/r/homechemistry

Photograph via snooOG

A subreddit for building your own lab at home and doing chemistry in it.

Please try and keep things professional!

I would like to see this site grow into helping one another explore chemistry, since nothing teaches us better than hands on experimentation, but given this is a new subreddit it has the potential to go very bad.

First and foremost, illicit drugs and illegal substances will not be synthesized here. Common reagents that may be controlled I don't mind as much.
Other than that, have fun and help us all out!

Chemicals that may put you on a DEA watch list, pay cash if you can, or synthesize your own.

List of commonly available chemicals thanks to /u/zyks

Search consumer products by chemicals they contain (thx to /u/gfrnk86)

http://www.sciencemadness.org/ Courtesy of /u/MrBurd

Subscripts and Superscripts are in use

Arrows can be copied and pasted from below:

Equilibrium arrow: ⇌

Right arrow: →

Related Subreddits

/r/chemistry

/r/chemicalreactiongifs

/r/homechemistry

8,411 Subscribers

13

Proving myself as the true CobaltEnjoyer

Just finished today this new sample for my collection, it's an ampule of dilute cobalt (II) nitrate that i made and sealed a while back and finally encased it in resin so i can put it on display without having to worry about it breaking. The resin job wasn't really perfect especially on the backside but overall i'm satisfied with the result and as a cobalt connoisseur i'm happy to beeing able to see my beautiful Co2+ red colour everyday

1 Comment
2024/03/28
18:53 UTC

3

Metallic potassium

How do you isolate potassium from potassium gluconate?

16 Comments
2024/03/27
02:26 UTC

3

Reasonably safe and accessible project ideas

As above, what projects would you recommend to a beginner that are accessible without being too basic or boring?

Ive so far grown some copper sulfate crystals and distilled limonene from oranges.

I wanted to get vanillin from ligninsulfonate, but said chemical seems expensive and hard to get in germany.

Anything similar that has extractions and/or organic reactions?

I have:

-hotplate -heating mantle -distillation setup -liebig and dimroth condensers -Some round bottom flasks -various flasks and beakers -separation funnel -gravity filtration equipment -pH paper -Plastic containers -a questionable fumehood -lab stands

-Ethanol -Sodium Hydroxide -HCl -Acetone -Copper Sulfate -Distilled water -3% h2o2

And safety stuff such as coat, goggles labcoat, sand, fire extinguisher, sand and a fire blanket as well as the aforementioned weak fumehood

11 Comments
2024/03/25
19:17 UTC

2

Where do you buy your glassware?

What is a good source for good quality glassware (other than amazon)? Things like erlenmeyer flasks with 24/40 joints.

2 Comments
2024/03/25
16:04 UTC

4

Extracting iodine from povidone - got mud instead

So I'm trying to follow NileRed's video on extracting elemental iodine from betadyne (iodine povidone)

https://youtu.be/FNf8PSda7iI?si=jgxnoeClWvsJqsuY

I followed all the steps, albeit without a stirring hotplate and with cruddy coffee filters. Everything seemed fine until I added the peroxide, at which point it turned into a fluffy brown suspension.

https://imgur.com/a/UlXMk82

I'm wondering if I botched the whole thing or if it can be recovered (possibly by redoing the acid-base conversion from the beginning)?

4 Comments
2024/03/25
15:19 UTC

14

Can Vanillin be obtained from Eugenol using NaOH and H2O2?

My understanding of chemistry is very basic, so I am not sure if I am interpreting this right.

So in the first step here Potassium Hydroxide is used. Could this just be substituted for NaOH? Im guessing the hydroxide is the part actually doing the work?

Then second is an oxidation. So one could use any sufficiently strong oxidizing agent? Like would hydrogen peroxide be applicable?

5 Comments
2024/03/24
12:29 UTC

57

Added a lattice to my workbench

4 Comments
2024/03/23
20:43 UTC

1

Making fire gel at home and have a few questions

I've watched the videos on YouTube https://www.bealsscience.com/post/2017/11/07/fire-gel-fuel-made-from-egg-shells-and-vinegar about making fire gel from egg shells. I did it on a smaller scale made enough for a tea light candle sized amount. Burned it worked well. But was left with white residue in the burn dish.

I've tried to look up what this would be but all the stuff I've found on line stop at it burns and not what is left after the burn

I am sure there is much better chemists out there then me

What's left in my burn dish?

2 Comments
2024/03/20
19:50 UTC

14

Will it separate? Trying to jerry-rig a column

So I went: cotton plug, mystic white pool filter sand, 1 tablespoon of food grade diatomaceous earth, and a light coating of sand atop all with acetone as the eluent. But even with this amount of solid phase the column is soooooo slooow.

Will this work for separating polar products or am I doomed to purchase some big boy silica gel?

19 Comments
2024/03/19
01:40 UTC

6

Anyone know why my 2000mL electric heating and stirring mantle isn’t heating?

8 Comments
2024/03/18
18:12 UTC

22

Soxhlet extraction of Piperine with USP grade IPA. Anyone ever done this?

So here's my setup.. I've never done this extraction before - first time with the soxhlet. Mostly doing it for the crystalization results. 25g of ground peppercorns. Hoping for at least 1g of piperine and I'll consider it a success.

7 Comments
2024/03/16
23:14 UTC

37

How to clean char in round bottom flask

Im new to home chemistry. As a jumping off point I did a distillation of limonene from orange peels, but ended up with some burned orange gunk in my round bottom flask.

I am not quite able to get rid of it all, as pure soap and water didn’t cut it.

Some HCl and in a later attempt, an acetone/ethanol mixture managed to remove a significant amount of the dirt, but there are still a few resiliant last specs left.

I lack a brush that would be able to reach the stained areas. Where do I get one, are there specialized ones for this very purpose?

Do you have any simple equipment or chemicals that could allow me to get my flask all clean again?

22 Comments
2024/03/01
14:19 UTC

17

Making Glow Sticks From Aspirin

2 Comments
2024/03/01
09:19 UTC

3

How to perform a nitrous acid test for water insoluble amine salts? To distinguish primary and secondary amines

0 Comments
2024/02/25
20:33 UTC

1

Has anyone made chloroform from methanol?

Has anyone ever tried to make chloroform directly from methanol by reacting methanol with hydrochloric acid to give chloromethane, and then mixing it with chlorine and subjecting it to UV light e.g from a torch to make chloroform along with dichloromethane and tetrachloromethane?

7 Comments
2024/02/25
15:01 UTC

2

Shed lab

What is your home set up like? Do you have vent hoods, stir bars and plates, a hot plate?

I want to make a home lab someday but Im not sure how to start. Would a beginner chemistry set be enough?

11 Comments
2024/02/23
00:00 UTC

5

Cryocoolers - soliciting opinions

Hi all, My boy has decided he loves chemistry and I'm building a lab with him.

Cryocoolers. Ebay. Who here has experience with an ebay special? Are they any good?

8 Comments
2024/02/16
10:14 UTC

1

Ads

Is acetone good to dissolve asa to separate it from the pill binder.I was told 100% ethanol but cannt get that in Canada

2 Comments
2024/02/14
19:04 UTC

4

Sulfufic acid from h2o2

Hi everyone, im making something that requires sulfuric acid and i dont wanna spend enormous amounts of money and its more fun to make. So SO2+H2O2 gives H2SO4 or atleast what i read, i tried this a while ago but i couldnt get the sulfur to properly burn and what i Got had a pretty high pH, i think it was 4-5, im not sure if it was sulfuric or sulphurus acid, i used about 3% hydrogen peroxied and the setup was pretty grude, i have 30% peroxide now. Will this give me pirahnna solution or sulfuric acid. Thanks for Reading and i know this is a bad idea dont scold me for it

12 Comments
2024/02/10
15:17 UTC

8

Rate my vapor transport

3 Comments
2024/02/08
05:20 UTC

34

I made a high school organic chemistry lab essence

4 Comments
2024/02/07
10:31 UTC

26

That was really stupid

Oops😂 was condensing vcl4 back into flask

3 Comments
2024/02/04
23:26 UTC

5

Input for capsacin extraction

Hello, I was gifted a single Carolina reaper plant somehow managed to grow into a massive plant, gifting me several hundreds mature, red and exceedingly strong peppers.

I have given them away, dried them and made some spicy sauce, but still have around 100g grams of dry peppers. Which should contain around 10g capsacin.

I have decided to try to extract the capsacin just for fun of it - ideally as a pure crystaline extract but my chemistry days are way back so i would like inputs. Most is based on this procedure

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023643814002564

I have a decent homelab, also known as a kitchen. I planned on chrushing the peppers and soak them in 40%v/v EtOH (as it is obtainable for me) with a solvent ratio of 3ml/1g pepper. Soak time for a 12hrs with th ocassional shake in a sousvide at high settings. Extract the supernatant (2ml) and resoak thrice more giving an ideal extraction ratio of 98% (66+22+7+3%)

The supernatant 800ml(4×2ml/g) will then be boil down and then evaporated on tinfoil in a oven at low heat.

Then maybe that residue can be washed with water or something to increade the purity?.

Any inputs? Anything is appreciated.

5 Comments
2024/01/30
18:14 UTC

7

What should I do with a bunch of barium chloride?

I have a bottle of barium chloride at home I needed for making a McFarland Standard (medical lab thing) and I have basically the whole thing left over. Anything I can do with it? Practical or not I just wanna make use out of it

2 Comments
2024/01/21
15:52 UTC

13

How to easily purify hydrochloric acid

0 Comments
2024/01/11
19:04 UTC

6

Pokeberry ink

A bit of a different video then what I normally do. Still turned out fairly interesting. pokeberry ink

3 Comments
2024/01/10
10:48 UTC

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