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Pulverulescent
National Hazard
Posts: 793
Registered: 31-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Torn between two monikers ─ "hissingnoise" and the present incarnation!
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Or a mercury thermometer breaking while being used as a 'stirrer' during an ethanol nitration???
And someone was on about preparing ethyl nitrate recently . . .
P
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Sedit
International Hazard
Posts: 1939
Registered: 23-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Manic Expressive
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Weeee.....
I just had a fun one, I was heating a test tube of EtOH and HNO3 with an open flame and when it took off during the oxidation it ignited and turned
into a flame thrower. That was fucking awesome!!!!
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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Pulverulescent
National Hazard
Posts: 793
Registered: 31-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Torn between two monikers ─ "hissingnoise" and the present incarnation!
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Many moons ago, I had a runaway distilling methyl nitrate from 70% HNO<sub>3</sub> ─ 2litre RBF ~half full . . .
The NO<sub>2</sub> was like some crazy, fucking live thing, writhing, and uncoiling itself out the flask!
I mean, this stuff looked like it was solid!!!
P
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White Yeti
National Hazard
Posts: 816
Registered: 20-7-2011
Location: Asperger's spectrum
Member Is Offline
Mood: delocalized
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Perhaps the most ignorant thing I have done was when I made rust (for thermite) using iron nails, saltwater, and outlet power. I combined 3 things
that should never be combined and I didn't wear any protective gloves or goggles. Somehow (and thank God) nothing went wrong.
It all ended when I left unregulated, unrectified 120V AC power flowing through a pair of iron nails suspended over a small jam jar filled with salt
water and left the set up unattended. I came back half an hour later to find that half the water (500mL!) was boiled away due to ohmic heating.
I never actually had the guts to try explosives. I found thermite much more interesting because thermite can be used to create rather than destroy.
The only time I tried making explosives was when I learned about unconfined vapour cloud explosions. I never actually got them to work; I don't know
if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
"Ja, Kalzium, das ist alles!" -Otto Loewi
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Adas
National Hazard
Posts: 711
Registered: 21-9-2011
Location: Slovakia
Member Is Offline
Mood: Sensitive to shock and friction
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Why shouldn't those 3 things be combined?
Rest In Pieces!
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White Yeti
National Hazard
Posts: 816
Registered: 20-7-2011
Location: Asperger's spectrum
Member Is Offline
Mood: delocalized
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Exposed metal terminals (the iron nails) and unrectified outlet power combined with a jar of saltwater is quite dangerous for obvious reasons, I
thought it was self evident.
"Ja, Kalzium, das ist alles!" -Otto Loewi
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GreenD
National Hazard
Posts: 623
Registered: 30-3-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: Not really high anymore
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Pouring things through a opened stop cock is my worst.
I've done some stupid things with extractions, I mean - real stupid. I remember hanging my head in shame after doing them. For the life of me I can't
remember the details. I'm not very good at them for some reason, or perhaps the reactions I've used are very difficult. I always end up with a brown
sludge in the middle, no matter how many extractions or washes I do!
Come to think of it can anyone help me with that? I would often dissolve some type of terephthalate in ethyl acetate or benzene, wash with water and
brine, etc. but I would ALWAYS end up with a nasty sludge. Semi-solid brown layer in the middle. It would form these small vesicles too that would
stick to the sides of the sep. funnel.
No matter how many brine washes, DI water washes, or filters I would do - I would always end up with more. Perhaps it was just decomposing in h2o?
I've done quite a few benzene / toluene refluxes in a closed room  perhaps this
explains the prior occurences
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AirCowPeaCock
Hazard to Others
Posts: 311
Registered: 9-1-2012
Location: In your nation!
Member Is Offline
Mood: Hazardous
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Not closing my stopcock before pouring in the liquid...fail
and apparently I'm not alone! 
[Edited on 1-27-2012 by AirCowPeaCock]
BOLD
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entropy51
Gone, but not forgotten
Posts: 1612
Registered: 30-5-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Fissile
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Quote: Originally posted by AirCowPeaCock  | Not closing my stopcock before pouring in the liquid...fail
and apparently I'm not alone!
[Edited on 1-27-2012 by AirCowPeaCock] |
No you aren't. There has never been a shortage of turkeys in the
lab. Most of them worked for me. Briefly.
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AirCowPeaCock
Hazard to Others
Posts: 311
Registered: 9-1-2012
Location: In your nation!
Member Is Offline
Mood: Hazardous
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Haha, I have to admit I liked that 
BOLD
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UnintentionalChaos
International Hazard
Posts: 1454
Registered: 9-12-2006
Location: Mars
Member Is Offline
Mood: Nucleophilic
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Oh geez. I left a stopcock open recently while running my grignard. Fortunately everything went better than expected and it didn't cause any problems.
Had the addition been immediately and intensely exothermic (or on a much larger scale), it could have been very bad.
Department of Redundancy Department - Now with paperwork!
'In organic synthesis, we call decomposition products "crap", however this is not a IUPAC approved nomenclature.' -Nicodem
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GreenD
National Hazard
Posts: 623
Registered: 30-3-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: Not really high anymore
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I remember - I once ran an NMR sample with DMSO (undeuterated).
It took me about 2 days to prepare the sample and I used I believe, all the sample left in that analysis.
Took me a minute to figure it out. I was pissed.
I've left rotovaps running over an entire weekend.
[Edited on 27-1-2012 by GreenD]
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Panache
International Hazard
Posts: 1290
Registered: 18-10-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: Instead of being my deliverance, she had a resemblance to a Kat named Frankenstein
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Ha! At least you were sure that all solvent was removed.
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White Yeti
National Hazard
Posts: 816
Registered: 20-7-2011
Location: Asperger's spectrum
Member Is Offline
Mood: delocalized
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I don't do much organic chem, but would it be a good idea to put a big neon sticker on stopcocks with the word "CLOSE!" so that these mistakes don't
happen again?
"Ja, Kalzium, das ist alles!" -Otto Loewi
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Mirage
Harmless
Posts: 49
Registered: 26-1-2012
Location: Canada
Member Is Offline
Mood: Superheated
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Well today, I did some stupid stuff. I wasn't thinking, don't know why. Just got some ground glass, and I had made some conc nitric the night before,
and I was planning on making some AgNO3. So in my stupidity I thought it would be fun to use my new 100ml rbf instead of just a plain old beaker. So I
added the silver, and began by heating just a little bit until it began to fume. I knew as soon as it began to fume, I would need to take it outside,
so the door was unlocked and ready to go. I had put the rbf into what I thought was a locked 3 finger clamp. It wasn't. As I picked up my small ring
stand, and got up to go to the door next to me, the rbf slipped of the stand, broke on the floor with hot conc hno3 going everywhere, and NOx
everywhere. I didn't move my feet at all untill I made sure I wasn't going to step on any glass. Thank god for my shoes and eye glasses!
On a slightly duller note, my brand new vacuum inlet adapter broke on the same day my rbf broke. Exactly 1 day old...
Chemically yours
Mirage
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garage chemist
chemical wizard
Posts: 1803
Registered: 16-8-2004
Location: Germany
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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A few weeks ago, I left a distillation setup assembled overnight after the distillation was finished. I switched off the cooling water pump but didn't
empty the water jacket of the liebig condenser.
In the unheated lab, it froze overnight and I came back the next morning to see that the liebig condenser had turned into a pile of glass shards
because of the expanding ice. This was a complete NS 29/32 one-piece distillation setup with claisen and vacuum adapter, one of my best pieces of
glassware, and will cost over EUR 80 to replace.
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497
National Hazard
Posts: 778
Registered: 6-10-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: HSbF6
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GC I did that exact thing a while ago... I even had glycol in the coolant, but failed to remember that I had diluted it with a bunch of ice earlier,
so it froze anyway. I hadn't been that angry in a long time!
I'll try to remember some other stuff I've screwed up. Of course I've left the stopcock open a few times. Broke my best sep funnel by failing to
remember how much faster teflon expands as it warms up.
[Edited on 5-2-2012 by 497]
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GreenD
National Hazard
Posts: 623
Registered: 30-3-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: Not really high anymore
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I ordered an illegal chemical from sigma aldrich yesterday
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Pulverulescent
National Hazard
Posts: 793
Registered: 31-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Torn between two monikers ─ "hissingnoise" and the present incarnation!
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There are several degrees of separation between ordering and getting! ()
What was it, BTW?
P
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
A Einstein
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GreenD
National Hazard
Posts: 623
Registered: 30-3-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: Not really high anymore
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and that is what I have learned. They slapped me on the wrist and I have gone on my way. I had to do it - I feared it so much, so I just tried it. I
doubt anything bad will become of it.
I won't tell you what it was, hehe.
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Pulverulescent
National Hazard
Posts: 793
Registered: 31-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Torn between two monikers ─ "hissingnoise" and the present incarnation!
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Ac<sub>2</sub>O is too obvious, I guess . . . ()
P
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
A Einstein
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GreenD
National Hazard
Posts: 623
Registered: 30-3-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: Not really high anymore
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I don't know what AcO2 is used for (really)! I've only seen it in one work up, and I asked on here why they had used it. I received equal confusion.
Apparently they used it for drying, but I don't know why they didn't use a conventional one.
Why is AcO2 watched?
OH. Heroin.
[Edited on 6-2-2012 by GreenD]
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smaerd
International Hazard
Posts: 1262
Registered: 23-1-2010
Member Is Offline
Mood: hmm...
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Congratulations you are now on a list somewhere. There are other places that will sell this in small quantities to a hobbyist, if you would have taken
the time to look. How could you not know what acetic anhydride is for, but yet you tried to order it from a chemical supply house that is KNOWN not to
ship to amateurs? Better yet why order something you know nothing about, or the safety involved? That is a few levels of ignorance, by definition.
Anyway to contribute to the thread. I once ran concentrated H2SO4(drain-cleaner) through plain-jane filter paper. That was pretty dang ignorant, at
least the second the paper got eaten up I knew why.
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reckless explosive
Harmless
Posts: 28
Registered: 1-12-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: experimental
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i think my most ignorant mistake ever was lighting a stoppered 250 ml flask with hydrogen in it from making zinc chloride when i was a foot away from
it...glass and zinc chloride all down the front of me and i cant hear very good out of my right ear now.
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GreenD
National Hazard
Posts: 623
Registered: 30-3-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: Not really high anymore
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Smaerd-
The chemical came in the mail. I won't explain the process, but yes - it came in the mail.
And I never said I ordered acetic anhydride.
[Edited on 14-2-2012 by GreenD]
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