Pretty Pictures (2)

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid

Is that a mineral, or an oddly-shaped piece of chocolate?

It´s vanadinite

3,2,1, bang!

A gram of hexanitromannite initiated with some lead styphnate photographed just when it exploded.

The experiment was part of chemistry safety classes when the students learnt about how to handle explosives and other compounds. The audience was protected by a plexiglass shield and noone got hurt, besides the plastic bottle with full of water what was next to the explosive.

Wow, kristofvagyok , that looks great.

Not very pretty, but I just found a nice length of copper power wire on my street. I haven't taken off the insulation, but the whole chunk weighs 470 grams. I'm assuming that ~80% of it is copper, so I might get about 376 g's from it.

Quote: Originally posted by Zyklonb

Wow, kristofvagyok , that looks great. Not very pretty, but I just found a nice length of copper power wire on my street. I haven't taken off the insulation, but the whole chunk weighs 470 grams. I'm assuming that ~80% of it is copper, so I might get about 376 g's from it.

I know, it's an excellent source. I wonder where it came from, there were no power line near where I found it. Especially no broken lines. Copper thieves dropped it perhaps.... Probably not.
I used to have to strip other electrical wire lying around for my copper, but this will last a long time.

I found a similar piece of wire in an empty lot near my house, except it was made of aluminum. It should also be very pure! My neighborhood has a lot of construction going on, so I'm always hunting around the sites for scraps

EDIT: Hegi, I've never seen vanadinite that color before - it's always orange or red. Do you know why yours is different?

[Edited on 3-18-2014 by MrHomeScientist]

It's just some small scale Iodine extraction, not that fantastic or anything but I like the colours xD

I built a little electroplating set up recently. thought I'd share as it is cheap and easy to make. haven't done a whole lot of work with it yet, but it's currently refining sterling scrap.
main components:
1- DC-DC stepdown transformer, http://www.ebay.com/itm/LM2596-DC-DC-Buck-Converter-Constant...
1- DC digital ammeter/voltmeter, http://www.ebay.com/itm/141164937042?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:I...
and some simple stuff,.. A shallow light switch box( 1.25$), piece of plexiglass, a small piece of terminal strip, some wire and a stand to attach it to... and a wine cork( generic non-conductive backing for adj. step-down board positioning)



pic 1) laid out the parts: stand, switch box, plexi and the new V/A meter
pic 2) assembled unit
pic 3) attached to the stand.
pic 4) side view, short foot on the display side, and long foot opposed it rests nicely under the plating tank to secure the stand from falling.
pic 5) action shot on initial run. in this one you can see the stainless spill tray, the stand and control unit with the silver cell peaking out behind it( in a plastic bowl for shock/spill hazard) a small glass bowl to set sterling electrode while looking, and a second plastic cover to keep debris out while cell is down.

the DC-DC stepdown unit is adjustable, and the adj. screws are set in the plexi face plate. it can be powered by a wall-wort( AC adapter > 5V), and tuned down within a given range of the supply voltage. the amperage control isn't that great. it floats up/down quickly with voltage adj. but your amperage adj. by itself has a short leash.

total cost to me ~15$ and a few hours works, as I already had spare project materials around. the actual cell is a single wall stainless steel travel coffee mug with handle and all plastic taken off. the lid is some sort of PVC gutter/drain pipe cover( ~1$ ace ). any tighter and the lid wouldn't fit. I'll have to put a few days through it and see how she handles, hopefully well.

plexiglass is a bitch to work with some times. or mine was just really brittle. I broke 2 pieces making the face plate. that was probably the single most time consuming aspect.

Quote: Originally posted by MrHomeScientist

I found a similar piece of wire in an empty lot near my house, except it was made of aluminum. It should also be very pure! My neighborhood has a lot of construction going on, so I'm always hunting around the sites for scraps EDIT: Hegi, I've never seen vanadinite that color before - it's always orange or red. Do you know why yours is different? [Edited on 3-18-2014 by MrHomeScientist]

I have no idea... I did not study it... :/

Potassium ferrioxalate crystals



And a little bit of analytical chemistry. Complexometric titration of Cu2+

Quote: Originally posted by violet sin

I built a little electroplating set up recently. thought I'd share as it is cheap and easy to make. haven't done a whole lot of work with it yet, but it's currently refining sterling scrap.

Love it, hopefully I see a lot of work come out of that apparatus There is such a low barrier to entry for electrochemisty and a vast number of experiments to be performed, I wish I saw more of it on this forum.

Quote: Originally posted by Töilet Plünger

Hegi, what reagents were used in the titration? And you should take pictures of the ferrioxalate in UV as well!

Definitely should but do not have UV right now... chelaton III as titrant and murexide as indicator were used

Potassium nitrate crystals freshly decanted from their solution. I really liked how they formed this starburst pattern in the upper part of the beaker!

By "came across", you mean "uploaded"?

Came across a video I uploaded a long time ago while looking at my YouTube account is what I should have said. I plan on making a nicer one now that I have a better camera and apps for this type of filming. I have a few indicator mixes if like to try as well including a fluorescent one, so, we shall see how that works out

[Edited on 29-3-2014 by Mailinmypocket]

O-alkyl dithiocarbonates

[Edited on 29-3-2014 by Cheddite Cheese]

Just some chromium compounds

Sodium aluminate crystals that formed over a course of several weeks after all the water evaporated on it's own

Quote: Originally posted by Mailinmypocket

Just some chromium compounds

Re-crystallizing some Trinitrophenol. Got a nice crop of well formed needle shaped crystals in the beaker....
i see alot of the pics here are of some type of crystalline formations. the silver metal on the copper wire look pretty neat. i tried the same but could not get decent close up pics.

Quote: Originally posted by NeonPulse

Re-crystallizing some Trinitrophenol. Got a nice crop of well formed needle shaped crystals in the beaker.... i see alot of the pics here are of some type of crystalline formations. the silver metal on the copper wire look pretty neat. i tried the same but could not get decent close up pics.

Chromuim Chemistry

Interesting color reaction:
Control: water
#1 reaction: water with 5 drops 3%H₂O₂
#2 reaction: water with 5 drops 3%H₂O₂
+ 5 drops 30%HCl
~50 mg potassium dichromate is added to each tube.
Control is on the right, #1 reaction in the middle and #2 reaction on left.

10 seconds after addition. 2 minutes after addition. 5 minutes after addition. 10 minutes after addition.

[EDIT] Now 15-20 minutes after the last picture was taken, #2 reaction tube is nearly colorless, a bit of unreacted potassium dichromate has settled on the bottom, but the solution is very pale blue. The camera doesn't pick it up very well, it's slightly more colored then the picture shows.

[Edited on 31-3-2014 by Zyklonb]

Iron(II) sulfate heptahydrate

After long-long time one of my compounds crystallized out. Sadly according to the recorded NMR spectra we are still not able to tell what is in the flask, but it still looks great.

Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force

Beautiful, Hegi, just beautiful! I tried making iron sulfate through replacement of copper sulfate and my crystals turned out a more greenish color rather than this aqua color.

try to dissolve it in near boiling distilled water and add few milliliters of concentrated sulphuric acid, then let it overnight in fridge and you should be able to get that color. I´v been surprised too cause whenever I saw it before it was oxidized or rather hydrolyzed.

Kristof - what is it suposed to be? ..

Quote: Originally posted by Hegi

Quote: Originally posted by NeonPulse   Re-crystallizing some Trinitrophenol. Got a nice crop of well formed needle shaped crystals in the beaker.... i see alot of the pics here are of some type of crystalline formations. the silver metal on the copper wire look pretty neat. i tried the same but could not get decent close up pics. What solvent did you use? ... I prepared today few grams of TNP and then dissolved it in warm ethanol.. so now I´m waiting for crystals..

My sample of bismuth. Love that metal.

Reaction between ~3gm pyrotechnical grade Aluminum powder, and ~8-10 drops of Mg₂O₇.
Reaction delay: ~22 seconds

I put a series of pictures taken within 5 seconds. (Excluding first and last, to show start/end)

Quote: Originally posted by Oscilllator

magnesium heptoxide? I doubt it

Quote: Originally posted by numos

Quote: Originally posted by Oscilllator   magnesium heptoxide? I doubt it Why do you doubt it? I'm not the best at videos, so I went for screenshots of the video, but just for you, I'll upload the video - which should clear any doubts. http://youtu.be/h4AuUNRXo-o

Quote: Originally posted by BlackDragon2712

Quote: Originally posted by numos   Quote: Originally posted by Oscilllator   magnesium heptoxide? I doubt it Why do you doubt it? I'm not the best at videos, so I went for screenshots of the video, but just for you, I'll upload the video - which should clear any doubts. http://youtu.be/h4AuUNRXo-o 'cause maybe you meant manganese heptoxide? Mn2O7?

I thought I'd try some Kristof/Hegi style photography... came out ok haha. Here is some Benzoic acid that i made by oxidising toluene via KMnO4



[Edited on 7-4-2014 by HeYBrO]

Quote: Originally posted by HeYBrO

I thought I'd try some Kristof/Hegi style photography... came out ok haha. Here is some Benzoic acid that i made by oxidising toluene via KMnO4

nice try bro... I love that oxidation... fast and cheap way to produce your own benzoic acid..

Quote: Originally posted by Hegi

nice try bro... I love that oxidation... fast and cheap way to produce your own benzoic acid..

Thanks. I was going to edit the contrast and sharpness but i though against it. Looks much better, cheers.

[Edited on 7-4-2014 by HeYBrO]

Something special crystallized at the bottom of a flask, a cuneane based compound, what was obtained by the rearrangement of a cubane based molecule.

What is cubane and what is cuneane and what is this rearrangement? Cubane (1) is a square shaped and cuneane (2) is an wedge shaped molecule, both are strained.





For more information read this recently published article what was published by my supervisor:

Solvent-induced, selective rearrangement of hydrogen cubane-1,4-dicarboxylate to hydrogen cuneane-2,6-dicarboxylate
Gábor Durkó, István Jalsovszky
Tetrahedron, Volume 69, Issue 25, Pages 5160–5163

Kristof, so epic, the picture and the molecule as well... high level organic chemistry.

Freshly prepared Mohr´s salt.

Here is my first bromine isolation! I distilled it today from the reaction of NaBr+KMnO₄+HCl. It has some water in it, but I don't really mind all that much, and I think it still looks really cool.

52 gram crystal of Aluminum potassium sulfate.

Some recrystallized KClO3, cooled very slowly overnight in a beaker...wrapped in a towel and then placed in a thermos lunch box. Some crystals are hard to capture on camera but a few plates are the size of dimes. Beautiful

Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force

I'm just wondering, kristofvagyok, what license, if any, do your photos fall under?

Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa)


And another picture:



Trying out a new UV lamp.

The mercury vapor lamp is placed in a double walled quartz tube what will serve as a water cooled, tempered UV light source, used for photochemistry.

Nice, Im guessing the green is GFP.
Whats the blue and red protein?

I always wanted to work with those fluorescent things, they look adorable. Will you isolate the fluorescent protein from the cells?






On the pics: a little carbohydrate chemistry, 1,2:3,4:5,6-Tri-O-isopropylidene-D-mannitol what was made directly from mannitol and acetone with a little acid catalyst.

If you click on the pictures, you'll reach my portfolio, best pics from the past 2 years of the lab. Extra note: today I will post the 800.-th pics on my blog, so if anyone is bored here is a random post: http://labphoto.tumblr.com/random

Making sulfur chlorides:

Quote: Originally posted by Oscilllator

Yeah my glassware still has what looks like sulfur powder on it. I'm thinking of blasting it in my over to try and burn the sulfur. Got any tips on how else I might go about it?

GFP is definitely cool Anyone tried mutating bacterium who have the gene? Would be interesting... I don't have anything for such a procedure, but would love to see someone try! Maybe give them some light carcinogen...? If such a thing exists

Gold Pictures

They might not be the best but I still consider this small collection pretty. All the pictures are from my recent attempts at gold purification via liquid-liquid extraction, with isopropyl alcohol as the secondary component in a water based mixture.

1). Separation of gold laden organic phase (left), from copper based aqueous impurities (right).

2). Addition of calcium chloride (layering inducer).

3). Formation of a biphasic layer accompanied by the production of calcium carbonate (from trace impurities of sodium carbonate used in processing).

4). Preparation for transfer of gold laden organic phase for further testing.

5). Microscopic view of reduced gold in a capillary tube.

6.) View of gold deposits in a separate section of the capillary tube.

Can anyone guess what this is?

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid

Dilute manganate ion with dry ice.

Take It one step farther... Green Dye With dry ice...
Just Kidding. Though that definitely looks like something sublimating.

Not strictly chemistry, but:




Two pieces of fluorite under UV light.

Fluorite (CaF2) is naturally occurring mineral, it is the far most common and well-known fluorine containing mineral found on earth. When pure, it is completely colorless and transmits light from 200 nm what means it lets through UVA, UVB and some of the UVC photons.

But when it is contaminated with other elements, usually with yttrium, cerium, iron, sodium, barium, aluminium, ect. it could change the color of the mineal and could also cause a fluorescence under UV light, just as in this case. Originally the fluorite on the right had a green color, but it emits strong blue light under UVB.

I have a nice little lamp, but if I want to run a reaction with semi-deep UV it would either need to be emersed in solution and protected with quartz or outside of a solution which is inside of something quartz. The quartz part is where things get tricky and expensive.

Also very nice terbium salt there B&F .

[Edited on 15-5-2014 by smaerd]

Heres a little quiz: What camera did I use for these macro shots?




They are KMnO4 crystals

[Edited on 15-5-2014 by Pyro]

Advanced chemistry: Growing crystals of a trifluoromethylthio substituted aromatic hydrocarbon.

Compounds that contain a trifluoromethylthio group (–SCF3) are found in many pharmaceutical and agrochemical products. Owing to their highlipophilicity and hydrophobicity, aryl trifluoromethylthio-ethers (ArSCF3) have attracted increasing attention from synthetic chemists to develop a efficient, high-yielded, and economical preparation of these molecules.

These crystals were prepared from an aryl thiolate with trifluoromethyl iodomethane (ICF3) what is a highly poisonous, carcinogen gas.

Electrolytic Copper Sulphate (creating) cell (per NurdRage) been running all afternoon in one of girly girls bud vases....started looking pretty so pulled the electrodes and took a back lit pic.

Arkoma, looks nice! Is the vase yours? Any flowers may not take copper sulfate (which happens to be sold as root kill) too well!

Quote: Originally posted by Pyro

Woelen, that was a lot faster than I expected! I was amazed that these results were possible on a cell phone camera. PS:where did you find this info?

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist

Arkoma, looks nice! Is the vase yours?

Quote: Originally posted by Bert

Match head burning @ 4,000 frames/second

Quote: Originally posted by Bert

Match head burning @ 4,000 frames/second

Quote: Originally posted by Brain&Force

I'm the 20000th viewer of this thread!

Nice pictures!



An interesting graph I made (Using a Firefox Plugin)

[Edited on 5-21-2014 by The Volatile Chemist]

@ Brain & Force. Nice. Have done some digizooms myself. 8" Celestron with a toilet paper tube spacer and duct-tape holding my little kodak easyshare. (click thumbs for bigger image)


Jupiter and three of the Galilean moons

Our moon

Photomicrograph of a piece of complex sulfide ore, using the same jury rig


Couldn't catch the true beauty of this Chrome/Nickel Chloride solution I got out of my salt bridge electrolytic cell this morning. Creme de Menthe, anyone?


(flower pot cell with cheap stainless steel anode, carbon rod cathode and NaCl electrolyte in both halves.)

Quote: Originally posted by arkoma

8" Celestron

Before and after the sublimation of ferrocene.

When we heat ferrocene (an organometallic compound with the formula Fe(C5H5)2, a sandwich compound) in vacuum, it sublimes and could be condensed with on a cooled glass surface to form perfectly pure needle like crystals (as seen on the bottom picture).

Wish I could say its mine, but its not. Belongs to one of my best mates.

Quote: Originally posted by arkoma

Wish I could say its mine, but its not. Belongs to one of my best mates.

But anyway, you have access to it and you can use it as well, no?

Ethyl acetate layer, the yield of reaction was about 56%..

<img src="http://chem.pieceofscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/layeeeers.jpg" width="600" height="900">

Quote: Originally posted by The Volatile Chemist

Nice, Hegi! What process did you use?

Things what never-ever gets boring: fun with fluorescent dyes!

The red color is emitted by a fairly common dye: Rhodamine B. The green color is a bit more interesting, it is emitted by merbromin, an organomercury chemical:




Merbromin is one of the best antiseptics and it is still used in several countries, but because of its mercury content, it is no longer sold in the United States, Germany, or France. When used as a topical antiseptic, it stains the skin bright red and it is quite hard to remove. Luckily it is only used as a 2% solution, or more dilute, and since it is not readily absorbed by the skin, it is perfectly safe to use.