Pretty Pictures (2)

Quote: Originally posted by Pok

Pure hydrogen cyanide

Did you produce this yourself? If, how did you packed and sealed it?

Meanwhile, cleaning and drying a small batch of acetone.







[Edited on 22-9-2020 by Fyndium]

Cobalt formate crystals forming as the solution cools

Rounded up eight old school mercury switches:



Yield of mercury:




I didn't have any mercury, so this was a cool find!

some Lead Iodide from yesterday



[Edited on 2-10-2020 by MidLifeChemist]

These were sights for sore eyes to me... I'd been fighting a losing battle against tomato hornworms in my garden. The little monsters are devastating! Things turned around when I learned that they're actually fluorescent under ultraviolet light. I can go out at night with my uv flashlight and just pick them off the plants!



I don't kill all of them, though. I found a couple that were completely still and had these white things sticking out of their backs. It turns out those have been parasitized by a specialist wasp. Since they're no longer chomping and they're hosting beneficial insect predators, these can stay



The more I looked into this wasp the weirder things got. Apparently it actually carries an endogenous virus in its genome, which it uses to infect the caterpillar as part of the parasitic process. Most of the time a virus genome is compact to the point of heavy overprinting, but this virus contained not only considerable noncoding sequence, but also introns! This, and a few other odd facts have led to the idea that it might actually be a new virus in the process of emergence, rather than an ancient insertion.

Attachment: Espagne et al. - 2004 - Genome sequence of a polydnavirus Insights into symbiotic virus evolution.pdf (189kB)
This file has been downloaded 499 times




It also turns out there is a second wasp which parasitizes the first, a situation called hyperparasitism. It's a hyperpest!!

Quote: Originally posted by arkoma

Rounded up eight old school mercury switches:

Am I the only one who gets breaking bad vibes from these CaCl2 hexahydrate crystals?

Quote: Originally posted by Lion850

Cobalt formate crystals forming as the solution cools

I just love these for their colour

Cobalt(II)orthomolybdate (left) and molybdatocobaltate(III) (right)

My lab space represents!

Red crystals of what is supposed to be ammonium pentachloroferrate forming as the solution cools. Plan is to let the beaker cool slowly on the cooling hotplate overnight and to see whether I can recover dry crystals tomorrow. No idea if these are stable or hygroscopic. Will soon see!

Having uranium glass, fluorescein and a black light source I HAD to do it...

The decanter is full of fluorescein. So is the glass at the upper right corner. The one right below is empty.
The three other glasses were filled with drinks suited to the era this glass was made
From left to right: Absynth, Absynth with water, Chartreuse.
(Yes, I used to smoke cloves and listen to The Cure)

The second picture is the decanter and the shot of fluorescein.
Closer to the light source they just saturate the sensor



[Edited on 24-10-2020 by Herr Haber]

I bought some calcium years back. But I never had occasion to open the tin. However, with the tin showing signs of age and one of my students asking questions, I figured it was time for an unboxing. And to pop those babies under some oil.

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

I bought some calcium years back. But I never had occasion to open the tin. However, with the tin showing signs of age and one of my students asking questions, I figured it was time for an unboxing. And to pop those babies under some oil.

Quote: Originally posted by MidLifeChemist

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1   I bought some calcium years back. But I never had occasion to open the tin. However, with the tin showing signs of age and one of my students asking questions, I figured it was time for an unboxing. And to pop those babies under some oil. nice! how much calcium is that?

On a similar theme,
Lion850 arranged for me to score this little jar at a bargain price.
It is somewhat affected by air but a bit of hydrocarbon will prevent that from being an ongoing problem.
Standard size reference is given. There is also a lump of lead in there to keep it from floating.

handsome lil borax crystal

SEM images of dendrites

Some really pretty dendrites taken from a sample submitted to my lab.

Quote: Originally posted by CharlieA

[rquote=647265&tid=26378 ...I visited the supplier yesterday to get some thiourea... ... [/rquote] Out of curiosity, what would 10-50g of thiourea, shipped to the US, cost?

Something yellow-ish crystallising out of the red methanol solution as it slowly evaporates.

Potassium ferricyanide crystal, it is still growing.

Probably a failure but really interesting nonetheless.
I am attempting to produce Zn powder by elecrolysis in alkaline medium.
Anode is a cast zinc sphere. Cathode is copper sheet now thickly coated in zinc (and not powdering off like I expected.)

The blue coating on the anode I presume is copper zincate. Not required but pretty.

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

The blue coating on the anode I presume is copper zincate. Not required but pretty.

With the exception of the piperine, these are shots of stuff that ends up "Where Beakers Go To Sit And Get Forgot About".


Piperine

Should be Lead Chloride. Had a beaker with a sat solution of Copper Chloride and chunks of lead in it on shelf for a month

The remnants of a 1940 something Mercury Dime in HNO₃. Crystals of AgNO₃ hard to see.

Mystery products from BenzylOH and Dichromate. Been sitting on shelf forever. Smells WoNDERFUL. Cherries.

A steel screw in a slotion of CuSO₄. Grab bag of Cu powder and Iron Sulfate I reckon

I dug up my good old heating bath, and found that half of the liquor had crystallized into fancy formations. Did not know that calcium chloride can also look nice, as it's usually just caulky flakey gunk in big bags to be thrown on dirt roads.

Sodium zincate
NaOH and battery shell ugh I shouldn't touch it
cadmium blood test ASAP!

Quote: Originally posted by Fluorite

Sodium zincate NaOH and battery shell ugh I shouldn't touch it cadmium blood test ASAP!

Enjoying the gorgeous red of bis-dimethylglyoximenickel(II), which appears to me like the colour of a raspberry-strawberry smoothie:



[Edited on 22-11-2020 by Bezaleel]

Dirty old ice pack ammonium nitrate crystals.

[Edited on 24-11-2020 by greenlight]

Blue crystals are copper-calcium acetate (with white needles- that's calcium acetate). The orange liquid in smal bottles is dinitrogen tetraoxide/nitrogen dioxide.

Steam distilled benzaldehyde.

Can't find a single tumbler in the place but luckily my hobby involves collecting glassware... Merry Christmas folks!

[MoOCl(H₂O)₄]⁺ solution in conc. HCl in volumetric flask. Concentration of Mo = 1,4 g/l.

Sulfamic acid crystal

Solved the daughter's shark puzzle with a python script I wrote, called sharks_on_a_plane.py

Phosphorescent materials based on alkaline earth sulfides and zinc sulfide

From left to right:
SrS:Eu
CaS:Eu,Ce,Tm
SrS:Bi
CaS:Bi,Ag
ZnS:Cu

I explain how I made them at the thread "making phosphorescent materials"

Quote: Originally posted by stibium

Phosphorescent materials based on alkaline earth sulfides and zinc sulfide From left to right: SrS:Eu CaS:Eu,Ce,Tm SrS:Bi CaS:Bi,Ag ZnS:Cu I explain how I made them at the thread "making phosphorescent materials"

Very nice

Thanks to my stupidity nature created this.
I left glass with water outside for a moment (it was minus 12 degrees C) and a dozen hours later got back. Just forgot. However the glass didn't break.



[Edited on 20-1-2021 by Piroz]

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Ok. I am indpired. I am going to have tobread that procedure.

Manganese sulfate crystal.



[Edited on 14-2-2021 by Piroz]

Orange tin iodide (I assume) forming around the tin granules.

Quote: Originally posted by Piroz

Manganese sulfate crystal.

Quote: Originally posted by Sulaiman

How long did it take to grow ?

Tin iodide crystals continue to grow. I’m not sure there is much I2 or HI left but I’ll leave it a few more days. Then to figure out how to wash them to remove residual acid. Any ideas?

Edit: The 'mounds' in the photo was the shape the crystals made as they grew from the tin granules - all the tin seems consumed now (the mounds are hollow) and there is no acid smell at all. Tomorrow I'll dry it on the steam bath and see what happens.



[Edited on 20-2-2021 by Lion850]

Homemade furnace temp..................

So I left a saturated solution of copper sulfate in a beaker for a few days with a watch glass over the top, and came back to this at the bottom of the beaker. Nice looking mistake I guess

Quote: Originally posted by Piroz

Manganese sulfate crystal. [Edited on 14-2-2021 by Piroz]

Quote: Originally posted by Lion850

Tin iodide crystals continue to grow. I’m not sure there is much I2 or HI left but I’ll leave it a few more days. Then to figure out how to wash them to remove residual acid. Any ideas? Edit: The 'mounds' in the photo was the shape the crystals made as they grew from the tin granules - all the tin seems consumed now (the mounds are hollow) and there is no acid smell at all. Tomorrow I'll dry it on the steam bath and see what happens.[Edited on 20-2-2021 by Lion850]

My wife needed a new vase....the Great Dane approved

Quote: Originally posted by Lion850

My wife needed a new vase....the Great Dane approved

azeotropin HNO<sub>3[/



Who woulda thought I'd stumble in to a practically bottomless HNO3 bottle? Five gallons sulfuric (92%) and ten pounds nitrate......

been drinking coffee and running 100gm batches all night!

[Edited on 4-1-2021 by arkoma]

[Edited on 4-1-2021 by arkoma]</sub>

20 ampoules of cobalt chloride solutoin ready to be sent out to my students for equilibrium exeriments (adjusting temperature in a closed system).

Wet remainder that should be a cobalt glutamate compound (I think).

A chocolate coloured compound

I dried out some molecular sieves and then poured them in a flask. These dusty trails were left on the side of my evaporating dish.

Nitric Acid!



A little while further in I'm getting this lovely clear azeotrope.





*edit* added update

[Edited on 7-11-2021 by arkoma]

Ketchup?


No….wet chromium picolinate

Some pictures of my attempts at making YInMn blue.


The first attempt ended up reddish brown, don't know if it was the materials I used or something else. (Made the yttrium oxide from an ebay element sample, didn't convert the manganse dioxide to manganese(III) oxide first.)

On my second attempt I first got a gray material covered with a thin bright yellow layer. After re-grinding it and heating it more (this time without it being covered so it got lots of air.), when I took it out of the furnace it looked completely black at first but as it cooled it finally gained a nice blue color.

I had almost lost hope of ever achieving blue at that point.

CuSO₄ reacting with KCl in aqueous solution.

Quote: Originally posted by CaCl2

On my second attempt I first got a gray material covered with a thin bright yellow layer. After re-grinding it and heating it more (this time without it being covered so it got lots of air.), when I took it out of the furnace it looked completely black at first but as it cooled it finally gained a nice blue color.

The interesting color difference between cobalt and nickel nicotinate tetrahydrates vs the anhydrous salts

My girlfriend gave me empty bottles which are perfect for making alcohol burners . Left is H3BO3 in EtOH, right is LiCl in EtOH (in reality it looks more red, on the photo it looks like calcium flame ).

Just short question - does H3BO3/EtOH burner create significant amount of ester? I just wondering if I doesn't create some B2O3 aerosol in the room.

Very colorful picric acid synthesis from salicylic acid

Very colorful picric acid synthesis from salicylic acid. It went from colorless to vibrant red to orange (the pictures aren't in order), then when it was added to cold water went the expected picric acid yellow. The last image is the recrystallization of it

Quote: Originally posted by Bedlasky

My girlfriend gave me empty bottles which are perfect for making alcohol burners

Quote: Originally posted by Bedlasky

I also tried methanol later. This time I replaced LiCl with CuCl2. And yes, flame has much better colour.

Hydrated manganese(II) sulphate

potassium chlorate crystal

Quote: Originally posted by Bedlasky

alcohol burners... left is H3BO3 in EtOH... does H3BO3/EtOH burner create significant amount of ester?

Discovered some fluorescent marbles among my mom's collection the last time I visited. The green & white ones are radioactive so I assume it's uranium. It's the milky part that fluoresces, though, which is different from eg depression glass. No idea what the orange is.

Rubies in corundum crucible with MoO3



[Edited on 10-12-2021 by Admagistr]

Rubies in platinum dish.

After a fairly long battle with cat converter substrate (legitimately sourced!), I'm now the proud possessor of some Palladium Chloride.


Maybe I shouldn't hit the dab before I post as I can't get the image to post' Here's a link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/jr8xHkNmJEpGKyEz5
[Edited on 1-31-2022 by arkoma]

[Edited on 1-31-2022 by arkoma]

[Edited on 1-31-2022 by arkoma]

Oooohhh. Very nice.

In the lab today, we oxidized fluorene (not fluorine, obviously). One of the students managed to turn it purple when dissolving it in glacial acetic acid. No idea how that happened.

pic

Aminoguanidine nickel perchlorate

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid

Oooohhh. Very nice. In the lab today, we oxidized fluorene (not fluorine, obviously). One of the students managed to turn it purple when dissolving it in glacial acetic acid. No idea how that happened.

I am a fan of the "still life" genre in art. I was always amazed how a painter can catch some ordinary mess with proper light angle and color to make from ordinary household items a piece of art.
It's a pity that painters never use a mess in a chemical laboratory as a subject. It's also a pity that I am not an artist but still, I am a great master of making a mess. So, once bored with a clean-up I've made my own still-life picture.

Quote: Originally posted by CharlieA

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid   Oooohhh. Very nice. In the lab today, we oxidized fluorene (not fluorine, obviously). One of the students managed to turn it purple when dissolving it in glacial acetic acid. No idea how that happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorene#Acidity. This article may be of some interest. Many different colored compounds are based on polyaromatics.