chilled_fluorine

I came across a article my friend sent me about liquid body armor. It was essentially sheats of kevlar dipped in a Shear thickening fluid (or STF) which hardens almost instantly when force is is applied. Well i was interested in experimenting with this the STF is polyethylene glycol and silica nanoparticles the silica is supposed to be 500nm but I dont know what type or consitency the polyethylene glycol is supposed to be. I know Sigma aldrich has the silica but polyethylene i really am clueless about.

I thought there were several types of PEG, could you try to get a little more specific? Do you want to know where to buy it, or what proportion to mix it in with the silica (or both)? I never knew Sigma Aldrich had nanopowders of anything, I'll have to check that out. If you want to know about the proportions, I'm completely clueless, sorry... This stuff sounds pretty interesting, do you know how much pressure has to be exerted on it to cause hardening? If you just want to play with the stuff, you could use the classic cornstarch and water mix, hardens almost exactly the way you described. Check google for more info, like mixing ratios, can't remember them at this time.

Does anyone know where you can get those bulky 55 gallon oil drums? It would be nice to have a few right about now... **** imperial units, so inconvenient...

Wood gasification.

I don't think your link said how to make wood gas, but it sounds like you could be on to something. Once I had the gas, would I just use a standard hydrogen fuel cell? What about all the CO? Could the fuel cell finish burning that?

There was just a storm here, and I have access to hundreds, more likely thousands of kilos of wood. Is there any way I could use it to make electricity? No, I don't have a sterling engine. Anyways, should I sell it as firewood and use the money to buy petrol for my car, from which I will get electricity? Or could I make some epic carbon-air fuel cell, if such a thing is possible? Doesn't seem too likely that it is, but you have to assume an idea could potentially work, if not, we wouldn't have a chance of inventing anything new... The wood would probably need pyrolysis for purification if it was... Any ideas people?

Which words on this page have had attention drawn to them by putting them in italics?

John, I thought I italicized that myself, I did notice and consider that however. Doesn't set plaster have 9 h2o's? That's what my chem teacher taught me. November, Nonagon, Ununnonium, they all involve(d) 9 (obvious, I know).

One last thing before we can be sure what you have is calcium: Flame test?

If it is, congratulations!

Sorry I took so long. Anyways, I filtered and boiled down the remaining non chlorinated precipitate, got a nice bright orange from it! I'd like it if some other people could try this, to give it a little more credibility from their potential confirmations.

OK, back to the topic.

I really think that trying to prepare calcium by a thermite type reaction is likely to be hazardous.

I therefore do not think it should be done by someone who does not pay attention to what they are doing.

So I don't think that it's a good idea for someone who not only gets utterly the wrong hydration number for Calcium sulphate, but can't spot his error even when it's quoted back at him with the mistake highlighted by italicisation.

 

It's not an issue of formatting.

It's an issue of watching what you are doing, and thinking it through clearly.

 

I invite you to consider the reaction of a little trapped water with white hot Al or Ca and calculate the volume of gas (be it H2 or H2O) formed.

Agreed, it can be dangerous. Mmm... But John my friend, I think you failed to consider that for ignition, I stick a piece of mg in the pile, put a mix of al, s, & kno3 around it, then use a model rocket remote igniter to back up 20 meters before I light any thermite mixture, plus safety goggles that I modded with a uv filter from the eye doctors. Sounds really excessive, I know, but better excessive than molten metal splattered across your face, right? Back at science madness, we didn't point out things in quotes with italics. I'm a complete noob to these science forums conventions.

OK, back to the topic.

I really think that trying to prepare calcium by a thermite type reaction is likely to be hazardous.

I therefore do not think it should be done by someone who does not pay attention to what they are doing.

So I don't think that it's a good idea for someone who not only gets utterly the wrong hydration number for Calcium sulphate, but can't spot his error even when it's quoted back at him with the mistake highlighted by italicisation.

 

It's not an issue of formatting.

It's an issue of watching what you are doing, and thinking it through clearly.

 

I invite you to consider the reaction of a little trapped water with white hot Al or Ca and calculate the volume of gas (be it H2 or H2O) formed.

Learn to spot italicisation.

Does italicising it make a difference? Is that some new convention that I didn't learn in chemistry? I felt like italicising it, so what?Please point out the errors, if any, in a way I can make sense of. Thank you.

http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded

 

Perfect separation is the goal. For example , an amount extracted which is a high percentage of one salt and a low percentage of the other is not the goal. Total purity of extraction is the goal. Industrially there are expensive machines that do a good job of giving a high purity of one or the other salt. Simple tools in a kitchen is difficult.

If you can afford to waste a small portion of the dissolved solids, just allow most of the NaCl to precipitate out through heating/ natural evaporation. Then filter out the NaCl. Wash it in pure isopropyl alcohol to remove excess liquid. For faster "drying", light the pile on fire. Store for later use. Continue to heat / evaporate, and obtain an impure mix of salts, stop when the KCl starts to precipitate. Filter and throw away. Evaporate/ heat until the solution dries up, this should be KCl. Optionally repeat wash steps, there shouldnt be any significant NaCl contaminant. Store for later use. Remember, KCl should color flame purple, NaCl yellow. Oh, I almost forgot, KCl is more soluble than NaCl in hot water, but less in cold water. Sounds strange, but it's supposed to be true. I think the video would work for getting KCl, but the water would have to be cold, and the KCl would need to be washed in isopropyl.

I'm not sure if you're looking for a small-scale project for methane production or if you are looking for a simple way to convert methane to methanol. If the latter, do you remember where you heard that it was easy? I'm not sure that that's an accurate statement.

 

Methane production from organic material is easy to do. Provided you maintain an anaerobic environment, it's a natural waste product of anaerobic digestion. Landfills are frequently required to be contained to prevent ground-water contamination from rain run-off, so all they need to do to capture the methane that is naturally produced is incorporate plumbing as the dump is filled to route the gas and cap off the dump with impermeable membranes to prevent the methane from escaping to the atmosphere. You could do something similar in a plastic, sealed 55 gallon drum with a hose attached to the top leading to an inflatable bag. Ensure there are no leaks in your connections. Nearly completely fill the barrel with organic matter and water and wait. You won't produce much, but it'd be a fun project to explore the processes involved. Google searches on methane digesters may give you more ideas, I'm more familiar with them being located at sewage treatment plants, dairies, feedlots, and other locations where you have a tremendous amount of organic waste that needs to be disposed of.

 

I'm not sure you'd be able to produce syngas from methane at home without a tremendous amount of expense, but I could be wrong.

 

However, you can produce wood alcohol from pyrolysis. I use a home-made retort style kiln to produce biochar from waste wood, but I burn off the released hydrocarbons in the process to help make the char, which is the product I'm after. If instead, you remove those products, you can use them for a different use. I'm not sure you'd be able to refine them at home sufficiently to use them in an application that would require relatively pure methanol though. But again, I may be wrong. Do a google search and search youtube for "retort kiln biochar" for some design ideas.

 

Regardless, unless you have a significant quantity of organic waste, I don't think you'll be able to make this an economical proposition, but on a small-scale, it can be an educational project.

People don't think they can get much organic waste, that is until they go down to a corn farm and ask for 500 kg's of corn stalks, at which time the owners gladly comply.

You article looks accurate enough, but I figure I'd tell you it really sets me of when people cite Wikipedia as a reference. Just don't do it again, and stop muddying up my post with Wikipedia crap.

Mods: Is this acceptable, I am not asking people how they made the stuff, where they got it etc. I'm just wondering what the most dangerous thing you think you've seen / used

 

I saw these when we were clearing out an old cupboard in the chemistry lad last week:

 

I think the most dangerous chemical I have ever seen was something labelled [ce]Hg(ONC)_2[/ce] and it was in the back of one of the school chemistry cupboards... I did some reasearch and this stuff is explosive. My chemistry teacher said he never knew it was there - he said it has probably been there for years, the next day the bomb squad were called up to remove the stuff... I just wish I could have seen it explode!

 

Or... it may have been the really concentrated solution of Hydrogen Peroxide, I've heard that stuff is pretty powerful. My teacher managed to dispose of that one - I'm not shure how he made us leave the room incase of any problems. Apparently it was about 83% concentrated but I'm not shure about that.

 

Edit: then again, the Nitrogen Triiodide reaction was pretty powerful - I'm staying clear of that one too!

 

Anyone else have anything interesting to share? Please do not post how to make the stuff - danger is bad!

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

I saw a sealed tube labeled polonium cyanide, 500 micrograms once at the science center... Sounds insanely poisonous. The polonium makes the CN ion sound so safe. Lol, never thought I would consider cyanide safe.

Well, it stopped raining a while ago so I attempted the experiment. Sorry I couldn't get back until now.Anyways, it went great! I ended up with a dull, oxidized chunk. I did the thermite reaction on a thick steel slab, which likely sucked heat from the reactants until they stopped prematurely. Over half of it burned though, so I took the resultant piece for primitive testing. It gave a metallic sound when tapped against the aforementioned steel slab. It bubbled at a respectable rate when placed in water, slowly turning the solution cloudy white. The solution reacted vigorously with ~38% HCl. The whole chunk reeked of H2S (maybe some leftover sulphides?) . When scratched, it exposed a shiny metal surface. Sounds like calcium! I used 2:1 sulphate to aluminium ratio for the thermite, standard magnesium ribbon ignition. I got photos, but I can't upload them! Ugh... So frustrating!

I've been a Moderator here at SFN for seven years.

 

And of course I'm stalking you. You happen to discuss Chemistry subjects I feel comfortable joining in. Usually I'm just watching John Cuthber's posts sail right over my head.

Seven years? I must seem like such a noob to you. You should check out science madness sometimes. I came to this forum because the people seem to have a little more common sense and technical background. I thought the people here were nicer too, that is until I met John. Why does he freak over azides so bad? Do you know why he acts so grumpy? John seems to be into all that physics stuff, I've never given much thought to it. Is profanity allowed on this forum? It was on SM. Not that I would go out of my way to use it.

Read the link I provided. Methane to syngas is the first step of methane to methanol.

Sorry, my mobile browser can't follow your link. Syngas is H2 and CO mix. There's no O in CH4, so I'm assuming it comes from atmos. O2 right? Would you care to detail the conversion process further? I was told it could be done easily, but was not told how it was done. The whole thing intrigues me.

I'm not sure if you're looking for a small-scale project for methane production or if you are looking for a simple way to convert methane to methanol. If the latter, do you remember where you heard that it was easy? I'm not sure that that's an accurate statement.

 

Methane production from organic material is easy to do. Provided you maintain an anaerobic environment, it's a natural waste product of anaerobic digestion. Landfills are frequently required to be contained to prevent ground-water contamination from rain run-off, so all they need to do to capture the methane that is naturally produced is incorporate plumbing as the dump is filled to route the gas and cap off the dump with impermeable membranes to prevent the methane from escaping to the atmosphere. You could do something similar in a plastic, sealed 55 gallon drum with a hose attached to the top leading to an inflatable bag. Ensure there are no leaks in your connections. Nearly completely fill the barrel with organic matter and water and wait. You won't produce much, but it'd be a fun project to explore the processes involved. Google searches on methane digesters may give you more ideas, I'm more familiar with them being located at sewage treatment plants, dairies, feedlots, and other locations where you have a tremendous amount of organic waste that needs to be disposed of.

 

I'm not sure you'd be able to produce syngas from methane at home without a tremendous amount of expense, but I could be wrong.

 

However, you can produce wood alcohol from pyrolysis. I use a home-made retort style kiln to produce biochar from waste wood, but I burn off the released hydrocarbons in the process to help make the char, which is the product I'm after. If instead, you remove those products, you can use them for a different use. I'm not sure you'd be able to refine them at home sufficiently to use them in an application that would require relatively pure methanol though. But again, I may be wrong. Do a google search and search youtube for "retort kiln biochar" for some design ideas.

 

Regardless, unless you have a significant quantity of organic waste, I don't think you'll be able to make this an economical proposition, but on a small-scale, it can be an educational project.

I'm looking for a simple way to make methane, it would be convenient to store it as a denser, liquid fuel. I was a little skeptical about the conversion to methanol, although one hydrocarbon to another doesn't sound too outlandish to me. I just picked biogas because I want fuel from my organic matter. If you have better ideas for a decently combustible liquid, I would much prefer them. Did I say anything about syngas? Why did you mention it? I wouldn't care if my methanol was impure, so long as it would burn hot enough, so I'll look for retort kiln biochar.

Using methane(natural gas) is an easy way. If organic stuff to methanol converting is easy, why many bio-ethanol company make ethanol from the expensive corn?

Considering as biogas is mostly methane, yes, I agree completely. It is very easy to get methane from methane. I want to make methane. Not buy it from big oil (maybe big natural gas...). Or make it from itself? Please tell me how to make it, and in a way I specified. Read Phi's comment about agr. subs.

Agricultural subsidies.

True.

Phi, are you stalking me or something? It seems like you have responded to every one of my posts, however numbered they are... For that matter, I think I'm yet to find any post you haven't been on. You use this site a lot don't you?

Okay, I want to make biogas. I've got a ton of organic stuff (yard waste and dog crap) that would be fun to do something useful with. Does anybody out there have a cheap, simple way of making it for someone with no ability to fabricate custom parts? I don't think i have any way to compress the gas for storage, but I've heard you can easily convert it to methanol. I just want to make a practical apparatus for home production.

"John, let's just agree that you can never be too careful. You have to take some risks in life, but I agree this one is not absolutely necessary. Are you per chance one of those people who is to afraid to cross the street, because they "might" get hit by a car"

 

Nope, I'm someone who works with explosives from time to time: but I'm still alive. Likewise.

I'm the sort of person who doesn't try to make something quite hazardous (like Na) by starting with something even more hazardous (like the azide). I agree there are safer ways of making sodium, but the powder specifically? Do you have any safer ideas for doing that? Please tell me if you do.

It's a bit like wanting to cross the street but choosing to be fired from a cannon, because that way you are in transit for only a short time and are less likely to be hit by a car. Because I want sodium powder, until you can come up with a safer way to make sodium powder, your metaphor is invalid, albeit clever.

 

Good luck finding any sort of validation data for gloves + respirators for this stuff.

Also, you might want to look up the rate of transdermal absorption (if you can find any data for that). Remember that the stuff is in a sealed compartment, so there is no reason you can't take it out and open it up in a glove box, or even under mineral oil. Why would the stuff get on my dermis? Maybe if it exploded? If it exploded, there wouldn't be any more azide, because it exploded.

Well, it cost them money to get that "garbage" there in the first place, so they usually try to recoup those costs and then some. I think you're confusing an auto salvage yard with a landfill. Auto salvage yards strip everything that's still in decent condition off the cars and then either compact it or shred it to sell for scrap metal. It's a great place to go if you're looking for headlights and mechanisms like steering linkages and alternators that are often still usable even after accidents.

 

But make no mistake, these places are in it for the money. One man's garbage is another man's treasure, especially if another man is trying to restore his classic 60's muscle car. And brand new airbags sell for upwards of $1500 just for the parts, with a couple hours labor to install.

I'm not sure what the place is called, I'm just glad I get free stuff!

Weeeeell, glad we could... help.

 

You shouldn't have any problems finding some free sodium azide, then. I wish you more luck than most.

:chuckles: Thanks phi, it's the comments like that which make my day.Seriously though, they make you pay to take their garbage? I'll have to take my fill of stuff before they change their policies.

I read somewhere that you can make calcium metal by reacting powdered aluminium and calcium sulphate ( from plaster ) in a typical thermite reaction. It just so happens that I want some calcium metal right now, so I thought I'd try it. I crushed up some already set plaster (calcium sulphate nonahydrate I'm pretty sure) and now I plan on heating it until it drys to the dihydrate or anhydride. Which hydrate ( or the anhydride ) do you think would work best? I would guess the anhydride, the water is just one more thing to potentially ruin the batch. I'm really hoping this will work. Anyways, I'll get to it and keep you posted. No matter how trivial it is, I'd like to have your input on this.

I just dehydrated the caso4 by heating with a small butane torch (or at least I hope I dehydrated it). The next step would be to mix with al and light it up... but nature had to ruin the fun and start it raining. I'll wait a while for it to stop. In the meantime, I might do a few purity checks on the dehydrated caso4, grind it up a little finer.This is completely random, but when I was heating some stainless steel mesh with the torch, I found that if you press the head of it against the mesh the flame will go through... If you try to pull it away again, the actuall flame will stay on the other side of the mesh. Try it. It looks pretty cool.Oh, sorry I can't get any pictures up for now, my camera is so stubborn.

Learn to count water molecules first.

Did I make an error? It wouldn't surprise me too much. Would you mind pointing it out to me, I don't see it? I've never had an excuse to do anything with calcium sulphate before, so I really don't know too much about it. You may notice I said "pretty sure". Again, thanks for your input.

I read somewhere that you can make calcium metal by reacting powdered aluminium and calcium sulphate ( from plaster ) in a typical thermite reaction. It just so happens that I want some calcium metal right now, so I thought I'd try it. I crushed up some already set plaster (calcium sulphate nonahydrate I'm pretty sure) and now I plan on heating it until it drys to the dihydrate or anhydride. Which hydrate ( or the anhydride ) do you think would work best? I would guess the anhydride, the water is just one more thing to potentially ruin the batch. I'm really hoping this will work. Anyways, I'll get to it and keep you posted. No matter how trivial it is, I'd like to have your input on this.

John, let's just agree that you can never be too careful. You have to take some risks in life, but I agree this one is not absolutely necessary. Are you per chance one of those people who is to afraid to cross the street, because they "might" get hit by a car

Phi, I thought you might say something about negligence. All though I've only gone to one, it seems like our junkyard is open to scrappers and the general public, and the man in charge let's me have whatever I want, no payment required. They are a bit cluttered, and just want to get rid of all that stuff. I never even considered they would make you pay for all that "garbage". Sounds like I have things luckier than most.

For liability reasons, at least in my state in the US, no. They won't let you remove a potentially explosive part on their property since you aren't covered by their insurance. If the junkyard is licensed to remove it and allowed to sell it, it will probably won't be cheap (but cheaper than new, of course).

 

Many US states make it illegal to sell airbags that haven't been rebuilt to certain specifications. They assume you want it to put in a vehicle, not get the chemicals out of it. You could let them know that's what you want it for, and then you would be subject to a whole different set of laws.

 

 

I think they purposely hide them from people who can't figure out how to find them.

I suppose I could find one, but I wouldn't know where to start. With a little bit of research, I'm sure it would be easy enough. I've heard there are websites out there for finding them. May I ask what state that is? Laws about potentially dangerous chems. are notoriously less strict here than in other parts of the usa. Couldn't I just sign one of their fancy waivers that say you can't sue them? To get into regular junkyards here, they make you sign one anyways. And in case anyone was going to ask, I don't want to make a bomb.

Check the obituary columns for people who died from azide poisoning, then contact their next of kin.

If you're trying to imply I don't know how to handle azides, you're wrong. If you actually want me to try that, that's really morbid, and I don't think there's been an azide poisoning in my state since the 90's.

What do Australia and Mc Donalds have in common?

 

They're both run by red headed clowns.

Wow, don't you think that's a little harsh?

We Use Air to power cars. There will be air vents on the side of the car that pulls air in while your driving.

The air will go into a small air turbine which will generate electricity.

"While your driving"... And what, exactly, starts the car moving in the first place?Any power gained from the moving air will make the car proportionally harder to move, plus energy "lost" through inefficiencies. Your idea is therefore worse than useless... No hard feelings though, right?

I'm going to assume that superconductors are out of the question, right? If it doesn't need to be demagnetized immediately, you could just use iron, and heat it to its curie temperature afterwards. Try 300 C. I'm pretty sure it's less though.

Recently, I lent a friend my small butane torch, it's good for soldering and stuff. It's burns pretty much invisibly during the day, at night with a very pale blue. Anyways, he thought he had put it out, but he hadn't, and he got burned pretty bad. Is there anything I can do to pretty much permanently color the flame? I have access to lots of salts, KCl, NaCl, NaF, KF, even CsF and others. Would making a salt solution, dipping the head of the torch in, and allowing to dry work? How vividly would it color the flame? That is the important part. I can also get my hands on strontium and barium nitrate, as well as their chlorides. And yes, I know fluorides are dangerous, I like to stick to chlorides as much as I can.Thanks everyone, this forum is great.