Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Chemical Reactions for Beginner Chemist

xSJF1414 - 11-2-2021 at 04:41

I'm getting in to amateur chemistry but need some good idea's for reactions.
I don't want to work with too toxic chemicals (i don't go past a blue 2 on a fire diamond).
I've done a few reactions such as making iodine, nitric acid, r-candy.
I'm looking to brew and distill my own ethanol, and make chloroform.
What experiments do you recommend and if it's not easy what to do with the waste.
Thanks a lot :D.

vano - 11-2-2021 at 04:49

What compounds do you have?

xSJF1414 - 11-2-2021 at 05:40

Quote: Originally posted by vano  
What compounds do you have?

HCl 37% (only use it when i have to)
H2O2 11%
H2SO4 0.25 moldm^-3
Anhydrous NaOH
anhydrous Sodium Sulfite
Sodium Benzoate

about to order a lot more chemicals:
Acetone
Ferric Chloride 40% solution
Potassium Permangenate
Copper Sulphate
Zinc sulphate
Methanol 99%
Denatured Ethanol 96%
Potassium Ferrocyanide.

Triflic Acid - 11-2-2021 at 07:27

With what you have/ are going to buy, I can see only one good project. Make HCN :P But seriously, you could try extracting gold from something, you have all the chemicals that you need, nitric and hydrochloric to dissolve, and sulfite + HCl create SO2 to precipitate the gold. If you don't have any gold things, try buying a cheap catalytic converter for precious metals.

Bedlasky - 11-2-2021 at 07:44

With permanganate is lot of fun - with permanganate you can do quite interesting redox chemistry, for example:

https://colourchem.wordpress.com/2019/07/13/manganese-redox-...

https://woelen.homescience.net/science/chem/exps/chameleon/i...

vano - 11-2-2021 at 08:01

You can make sodium bisulfate and from this pyrosulfate. Both of them are good reagent. With exchange reaction you can make different inorganic salts.

vano - 11-2-2021 at 08:04

Copper hydroxide from sulfate and NaOH an next copper chloride and Na or K tetrachlorocuprates.

vano - 11-2-2021 at 08:18

Make a Prussian blue.

Make a sodium zincate and zinc oxide. Add zinc oxide in copper sulfate solution and make copper particles. If you ever have mercury mix it and you will get a soft amalgam like clay.

Sulaiman - 11-2-2021 at 09:10

A technique/skill that is very useful for purification is re-crystalisation,
so you could practice growing various crystals,
for purification and/or pretty crystal specimens.

Copper can be interesting,
you may find something to interest you here: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=62608

I like some of the experiments on woelen's site,
and I watch some YouTube chemistry videos for inspiration.

Always protect your eyes, have fun, stay safe ... and welcome

xSJF1414 - 11-2-2021 at 09:41

Quote: Originally posted by Triflic Acid  
With what you have/ are going to buy, I can see only one good project. Make HCN :P But seriously, you could try extracting gold from something, you have all the chemicals that you need, nitric and hydrochloric to dissolve, and sulfite + HCl create SO2 to precipitate the gold. If you don't have any gold things, try buying a cheap catalytic converter for precious metals.

Thanks, I think i have some old computer parts wich would be very cool to do. I can always order chemicals needed if there are good experiments/projects i can do.

woelen - 11-2-2021 at 10:30

This webpage may be a good read for a starter:

https://woelen.homescience.net/science/chem/misc/homelab.htm...

It gives some guidelines on what you can buy best, so that you have maximum freedom in exploring chemistry with only limited cost.