Rapunzel
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My first lab. What should I pick up?
I finally paid off my debt and have surplus cash to pick up some beginner chemistry equipment. I've taken some chemistry classes but I'm a complete
beginner and I'm reading up.
I learn by doing, so I'd like to start a small hobby lab, but I'm not sure what the first few things I should get will be. Besides the basic glassware
and safety stuff, what chemicals should I pick up?
thanks!
\"Overcome with grief, the prince threw himself from the tower. His fall was broken by some brambles, but they also scratched and blinded
him.\"
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kclo4
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Depends on what sort of chemistry you want to do 
What is it you want to achieve?
My begging chemicals were vinegar, baking soda, Copper sulfate, Potassium Nitrate, Magnesium Sulfate, Aluminum foil, Sodium Chloride and other ones
that are often found around the house.
You can mix and match and make interesting things, super-saturated solutions of Sodium acetate are entertaining. Making copper powder is almost neat
(Al foil + CuSO4).. Precipitating Magnesium and Copper Carbonate.
But really, what is it you are interested in?
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Rapunzel
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It might be too early for me to specialize in anything. I'm still learning the basics so I was just thinking about any experiments I can do to get a
grip of the very basic stuff you learn in the earliest chem college courses. But I'm going towards organic/biochem.
Thanks!
\"Overcome with grief, the prince threw himself from the tower. His fall was broken by some brambles, but they also scratched and blinded
him.\"
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Jor
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I would recommend to in ANY case get the following:
-1L ethanol
-1L of sulfuric acid (this is probably the most used chemical there is). You can take concentrated 90+%. This is very useful, you'll have to handle it
with great care however. Otherwise buy the dilute acid.
-1L hydrochloric acid (buy concentrated 30-37%)
-Sodium hydroxide a very common base
-Copper sulphate (this is cheap and there is a LOT of experimenting with this)
-Sodium bicarbonate (when you spill acid, put this on the acid to neutralize, until bubbling stops, the material itself is nonhazardous, also known as
Banking Soda)
But before you can really do something, you have to have quite a nice collection of chems. Also read a lot of pages on chemistry on the internet
before you start. Realise, organic is somewhat more dangerous the inorganic, so might be smart to start with inorganic (like I do) and move to organic
bit by bit.
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Nicodem
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The most important thing is the equipment. Before you even bother buying chemicals from chemical suppliers at the outrageous price, you better buy
whatever you can find OTC and use those for experimentation. For example, even from something as common as sugar (sucrose) you can do organic
chemistry preparations. You can use it to prepare levulinic acid (which is a useful reagent for heterocyclic chemistry experiments later on when you
will learn more, but even before that you can use it to prepare its esters amides, reduce it to gamma-valerolactone, etc.). For preparing levulinic
acid you only need sugar and hydrochloric acid both available in normal shops, but you also need a flask, preferably a magnetic stirrer, a vacuum
distillation glassware set, a thermometer, a separatory funnel, beakers and an aspirator. As you see the bottleneck is not the chemicals but the
equipment. A lot of practical learning can be done with simple readily available (aka OTC) chemicals. Only latter on when you are after some more
specific target compounds do the chemicals became a real problem. Up to that stage you simply design experiments in accordance to your OTC chemical
inventory.
…there is a human touch of the cultist “believer” in every theorist that he must struggle against as being
unworthy of the scientist. Some of the greatest men of science have publicly repudiated a theory which earlier they hotly defended. In this lies their
scientific temper, not in the scientific defense of the theory. - Weston La Barre (Ghost Dance, 1972)
Read the The ScienceMadness Guidelines!
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Rapunzel
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Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.
What equipment would you recommend? Would $500 be enough just for glassware? My budget is $1K but $500 or so will go to a microscope.
Also, the chems that aren't available OTC, what's a good cheap source? Is it hard to find them offline? My chem department at school refused to sell
me anything. "You'll blow yourself up," they told me. 
\"Overcome with grief, the prince threw himself from the tower. His fall was broken by some brambles, but they also scratched and blinded
him.\"
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ScienceSquirrel
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Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination! 
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There are members on here from all around the world and regulations and availability vary widely
Some members are dedicated label readers, fans of their local garden centre and hardware stores or scavengers on eBay and online.
Others have a commercial or professional use for chemicals that enables them to buy from supply companys.
Age and professional qualifications are important in some jurisductions; flash a BSc, your passport and credit card and a lot more things become
available, if you happen to be running High Trees Microbrewery Ltd then all sorts will be sold to you without question as you are in the 'magic
circle'.
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Rapunzel
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OK, thank you. I ordered a bunch of basic glassware and lab hardware.
\"Overcome with grief, the prince threw himself from the tower. His fall was broken by some brambles, but they also scratched and blinded
him.\"
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benzal
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dito jor add acetone to clean your glassware
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zed
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I'd say good gloves, a full face shield, a respirator, and an aspirator pump. A squirrill cage blower/ fume hood would be nice. And, a protective
apron or lab coat is also nice to have. And, a real mechanical vacuum pump.....decrepit looking though it might be. (I bought my last one from a
thrift store for $20.00)
Then you should have a heavy wooden table, and a sink with good drainage and hot and cold running water.
The room should have explosion proof light switches, and there cannot be a gas water heater, or a gas type furnace nearby. You have to eliminated
sources that might generate unexpected electrical sparks, or flames.
Then you need a bucket of sand, a bucket of clean water, and a good fire extinguisher. A heavy blanket or two will also useful.
Believe it or not, you are going to generate poisonous gases, dangerous stuff is going to splash on you, and you are going start fires that you had no
intention of starting.
The most important thing is protecting yourself from serious injury.
Anyway, if you scrounge a little bit, all this stuff should set you back a few hundred bucks.
A few hundred more for some common glassware, an improvised scale, and some reagents......And you're good to go.
You still have 500 to 600 bucks left.
At least, in the U.S. you would have money left. The country is very wealthy, and while things are expensive new, they are very inexpensive used,
surplus, or at auction.
For $125, I once purchased an item on e-bay that had originally cost about $10,000.
PS. $500.00 seems like a lot for a microscope. Last time I checked prices were down.
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sbovisjb1
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I suggest that you do basic experiments (transferring cultures, experimentation with bacteria found around the house [setting up a controls etc]) So
that you get the hang of doing science. I know playing around with bacteria is not Chemistry per se, but its where I got my baby steps in learning how
things are done and its cheap.
\"Chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost maniacal
impulse to seek their pleasures amongst smoke and vapour, soot and flames,
poisons and poverty, yet amongst all these evils I seem to live so sweetly
that I would rather die than change places with the King of Persia.\"
-- Johann Joachim Becher
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