Arthur Dent

The scariest mofo is indeed ClF3... out of control reactive with almost everything! Even the most basic handling of this stuff requires dramatic precautions and if there's a leak of this stuff in a lab... kiss the lab goodbye and run away like you're doing the 100 meter sprint! The scariest stuff I own is HNO3. I greatly respect the 2.5 L glass bottle I have. Robert

Mmmh, okay... http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/loopy.htm or http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/garble.htm LOL Robert

Oops, Didn't notice that. Sorry! My knowledge of removing impurities in Manganese salts is limited to the removal of solubles from insolubles. Ferric and Manganese chlorides would look to me as pretty hard to separate from one another... Robert

My recommendation would be to wash the MnO2 with some diluted acetic acid, which will clean off some of the other metal impurities, wash it again with plenty of distilled water, then one last wash with dilute HCl (iron impurities will react with the Cl along with very little Manganese, leaving the unreacted MnO2 nearly free of iron). Then you'll be ready for the big mean MnO2/conc. HCl reaction. Do this outside or in a fume hood, mucho Cl comes out of that reaction. Robert

As stated above, in plain words, the occasional chemistry hobbyist simply can't. Producing metallic sodium, potassium, cesium or lithium from their respective salts is nearly impossible because these metals are utterly reactive and involves intense heat to actually melt the salt, then under an inert gas, electrolyse the molten salt, resulting in ultra hot, highly reactive acidic gas and a ultra hot, highly reactive alkaline metal that just beg to recombine as fast as they've been separated... Your best bet is finding a source in your area that sells the metal directly. Robert

And with the resulting metal you can build a BMW mini-cooper! - Robert

Huh? $350? The current value of an ounce troy of pure .999 silver is $19.17 as of this morning! Where do you get your silver? I don't think you're buying if from the right place that's for sure! Even United Nuclear (which is known for their expensive prices) sells 2.6 g of pure silver for $2.50... that's less than $30 an ounce! Robert

Indeed, the acids have to be concentrated. But I believe that "technical grade" Nitric Acid 42 BÉ (67%) is enough. The HCl can be 20 BÉ (32%) The ratio is approximately 1 part HNO3 for 3 parts HCl. I tried it and it works. The yellowish fumes are not that intense, but are still extremely toxic and pungent. One whiff and it'll have you choking and tearing up. Do this mixture outside and up wind (ideally in a ventilated laboratory fume hood, but not everyone has one of those ). It is a monstrous acid... it will eat up any metal, so your precious metals will be dissolved with whatever metal (copper, iron) is also included. Be very careful and work with goggles and gloves, even a tiny drop on your skin or in an eye will result in a world of hurt! - Robert

I have prepared a solution of Nickel Chloride by dropping some Nickel metal shavings in concentrated HCl, and after a few days, the result is a bright, dark emerald green liquid, that still contains a lot of hydrochloric acid. What would be the best way to neutralize the HCl without contaminating the solution with another salt? What i mean to say is the logical choice would be to add some NaOH until I get a 7.0 PH, but it would create unwanted NaCl in my relatively pure solution (I used reagent grade HCl and 99.9% pure Ni). I thought of boiling off the solution but I don't know if I would succesfully drive off all the remaining HCl from my NiCl2. And I don't think that fractional crystallization would work since NiCl2 and NaCl are both highly soluble. Anyway, I have never tried that process. Thanks for any and all advice. Robert

I have read that Potassium perchlorate has very little solubility in water, but is there a solvent that will efficiently dissolve KClO4 ? More importantly, are there incompatibilities with solvents such as acetone, ethanol, methanol or isopropanol? Will any of these dissolve KCLO4 more efficiently than water? Robert

A very interesting thread! Given your doomsday scenario, I believe that the ingenosity of some people would ensure their survival. All the building blocks of a "new society" could be salvaged from the remains of the old society. Anything from chemicals, metals, equipment, building materials, could be recycled in some way: Calcium Sulfate could be salvaged from the gypsum panels from old buildings to make plaster of paris, beach sand, with lime and a few additives, can be turned ito cement. Literally millions of tons of plastics could be collected, melted, distilled into various polymers and hydrocarbons. Sea water, when distilled, could provide sea salt, composed of salts of Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium... food supplements, vitamins and medication could be harvested from even the simplest vegetation. Old electronic equipment could provide the components for tools and devices, old gas cylinders could be used to make vacuum chambers. The list is endless. A person with a good sense of "McGuiver-ism" could certainly survive even in the harshest of climates. Bear Grylls could certainly give us a few lessons how to keep cool with his pee and build a condo out of dirt and twine, LOL! - Robert

Wait... how can this be the biggest? Isn't Canis Majoris supposed to be around 2000 times the size of the sun? - Robert

My first idea would be to find out what material is the stopper made of, and find a solvent that would "attack" the stopper, if it's neoprene, maybe some methyl ethyl ketone, or toluene would soften it enough to cut away its edges with an xacto blade attached to a dowel and it would just fall out when turned upside down. If it's cork, maybe just a bit of conc. HCl. If it's teflon... well, you got me there! LOL - Robert

Of course, I know that H202 can be bought at the drug store or even at the dollar store, 500 ml for a buck. But that's 3% solution in water... what i'm looking for is the higher concentration Hydrogen Peroxide, the 27% to 32% stuff that is really hard to find (I checked several hair products shops/pool supplies shops in my region and no one carries that stuff). And I know that H2O2 is NOTORIOUSLY hard (and dangerous) to attempt to distill, since concentrated H2O2 has this nasty habit of exploding when submitted to high heat! I just need some of the more concentrated stuff because some precious metal salvaging processes call for concentrated H2O2. As for the dyes, you haven't lived before you have seen a nitrogen laser excite a fluorescent dye tank that starts "lasing" the most magnificent colors you can imagine! One of my cold autumn days projects! Check this cool video: Robert

Sorry to bring this topic again, but I recently came into a batch of those small "bracelet-type" glowsticks. it was the unused remains of a party, about 100 of them. So I thought to myself "cool, i'll be able to retrieve the individual chemicals from these and put them to good use". The H2O2 is always very useful in high concentrations to precipitate the iodine in a solution, i'll have a bunch of different dyes I can use for my future plans for a nitrogen laser, and I know that TCPO is hard to make and expensive (I have basically no use for it, but heck, if I ever need it...) So I decided to start "disassembling" these little glowsticks, always being careful and wearing goggles and gloves, because I know that I don't want H2O2 spilling on my fingers or in my eyes! EEk! I was very careful with the x-acto knife because the extremely thin glass tube containing the dye look so fragile. I opened 10 of them and was disappointed by the results, the walls of the plastic tube are rather thick and fit the glass tube rather snugly, so the content of H2O2 for each plastic tube is rather minuscule, barely 0.5 ml per stick. So If I go through all of them, i'll probably end up with 45/50 ml at the most! Mmhhh. not a good start. So I have 10 sealed glass capillary tubes filled with the fluorescent dyes, and my intention is to keep the various colors together and try to find some way to harvest their content. I'll also save a few of the glass capillary tubing, it's always a useful in a lab. But first off, I just want to make sure what chemicals I'm dealing with, because i've seen various threads and several different "chemical" mixtures for glowsticks. Please correct me if I'm wrong but here goes: 1) The outer plastic tube contains 27% H2O2 2) The inner glass capillary tube contains Diphenyl Oxalate and the dye (for example 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene for the yellow ones) That's it I believe, are there other chemicals I should be aware of? Is there a way to separate the Diphenyl Oxalate from the dye? I have see the larger "rave type" glow sticks that have a diameter of 10mm, do these have larger quantities of H2O2? Sorry if this has been addressed previously, but I just want to make sure the reward is worth the effort because so far, the yield is rather minimal... Robert