/r/chemistry
A community for chemists and those who love chemistry
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Past Weekly Topics
/r/chemistry
When benzene is treated with Br2 no reaction is observed but when anthracene is treated with Br2 the product is dibromonated anthracene. What’s the reason?
I would like to be able to carry it around in public though, how long would I be able store liquid nitrogen in a 4 liter hydroflask with a loosely sealed pop off lid?
Hi guys, can anyone help me understand this anomaly? It has shifted C upfield and has done the opposite to H. The others are following a trend (which is expected) except it. If it shifts C upfield, isn't H supposed to be shifted upfield too? Any explanation why this happens?
First thing I have a problem finding the procedure of synthesis Na2HPO4x12H2O from Na2CO3 and H3PO4 I’m thinking that the thing is just not to add too much of reagents so it doesn’t synthesise Na3PO4 but pls correct me if I’m wrong or there’s anything sketchy in the procedure (I just don’t want to do bad in front of the professor) Second nicer one I’m collecting some pleasurable reactions in the type of golden rain if you’d like to share some of your favourites Thank you sooo much for all the help
No worries, I'm not religious. Just curious if it would be theoretically possible. I was thinking about this in terms of chemistry. Obviously water doesn't contain the molecules that wine would contain. But as far as I understand, if you have hydrogen atoms these could be changed into carbon atoms for instance through nuclear fusion?
Is this possible and if so, has anyone ever calculated the supposedly gigantic amount of energy that would be needed to create a gallon of wine in this way?
Hi all,
I have a solution that I need to make. It has a ratio of 50:15:10 of 1-butanol, 95% ethanol, and water. I am unfamiliar with how to know how many milliters of each solution I need to make 1 liter. I am used to easy ratios like 7:3. Any help is appreciated!
Chemists of reddit! I do some lab tech work as part of my job, and have been tasked with replacing a hose that attaches to our Nitrous Oxide tank and runs to our atomic absorption spectrometer. The tech company quoted us super high for a replacement, and I know the hose we have on there is some old bulk hose. However I'm having trouble finding a replacement that I know will be compatible with N2O that doesn't have some fancy connector on it. Unfortunately the old hose doesn't have any useful information written on it, it's a non descript black hose with a blue colored sleeve around it.
Does anyone have any insight on the type of hose I can use to replace the old one, or any good places to but bulk hose for Nitrous Oxide tanks? Any help would be appreciated!
Is it possible to make a solution (basic) then make serial dilutions and check the pH (ie go from expected 12.5 then 1:100 dilution target 10.5 for more probe accuracy) and then after separating the solution into smaller aliquots.. the pH shifts up… ie the same serial dilution a week later reads 11.5? Baffled
Just wondering if anyone has tried using lab filter papers to filter their drip coffee. Does it make a difference? I'm looking at labfiltrationpapers.com and obviously their products are more geared towards the lab side. The idea is that higher quality filter paper may let through more oils versus say a Chemex filter paper. Wondering what ya'll think. [edit link]
Hey, we are designing a rocket that will land into the ocean. To locate the rocket afterwards we are considering using several different mechanisms, one of which being dye markers. However, the dye markers only last for 30-40 minutes. The recovery of the rocket may take way more time than this, as the expected landing is about 3000 meters off shore. My current though is to put the fluorescent powder into some kind of capsule that dissolves with known dissolving rate. And then just have several of these capsules with different thickness. Does anyone have any valuable insight regarding this?
Thanks!
I am a freshmen college student and have started to juggle the idea around of being a chem major. I've always enjoyed and been good at math and started to enjoy chemistry. I'm wondering what kind of jobs are out there for chem majors. Of course there's working in labs but what other jobs do you all have? What does your day to day look like? Is it mostly in the lab?
Having to do experiments and work in a lab with lab partners who don’t communicate and who aren’t team players is so exhausting 😡. They say they want to be doctors, but when they take over experiments and I point out a mistake they argue 😩 they don’t send me the experiment data when they do all of the experiment and take down all the data and leave before I can get it 😭 they don’t answer when I ask to send me the data but you have no problem texting me asking to help them cheat on the exams 😐
These are our future doctors…
Doing a lab cleanup, keep coming across pieces I'm not familiar with. Any help identifying this?
Hi all,
I am working on joining pieces of EPDM roofing together and I have a section where I need a small amount of EPDM primer. This stuff is crazy expensive ($180/gal), looking at the MSDS it seems to be some mixture of xylene, naptha and toulene. Any idea if either of these alone would be sufficient enough for priming of the EPDM?
Thanks!
This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.
If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.
If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.
Whenever I'm working on a reaction or distillation that I have to worry about suck back with as well as wanting to wash the gas coming out of the apparatus, I'll use two gas washing bottles back to back with the wash solution in the 2nd one. That way, the negative pressure from suck back just pulls the solution into the 1st gas washing bottle, then once the positive pressure comes back, it gets pushed forward into the second bottle. This is so much more effective than using an upside down funnel in the washing solution as there's virtually 0% chance of it getting screwed up.
Question - Is there one piece of glassware that can be used to accomplish this same thing? Its sometimes just annoying and takes up extra space to setup two different gas washing bottles. I usually clamp them so that takes up some more hardware. I can't help but think there must be some piece of glassware that does the same thing.
P.S. Here's how I usually have the bottles setup:
I just want to store 3 liters of it, but all I can find are Dewar flasks made for freezing "samples". How could I find one that's just made for LNo or LOX?
I built this set around the 1.5" (38mm) tungsten cube which weighs 1kg. I bought the tungsten (1kg), aluminum (150g) and magnesium (99g) cubes. The copper (500g) and graphite (102g) cubes I bought slightly oversized (40mm) and hand ground them down to size (38mm). The display I made from a piece of scrap douglas fir.
If I understand it correctly, any element that has a positive reduction potential can be obtained by the electrolysis of a salt dissolved in water (given that you have access to a water soluble salt of said element), but elements with a negative reduction potential will produce hydrogen gas and the oxide of the element instead. If this is correct according to the Wikipedia page on the list of reduction potentials the only elements that can be obtained via aqueous electrolysis are:
Au, Pd, Pt, Ag, Cu, Bi, Tl, Hg, and Re
Is this correct, or am I missing something?
Two things that I might not be taking into account are the kinetics, as I'm only looking at the thermodynamics and there could be some of this elements that cannot be produced even if the potential would allow it, and some that maybe can be obtained even if thermodynamically the hydrogen evolution is more favorable; and also the PH of the solution, as the H2 evolution is more favorable in acid conditions, it is possible that increasing the PH gives the metallic element instead of an oxide, maybe I would have to look at each Pourbaix diagram individually to have an idea but I'm not sure if there's an easier way or if that would even be correct or I'm missing something else.
Thank you for your time!
Hey, I have a rather unusual question, namely: Can flexible/soft vinyl be degraded by oils? I am a doll collector and this topic came up on a collectors forum. "soft/flexible vinyl is porous, it "absorbs oils" and using an oil-based or oil-containing product on it is harmful to it. Oils break down vinyl and other soft plastics" Do you know anything about this, and is it true? Thank you so much!
A paper in Chemosphere this month showed toxic levels of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in black colored toys, food containers, and spatulas/utensils. Apparently, this was caused by contamination from recycled plastics used in electronics. Would silicone based kitchen spatulas (of the same color) be at similar risk of containing BFRs?
I have a glass spray bottle that I previously used a Grove Glass Cleaner Concentrate in. When I used up the Grove Glass Cleaner I poured in Windex brand glass cleaner in the bottle, and I'm now noticing that there are flakey, glass-like particles in the bottle.
I still have the original bottle of Windex that I used to fill the glass spray bottle, and there are no particles in the original bottle.
Note: I cannot remember if I washed the reusable glass spray bottle prior to adding the Windex.
Can anyone explain what has happened to the Windex in the glass bottle, and is it dangerous?
HELP PLEASE I just started my first job as a QC chemist, but there is no onboarding or training process.
I would really appreciate the opportunity to ask someone who has worked in the same industry a few questions.
Hi, I'm a physics undergraduate and I wanna learn chemistry. I don't know anything except for the very bare bone basics, what books should I use? For theory and problem solving?
Can I burn Hydrogen balloons this Diwali as an alternative to conventional fireworks ?
I wanna collect different elements (kinda to make my own periodic table with samples from scratch) and I heard that sometimes support wires in tungsten light bulbs are made of molybdenum. How can I check if they are, in fact, made of molybdenum without destroying them? I don't have much equipment at all, either
so this is related to organic chemistry. Which group has more -I strength, -SH (thioalcohol) or -OH (alcohol) I basically had an argument with my chemistry teacher regarding this where he said OH is gonna have a greater -I effect since O is more electronegative than S BUT WHAT ABOUT SURFACE PHENOMENON (sulfur having a larger size and more capability to idk..? hold electron density) Im a highschool student so correct me if im wrong.
Hey everyone! I’m currently working on my thesis, focusing on applied deep learning for hydrogen storage. I’m trying to decide on the best material or system to focus on, and I'm debating between depleted uranium and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). My goal is to apply deep learning techniques to model or optimize hydrogen storage performance.
Here’s a bit about my thought process:
Any advice on which might be better suited for deep learning applications? Or is there another hydrogen storage method/material that might make an even stronger case? Thanks in advance!