thermonub

why do you think i keep my five pounds of it soaking wet? . I don't need to make more NC, I just want to learn how to do what seems to be like a useful technique. I was just using NC as an example. I know during a nitration you want to keep your reaction vessel very cold so as to not create a runaway reaction. I know that with NG (I don't know about NC) you have to make sure its ph is neutral otherwise it becomes even more unstable. I'm sure i can go on. thermonub

hey, I'm pretty much a novice at chemistry but i was wondering how you go about calculating the amount of chemicals for a nitration. Say i wanted to nitrate cellulose ( i know there are tons of recipes but i want to figure out how to do it myself:eyebrow: ) how would i calculate how much KNO3, H2SO4 and cotton to use? (I don't have HNO3) thanks for your time, thermonub

Hey, I just made a KOH solution and dropped a nice chunk of dry ice in it and then evaporated the water. thermonub

what's so special about sulfuric acid that makes it boil and splatter when water is added to it? and why are many reactions involving h2so4 exothermic?

i'm sorry, I wasn't aware of what the opposite of inert was.

hey, I recently bought some Amazing! liquid fire drain unblocker with concentrated sulfuric acid. it's a dark brown oily liquid (which I think is what normal sulfuric acid looks like) I was wondering if anybofy knew the concentration, purity or the "nertness" (as in not inert) of the other chemicals that could possibly be in the drain cleaner. thanks in advance.

if your wondering what acid it was it was probably trichloroacetic acid. my dads a dermotologist and he uses that stuff to get rid of warts and stuff.

anybody have some not so common alternate energy ideas for a school project?

one fun water iniitiating reaction is such: mix 1.5 grams of ammonium chloride with 14 grams of ammonium nitrate. then add 34.5 grams of zinc (you could probably use a little less zinc and still have a good reaction) take the mixture outside or put it in a fume hood and drop several drops of water on the mixture and it will burst into green flames. I got the recipe from united nuclear. i'm not sure why it has a green flame because the only ions i know to make green are boron and maybe something else.... have fun

the reactor that that 17 yearold recently built...... im mostly looking for advice on sicknasty alternate energy projects

How difficult is it to make a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor? I don't have any experience with reactors so i don't think i want to get into building one. I want to find a really interesting alternate energy project for school. I'm looking for something cooler then a solar hot dog cooker, a solar powered car or a wind turbine. any ideas welcomed. thanks

for all of those poeple who have read the Radioactive Boyscout by Ken Silverstein, on page 151, he describes how david used a "lithium replacement" method, where he heated a lithium strip with potassium nitrate and ended up with a potssium strip and lithium nitrate powder. is it possible for a reaction to happen so cleanly like that where lithium and potassium atoms replace themselves exactly so you have a potassium strip and lithium powder? if so, how do you go about doing this? thanks

lance got nitric acid. heat egual amounts of potasium nitrate and sodium bisulfate (sodium hydrogen sulfate) together to get NO2. then just transfer the NO2 to some water and viola, you got nitric acid. the NO2 dissolves very easily in the water. some caveats: use glass stoppers, NO2 will dissolve rubber ( i kow from experience) and NO2 is a pullatant and 2 grams will kill you have fun

"Anyway to answer the original question, no. Sorry but you need carefully processed and doped ZnS to get a decent effect" Rats! I heard somewhere about taking smoke detectors aprt being illegal but i hope no body's going to tell anyone:D

would some amercium from a smoke detecter be a usable radiation source?

hey I need a good way to detect alpha particles without using a gieger counter. i know that zinc sulfide will sparkle slightly when hit with alpha particles but does it need to be "activated" or can i use the zinc sulfide i get from burning zinc and sulfur together. thanks for your time.