rogerxd45

ok so i want to know if there is an easier way to figure out how many times you would have to double a number before getting to certain number. (other then going 2x2x2x2x2x2x2

question two lets say we take the number 1080 is there a way to figure out how many times it had been doubled assuming the start point is 1

what if the starting number was 4 any way to figure that out besides the long way

and this is not homework, i was just folding a piece of metal on itself over and over (like Damascus steel but i used indium since its soft and doesn't require heat to get the layers to bond but it also doesnt add any strength i just wanted to see how many layers i could get. unfortunately my computer needed a reboot and i forgot to write down the number it was roughly 3.8^43 layers ) so each time i fold it the number of layers doubles, so it got me thinking about

interesting not about the number of layers in the indium, the indium was 0.8mm thick so based on those numbers i believe each layer would be thinner then an atom which i know it isnt possible to have layers thinner then the atoms in those layers. it like the thing one of my teachers said about if ia guy was waolking across the road but could only do it in halves (so at first he woud be in the middle of the road second he would be 3/4 of the way across...and so on. but he could never make it across the road. obviously not realistic the teacher made his point) but i did this like 6 months ago so i might have scred up the math on how many indium atoms thick 0.8mm would be. but am positive it was 3.8 to the 43rd

so first off i know this is weird but i would like to have an ampule or vial with my a small amount of my blood in it. past attempt's have failed since the blood coagulates and separates.

i do not need "preserve" the blood so to speak since i will never inject it back in.

my question: is there a household chemical or easy to get chem that will keep the blood stable (how it looks when it comes out)

i know it is dangerous but i did lots of research and talked to a fe healthcare professionals about ho to extract the blood as safely as possible. thankfully i have good veins

so even if said chem will ruin the blood all i care about is that it stays the same color

please dont ask me why i ant to do this, i just do and am willing to take the risk to do so.

see i asked here

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/60773-thorium-nitrate-displacement-reaction/page__p__633301__fromsearch__1#entry633301

i figured that zinc is reactive and should work if Al and Mg would, and if it wasnt more reactive then the Hg then nothing would happen, just like the silver nitrate- copper metal reaction produces silver and created copper nitrate

what about a chemical method of purification? not sure if its possible and if it is i doubt it better the distilling it.

i have no clue if this would work, what im setting up just an example that MIGHT work, i have no clue if it would but its just to give you an idea of what im talking about.

ok so dissolve the Hg into an acid to make an hg salt that is water soluble

then covert the salt to a chloride or iodide or some other salt that sufff like lead isnt water soluble and i precipitate out leaving me with a more put Hg salt that i reduce back into metallic Hg by some method

You could call and get a quote from someone like Bethlehem Apparatus Co. to process it for you. They advertise that they have the capacity to process mercury from a few ounces to truckloads of 55-gallon drums efficiently and cost effectively. They might be able to do it for the same price you could do it yourself in an EPA approved facility. Getting a price couldn't hurt and it might actually save you some money and exposure to injury.

their 1 time use shipping container is $490 thats the rental charge for the container to ship the mercury to them

Probably reduction of nitrate to nitrite by zinc followed by decomposition of the nitrite to NOx

 

Why did you think this would work, or more precisely, why didn't you just look up the outcome?

well because someone on here told me it would cant remember who but obviously he was wrong

so any ideas as to what the end product i have is?

so in an attemot to get thorium metal out of a thorium nitrate solution.

 

first i dipped a q tip in the thorium nitrate solution and rubbed that on zinc which turned black so i thought it was thorium metal that was forming.

 

the reaction happened pretty fast so i know its not just the water reacting with the zinc. but now i have a cloudy substance and i have no clue what it is.

 

it smells like bleach/chlorine/nitrogen oxides

 

it did consume part of the zinc. any ideas as to what i have created?

 

yea i know i should have asked this question first

no ideas?

rogerxd45,

As a rule (specifically, rule 2.3 b), we don't encourage (or even help with) very dangerous experiments. This is very dangerous. It's not because we are unkind, but just because we want to discourage you, and also other people, from trying this. Maybe you have a respirator, and some setup which can contain the vapors (I'm not sure that's enough!!)... but others don't necessarily have that. We do not want other people to be able to find out how to do a dangerous experiment without being warned a lot of times of the dangers.

 

Suxamethonium,

I agree with you that a risk assessment is very important. However, it is not necessarily true that a lot of small experiments are safer than a single large experiment. In a risk assessment, you will find that the effects of a failure might be smaller, but the chance of them happening will increase if you repeat an experiment multiple times.

 

rogerxd45,

That said, the idea of doing a risk assessment is definitely worth the time if you plan to do a mercury distillation!

Check each and every part of your setup, and think: "What if this somehow breaks? What happens then, and am I prepared for that?". First you make the list of all possible things that can go wrong (no matter how unlikely!!), and the results of this failure.

 

Later, (but only after you make your complete list) you can check whether it is likely (the chance) it will go wrong.

 

Questions you certainly want to ask yourself are:

- What happens if my ventilation stops somehow? Am I prepared?

- What happens if my cooling fails?

- What happens if I shut down the heater (but leave the cooler on)? Can pressure also drop below atmospheric?

- What happens if any piece of the (glass?) equipment breaks?

- What happens if my equipment has leaks?

- What happens if I drop something?

... etc, etc. Note: this is not the complete list of questions you should ask yourself. It's just to give you inspiration to check everything.

 

Do NOT ask yourself first: "Can my ventilation fail?"... only ask "what if it fails".

 

And next you make a complete list of how your ventilation can fail (electricity blackout, fusebox breaks, your little sister pulls the plug, you didn't pay the bill, etc).

And make such complete lists for all that can fail.

 

And only now you can assess your risks properly. Look at the effects of something going wrong, and at how likely it is. And let someone else review that too - as you may be a little optimistic about yourself.

thank you for your post, its not just a dont do it its dangerous post but you explain why and steps to take

its very informative and i WILL heed your advice and do this correctly and prepare for everything to go wrong. im in no hurry so i have plenty of time to create a safe setup for myself and the environment as well as other around so thank you

so in an attemot to get thorium metal out of a thorium nitrate solution.

first i dipped a q tip in the thorium nitrate solution and rubbed that on zinc which turned black so i thought it was thorium metal that was forming.

the reaction happened pretty fast so i know its not just the water reacting with the zinc. but now i have a cloudy substance and i have no clue what it is.

it smells like bleach/chlorine/nitrogen oxides

it did consume part of the zinc. any ideas as to what i have created?

yea i know i should have asked this question first

THE PURIFICATION OF MERCURY BY AN ELECTROLYTIC METHOD

 

Martin E. Hanke and

Martha Johnson

 

Science 3 November 1933: 414-415.

 

Very interesting read . . .

all i can find is the first page, do you have a link that shows the entire process?

i do have a Mercury Vapor/Chlorine Gas Respirator and it is not that hard to prevent the vapor from reaching the atmosphere, im not going to just throw it on a stove and see what i can catch! it is possible to distill mercury safely

well im going to do it, i just want to know the best way, i have 16lbs of contaminated mercury that i would like to be purified so unless you have a better idea on how to do this im going to distill it

Stainless steel doesn't amalgamate and it's a lot tougher than glass.

However my best advice would be: don't do this anyway.

dont do it with stainless or do you mean dont do it at all?

so i have LOTS of mercury, well about 16lbs and i think it might be contaminated with lead and would like to distill it.

my question is do i have to use a glass/pyrex setup or can i make something out of metal? i know glass would be the best but its expensive, but i dont want to make a metal one and end up contaminating the mercury with the metal in the setup., plus if i make one out of metal i can take it to a HAZMAT disposal site when im done (assuming it didnt cost me that much to build)

i am well aware of the dangers of mercury and mainly its vapor and i will take all the required steps to prevent any or as littlle as possible escape of mercury and its vapors

first off this is not home work, and second i hope i put this in the correct area if not i am sorry

so i have an alloy i made that is made up of coin silver (90%Ag and 10%Cu) and Tin

now i should have recorded the amounts of each i put in when i made it but i didnt so now i would like to know is there any way to mathematically figure out how much coin silver and how much tin is in the sample? i just want to know how much "coin silver" and how much tin is in the sample i dont need how much copper, silver and tin. (i hope that makes sense)

so the density of coin silver is 10.339g/cm3 (calculated by multiplying the density of silver and copper by the percentage of each in the coin (.90 * 10.5) + (.10* 8.89)= 10.339g/cm3) i believe that is the correct way to do it

the density of tin is 7.365g/cm3

the density of my sample is 8.454g/cm3

its mass is 30.9g

volume is 3.655cm3

i would really like to know how to solve it as opposed to just giving me the answer.

i dont even know if it is possible to figure out, im pretty sure it is but i have no idea how

i actually did a test with HCL with a known sample of .9995 pure Chromium and my large rectangular piece and they both reacted the same. i only let them sit in the HCL for a short period so i was able to easily remove the (for a lack of a better word) "tarnish"

so now im as 99% sure its pure chromium

i will try the conductivity idea though just for fun

so i have a rather large chunk of chromium, well atleast thats what the seller claims it to be. i have no reason to doubt that it is chromium but i want to be positive or as positive as possible without getting it tested by expensive machines.

i weighed it and it on a digital scale that is accurate to 0.1g and it weighed in at 130.8grams based on my measurements with my digital caliper it has a volume of 18.153396 and should weight 130.55291724 (and yes i know the all the extra decimal places are pointless, but im just putting down the exact numbers i got) the rectangle isnt perfect and my tools are not very expensive; so i believe that the density is consistent with the density of pure chromium.

some stainless steels are about the same density and if this item isnt pure chromium i think it would be a type of stainless steel.

it does not stick to a very powerful rare earth magnet, but neither do some stainless steels so that doesnt help much

are there any other tests i can do to help verify the sample?

anyone?

thank you both,

i was thinking it would be different even if is only a very small amount....i just love i when my random thoughts are correct

does the atomic spectrum emission or absorption by an ionized element change with different isotopes?

like would tritium have different atomic spectral lines then hydrogen1 or deuterium?

sorry just a random thought that popped into my head

is the "branch ratio" the other mode of decay?

in the link you posted about half lives it says

Half life: 1.405E10 years

Mode of decay: Alpha to Ra-228

Decay energy: 4.083 MeV

Mode of decay: SF

Branch ratio: <1.0E-9 %

so all but 1.0E9 percent is alpha radiation and <1.0E-9 % is spontaneous fission

thank you for all your help

one last question if an element decays by alpha and bete like 70% alpha 30% beta, do i take 70% of the number of decays to figure total alpha paricles?

by unit of time do you mean the total half life or the unit i use to descibe the half life

so is it 1 year

or

14.05 billion years <half life of thorium

Typo, sorry. It's almost as if those are adjacent on the keyboard or something

 

ln(2) = 0.693 is correct

and is my answer total number of alpha particles? if so whats the time frame

"my thorium dioxide is 99.9995% pure, it is a VERY pure sample"

I'm willing to bet that it isn't.

They usually quote analyses like that on a "metals" basis.

There's likely to be more than 5 ppm of water in it.

yes this thorium dioxide is 99.9995% pure on a metals basis, i thought that was pretty much a given

water is very easy to drive off when the melting point of said oxide is 3300 C

that is still a VERY pure sample

do you have an answer to my other questions through?