One that works is copper sulfate dissolved in one beaker with a copper electrode, magnesium sulfate dissolved in the other with a magnesium electrode, and some salt (KNO3 works well) dissolved in a solution in the salt bridge. The salt bridge should be some kind of tube that you can fill with a solution and put the ends in the beakers. Plug the ends of the salt bridge with cotton to make a semi permiable barrier. Unlike an electrolytic cell in which the reaction is not spontaneous, in a voltaic cell the reaction is spontaneous. This is how batteries are made. If you've done a really good job you may be able to power a small device with your battery for awhile.

Yeah but it's reactive enough to become involved with a lot of different electrolytes. Carbon is a way better option.

Take a pencil and strip off all the wood. That's a cheap way to get carbon electrodes. If you use a reactive metal like copper for electrolysis you'll get weird things happening. Since you're using NaCl as the electrolyte you are probably forming some copper chloride if you're using copper electrodes. Also when you use brine you will also be forming sodium hydroxide so the solution will turn basic.

Oxidation states indicate the number of electrons lost or gained (or the apparent loss or gain) by an atom in a compound. If something is in the oxidation state of +2 for example, like Mg in MgO, it has lost 2 electrons. Also, from another prospective, if you have CuSO4 solution, the Cu ions in solution will be in the +2 oxidation state, and to precipitate copper you have to reduce it by giving it 2 electrons. This can be done by electrolysis if the metal to replace it is less reactive than copper, or spontaneously if the metal to replace it is more reactive than copper. Cr in the +6 oxidation state looks orange or reddish. Cr in the +3 oxidation state is greenish. That's why changing the oxidation states can cause nice color changes.

It was sulfur and aluminum. Thermite starter.

So it WILL work w/ HCl? That makes me happy. H2SO4 is really hard to find in new york without a ton of buffers in it.