Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Favorite beginner experiments

Favorite beginner experiments

mauricethegangsteroflove - 8-2-2026 at 20:57

What are the experiments you remember most fondly from your early days? I'm looking for some things to play with and learn from, and I'm curious what got you guys hooked.

Not looking for step by step instructions for anything, just want to hear your favorite stories and any tips or tricks. Maybe a cool reaction or synthesis, maybe figuring out how to make something useful that helped you down the line, or something that was simple but taught you skills that you now use all the time.

recollections of my early chemistry

Sulaiman - 9-2-2026 at 18:38

oxidisers : eg nitrates, chlorates, permanganate etc.
with
fuels : eg sugar, paper, metal powders
(flash, bang boom, woosh etc.)
my favourites were potassium permanganate with glycerine/glycerol, or magnesium powder.

nitrogen triiodide

measuring pH of stuff with pH papers or red cabbage water

calcium carbide & hydrogen peroxide to make a high temperature flame generator
with unintended auto-detonation option

invisible ink

diy FeS to make far too much H₂S

I liked doing titrations, and making smelly organic molecules in school.

[Edited on 10-2-2026 by Sulaiman]

j_sum1 - 9-2-2026 at 22:59

I have lots of thoughts on this.
I will update later.

charley1957 - 10-2-2026 at 04:21

I had chemistry sets growing up in the 60s and 70s. I remember I used to make a really dark blue liquid using, I think, ferric ammonium sulfate, and another chemical. I was totally fascinated with how it just magically turned this dark dark blue color. I did that one dozens of times every different way I could: slow, fast, more water, less, one chemical first, then the other one first, etc. I made fake blood, and did things with the alcohol lamp, boiling stuff in test tubes, making ammonia fumes. I really enjoyed bending glass tubing, and got my first ever chemistry scar trying to push a piece of glass tubing through a one hole cork. Good memories.

teodor - 10-2-2026 at 13:14

Photographic printing. Black and white, toned, color processes. Inventing my own process.
Making black powder.
Making nitric acid.
Getting all available chemicals and seeing what other important chemicals can be synthesized from this starting set.
Reading books on the topics related to the interests developed during all mentioned experiments.

j_sum1 - 10-2-2026 at 19:33

Ok. Here are some cool projects that I can recommend – mostly beginner stuff.

Thermite reactions. I cut my teeth following MrHomeScientist on YT, who was also an active member here. For larger scale and non-standard metal extractions, I recommend thegayestpersononyoutube
Copper chemistry is surprisingly fun. And you will learn some good skills. I usually direct people to the copper carnival which was a competition we ran here a few years ago. The write-ups from that have some good procedures.
Element collecting – especially extracting elements from OTC items.
Extractions – steam distillations will get you all sorts of interesting things and then get you into purification techniques
Battery dissections – a good source of quite a few elements and useful compounds. Carbon-zinc batteries are probably the most rewarding. Lithium batteries give you a nice strip of the element. Ni-Cd batteries may be fun although I confess I have not tried it. Lithium-polymer batteries give you copper or aluminium foil, and can be a source of cobalt compounds and lithium carbonate if you put some work into it. (I recommend staying small scale if you do Li polymer batteries. The mess is incredible.)
There are some useful and relatively straightforward syntheses that you can do. Nitric acid is one. Diethyl ether, dioxane, toluene sulfionic acid. Less useful but equally fun are fisher esterifications, chevreal's salt, rochelle's salt. I recently did sodium nitroprusside and will do it again.
Pick up something from a pottery supplier and explore the chemistry of a single element. For example, buy some cobalt carbonate or nickel oxide and see what salts you can produce. My recent experiments in this area involved praseodymium oxide (Pr3O11) and cerium oxide. Cerium ammonium nitrate is useful too if you can make it. Chromium is a great combination of fascinating and frustrating. So many possible complexes.
electrolysis projects – chlorates, acids, plating, metal crystal growing, electro-refining, or if you are keen on high temperature, attempt some alkali metals.
Not my thing, but there are some good introductory energetics projects you could do: black powder, white powder, touch powders, sugar rockets, experiment with adding metal powders, maybe nitrigen triiodide.
Pick a textbook or similar resource and work your way systematically through it. Some suggestions: Len1's book on small scale synthesis, Robert Bruce Thompson's course which he designed for home school curriculum, chemplayer's videos are on bitchute. There are suitable resources in our library. I have some resources that were put together as compendiums of dramatic presentations for lecture audiences. I am drawing a blank on exact titles at the moment, but send me a U2U if you want some links for any of these. I have them stashed away somewhere.

THere are some ideas. Take your pick.

[Edited on 11-2-2026 by j_sum1]

Varungh - 11-2-2026 at 05:00

Some of the classics i did
Making zinc acetate using vinegar and a AA cell
Plating zinc using zinc acetate
Making a simple zinc and copper cell
Making magnetite (highly reccomended)
Making MnCO3 and subsequently MnO on heating from MnSO4(Note-fairly recent)
Making sodium and lead chromate (note-recent)
Making ZnI from Zn and betadine
Message me if you need exact synthesis, reiepes, help, what things and in what quantities you need them in

Varungh - 11-2-2026 at 05:02

A few more
Making basic copper carbonate from CuSO4 and then Making CuO
Making ammonia solution using urea and NaOH
Making FeCl2

mauricethegangsteroflove - 12-2-2026 at 16:52

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1

Battery dissections – a good source of quite a few elements and useful compounds. Carbon-zinc batteries are probably the most rewarding. Lithium batteries give you a nice strip of the element. Ni-Cd batteries may be fun although I confess I have not tried it. Lithium-polymer batteries give you copper or aluminium foil, and can be a source of cobalt compounds and lithium carbonate if you put some work into it. (I recommend staying small scale if you do Li polymer batteries. The mess is incredible.)

Lithium carbonate sounds interesting. I recently watched a Doug's Lab video where he made copper carbonate, and explained how it could be converted into various salts with different acids. I assume something similar could be done with lithium carbonate? If lithium carbonate and hydrochloric acid would make lithium chloride, maybe there's a homebrew path to lithium chlorate. I don't know if that's feasible or safe, but at my first uneducated glance it at least looks possible.

j_sum1 - 12-2-2026 at 18:26

Definitely doable.

One of the problems with alkali metal salts is that they all appear the same: white crystalline powders. You end up not really knowing what you have produced or how pure it is. It is primarily for that reason I find transition metal chemistry more interesting.

Lithium carbonate has a property of having very low solubility and so is easy to isolate. And of course, carbonates release carbon dioxide when reacting with acids which means you get rid of the pesky anion that you don't want. The purity of your product depends largely on the quality of your acid.

When doing this kind of thing, remember the range of acids you may have access to: hydrochloric, sulfuric, nitric, obviously. But you can also make acetates, propionates, citriates, tartrates, aspirinates, benzoates, and heaps more. Raid your medicine cabinet, hardware store or supermarket and see what you find.

mauricethegangsteroflove - 27-2-2026 at 22:35

Well, I just failed my first attempt to get lithium carbonate from a battery, likely due to mistaking it for an impurity and discarding it like an idiot. I do have some neat purple cobalt carbonate though and that part seems to have gone well. I have plenty of material left to take another shot at it and do it better.

I also successfully made black powder and nitrocellulose, which have been fun. When I get lithium extraction figured out, I think I'll take a shot at using it for a red flare mixture, I think the chloride salt should burn red.

Got some more glassware on the way and looking forward to exploring more. Thank you all for the insight and suggestions!