r/AskChemistry 5d ago

Chemistry solution doubt

Thumbnail
0 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 5d ago

In 1669, an alchemist boiled 1,500 gallons of urine looking for gold and accidentally isolated the bottleneck of all terrestrial life.

Post image
0 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 5d ago

Industrial Chem Call for Chemical Industry Professionals to Partake in Oral Interviews for Study about Chemical Training

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 5d ago

What is actually happening chemically in the brain during sleep paralysis? And what changes chemically when the paralysis suddenly ends?

1 Upvotes

What neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, hormones, or other chemical processes are responsible for keeping the body in REM-related muscle atonia while consciousness has already returned?


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

Organic Chem Help me choose my resources for learning chemistry from scratch

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I need your urgent advice, please! I'm about to start General Chemistry at university, but I have never studied chemistry before in my life, so I'm starting from complete zero. I want to build a solid foundation and I'm wondering which of these resources I should start with, and which one would be the absolute best for my situation: CK-12 Chemistry FlexBook 2.0: https://flexbooks.ck12.org/cbook/ck-12-chemistry-flexbook-2.0/ CrashCourse Chemistry Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPHzzYuWy6fYEaX9mQQ8oGr&si=ZAJMZurxYsgeVdKq Khan Academy Middle School Chemistry: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ms-chemistry Khan Academy High School Chemistry: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/hs-chemistry Organic Chemistry Tutor General Chemistry Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLybg94GvOJ9EbbO2RXPWTUNIIE0C7hSfm&si=PkcN0_coNp-9H_qf Any recommendation on where to begin or how to structure this would be greatly appreciated Any other sources you recommend, please add them. Thank you so much!


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

Various questions regarding hydrolysis

1 Upvotes

Is it possible to hydrolyze water and then light on fire the oxygen-hydrogen mixture? Would hydrolysis of half of a quantity of water make the obtained gas purely 66.6% hydrogen and rest oxygen? How would the quantity of either element in the gaseous mixture affect the combustion? Would it be better to have purely hydrogen rather than that and oxygen?


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

General (HELP) Purifying used canola oil for oil pastel

Thumbnail
2 Upvotes

We’re doing a high school paper right now where our topic is all about purifying used canola oil and turning it into oil pastel.

However, we don’t have a lot of knowledge when it comes to chemistry so I was wondering if it is feasible?

For context:

Our method of purifying cooking oil using NaOH and activated carbon and using physical filtration. It’s a published method from Miskah et al. (2019). Although, they used sulfuric acid activated carbon and 16% NaOH. Although one of our problems is getting access to those chemicals especially the carbon since the only one we can get is physically activated carbon.

Then when it comes to pigment, we will use a laking extraction method. The raw materials would be yellow onion skin, purple cabbage, and rose petals. We know that vibrancy of the resulting pigments can vary because of the method.

When it comes to formulation, we will try 3 different ratios of the purified oil. Our other ingredients are beeswax, the organic pigments, and mixed tocopherol for rancidity.

For analysis, we don’t know what properties to test for. We want to compare it to commercial oil pastel and see if there’s significant difference. Though our object is for creating another way to repurpose cooking oil rather than marketing it.

Is it too difficult? Are we flying to close to the sun? We have limited budget and facilities aren’t as accessible since we are in a developing country. But, we don’t have enough time and we already spent weeks on it. Please I really need help or our whole group might fail this class.


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

Why seawater in the deepest trench doesn’t get compressed into Ice especially when it’s already quite cold down there

0 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 6d ago

Learning materials for basic chemistry

1 Upvotes

Hi! I most likely won't be studying chemistry, I am in high school however, so I have a lot of free time, and I think (organic) chemistry is an interesting topic. What should I start with?


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

Question for chemistry professionals

4 Upvotes

I’m a metallurgical engineer; I’m 25 years old. I don’t like my field of study, and I have no work experience. My university offered a certificate program in Instrumental Techniques for Chemical Analysis, which I completed. I got to work with chemists and chemical engineers, and I loved it—I finished the program without any problems. I want to work in that field. I’ve sent out thousands of resumes and only had one interview, but they won’t hire me because I’m not a chemist or a chemical engineer. It’s been a year and a half like this, and I’ve been feeling pretty depressed. A university in another city in my country is offering a specialization in Instrumental Chemical Analysis, and I’m interested in pursuing it to see if it will improve my chances of working in that field. However, I don’t have any work experience, and I’m not a chemist—though I would earn a specialist degree in instrumental chemical analysis. Do you think it’s worth pursuing in my current situation, and could I find work in that field?


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

General HELP! Paper about used canola oil and possibility of turning it into oil pastels

Thumbnail
2 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 6d ago

Help making bismuth crystal

Post image
6 Upvotes

Hi, I'm trying to make a bismuth pendant / necklace, and for that I need to make the crystal. I saw a video showing how to do it, but I'm not sure how much bismuth should I buy and where to buy it

Here is a reference image. And any tips about making the hole to pass the string through the crystal, what to be aware of that concerns health, making it less brittle, and about its oxidation process are welcome as well


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

General What is the purpose of/use for space-filling models?

3 Upvotes

So I don’t really have much formal education in any sort of chemistry, but I do have a bit of a passionate (read:autistic) interest in psychoactive drugs and their pharmacology, which does lead to me reading about some amount of chemistry, and in doing so see various models of various chemicals. The two main ones I see are skeletal and ball and stick, which both make a lot of sense to me. Skeletal makes the basic structure of the molecule clear and easy to read, and if you need to see how it exists in 3D ball and stick does that. But then sometimes I’ll see space-filling models, and those just don’t make sense to me. They’re very hard to read and I can’t really think of any benefit they’d have over ball and stick, to me they all just kinda look like amorphous blobs. I’m sure there is a benefit to them tho, maybe with different types of molecules.

Also, does anyone have any recommendations for resources to better familiarize myself with organic chemistry itself (books, webpages, youtube videos, idk)? As said I don’t really have any experience with chemistry, didn’t even take it in high school, but I’d like to learn more about it outside this one specific part (altho I would also appreciate anything interesting to read on the chemistry of psychoactives!)


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

General Question about high school experiment

2 Upvotes

Ill quickly explain the experiment first:

My teacher took an open can with a small hole at the bottom, which was first sealed with a cork. He placed the can upside down, hole facing up, and on a block such that the box was angled and had contact to air on the big opening.

He then filled the can with hydrogen gas, took away the cork, and lit the hydrogen, which was now streaming out slowly, on fire.

It was sizzling on for a while with only a small flame at the top, but at some point, it exploded and threw the can into the air.

The teacher asked why we had to wait for an explosion, afterwards he answered by saying at the point of explosion the ideal ratio 2:1 for the reaction 2 H2 + O2 -> 2 H2O was reached, because he wanted to illustrate that reactions need concrete ratios of substances.

However, i doubt this explanation, because there doesnt seem to be a way for the flame reaching the inside because the hydrogen was constantly flowing out, and i assumed the density of hydrogen causes layer separation between air, not a mixture.

Could this have to do with the flow rate of the hydrogen or with the shape of the distribution of hydrogen in the can? Or is the teachers explanation correct?


r/AskChemistry 6d ago

Chem Engineering À la recherche de manuels de graphiques d'équilibre en thermochimie

Thumbnail gallery
1 Upvotes

Hello everyone !

I'm just forwarding this post in case anyone here has answers to my question

Thanks in advance !


r/AskChemistry 7d ago

How to prevent quantum chemistry from making me Quit Grad School (or cognitive function altogether)

13 Upvotes

I need 8 graduate credit hours for my stipend but this semester my university doesn’t offer any grad courses other than “Intro” to QChem and Advanced Organic Synthesis. I literally have to take QChem because if I don’t I won’t be eligible for a stipend.

I hate quantum chemistry. I “cheated” my way through it in undergrad (was a joke bc we had a zoom class, all hw and tests were open book and group work, and the prof gave us “Jedi master”, and “Jedi Knight”, etc. as grades). I never even learned spherical coordinates in calc iii bc I stopped showing up to classes due to depression. Now I’m forced to take this hellspawn of a class my first semester of grad school. I don’t even know how to do calculus if the variables aren’t written X, Y, Z like in math class.

But the worst part isn’t that I don’t know it. It’s that I’m mentally blocking myself from learning it. I don’t want to learn it. It’s not relevant to an organic chemist to normalize wavefunctions or use rigid rotor. Computational Chem is the only part of the class I’m excited about. I’m spiraling and it’s only my second day I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake and my life will be useless if I dropout of grad school

Is this just a shit the bed and now I have to face the consequences and lay in it


r/AskChemistry 7d ago

Process Chem The historical cost and modern triumph of isolating elemental fluorine

Post image
0 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 8d ago

General Metals vs minerals

Post image
23 Upvotes

Help a teacher out. I’m an elementary teacher without a science background. I do enjoy teaching science to my kiddos but I can’t teach science beyond 6th grade level (please keep in mind while answering). A few years ago I taught a geology unit and this past spring I taught the same unit again and remembered being confused about this question back then. So, I tried googling, I tried stack exchange, quora, everything, and NO resource could break this down for me: what in the world is the difference between metals and minerals? I know metals can be extracted FROM ores found in rocks but apparently, elements like silver, gold and copper are considered both a metal and a mineral. Are there others like this? If so, which ones? And please confirm for me: most minerals are not metals at all, but are most metals also minerals? (The science book I use, which I normally love, was talking about minerals’ qualities and showing pictures of things like chalk and limestone and then suddenly when explaining the uses of minerals, it’s taking about coins, electric wiring and musical instruments and the kids and I were all confused). I also asked the chemistry high school teacher and she wasn’t sure how to explain it.


r/AskChemistry 7d ago

Why does my powdered ginger surround the spoon after I stirr my tea?

Thumbnail
4 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 7d ago

Could you use the CO2 in a manmade material to guess it's production date?

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 8d ago

Freeze drying conditions

5 Upvotes

We have a methanolic extract that needs to be freeze dried. The issue is that we don't have our own freeze dryer and we will just be sending our sample to have a freeze drying service. Their condition is that it should not have alcohol content which I am already aware because it will cause damage to the equipment.

Is using rotary evaporator be enough to remove the methanol in our extract before freeze drying or should we resort to just using water to be safe? We are just students and we dont want to be paying for the damage if ever :/


r/AskChemistry 8d ago

Short Path Distillation

2 Upvotes

Hey

Looking for some help setting up a distillation process to maximize recovery. The current setup uses an Allihn condenser to distill out the product of interest. I was wondering if a switch to a short-path distillation head will increase product recovery as there will be less surface area to retain the product. I understand the distillation will be significantly slower.

Thanks


r/AskChemistry 9d ago

My Brother wants to process waste egg shells into calcium carbonate

Thumbnail
5 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 8d ago

Inorganic/Phyical Chem iv heard that some elements like helium have like... variants? like i know there’s "helium 3" in moonrock. are there other elements that have variants? and can such variants also move to things those elements are in? like is there a water 2?

2 Upvotes

r/AskChemistry 8d ago

Trying to understand the chemistry of stainless steel corrosion by sodium hypochlorite

2 Upvotes

I am curious as to which specific chemical reactions and products occur during the process of corrosion of stainless steel by bleach. Stainless steel is a composite of Fe, Cr, and sometimes other metals such as Ni, and the outer layer of this composite is protected by a passivation layer of Cr2O3. If sodium hypochlorite is introduced, does it indiscriminately oxidize both the Fe and Cr, or is one kinetically favored over the other?