Chemworker
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SUPER new to chemistry, need help!
I started working for a chemical company a while ago and the entire process fascinates me from beginning to end. We deal with inorganics and want to
do some toying with it on my own, on a small scale of course. I was wondering where I might find references and material to teach myself more about
inorganics before I get into something heavy.
Sorry if a thread has already started about this.
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froot
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Start with the processes your company does, pick people's brains and using google get to understand what is happening in those processes.
We salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who remove themselves from it.
Of necessity, this honor is generally bestowed posthumously. - www.darwinawards.com |
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Chemworker
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I have, most of the time my questions have been answered with shrugs and "don't know, don't care." I have a family member who's a chemical engineer
and is a loaded with info, but I was also wondering about other sources of info on chemicals and other experiments and processes beyond chlor-alkali
(what my plant does).
[Edited on 6-5-2011 by Chemworker]
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GreenD
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Use the search engine on this site.
If you've ever heard of google - thats great too.
In GeneralChemistry subforum or maybe its this subforum there is a thread called "Great Books" or something "For chemistry"
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6664
I downloaded on of the electrochemical ones and it is a blast to read.
[Edited on 6-5-2011 by GreenD]
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LanthanumK
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This forum is generally happier to answer specific questions. A good place to learn is Wikipedia. Webelements provides information about elements.
Then there is my email address, lakraskci@hotmail.com. 
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peach
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Don't post your email address online like that. Spam bots can see it and will latch onto you like the parasitic leaches they are.  Break it up with spaces and use (at) rather than @ and (dot) rather than .
Chemworker, did you do chemistry at school or university? There are vast repositories of information about it online. Wikipedia is often looked down
on but it's also one of the easiest to crawl through if you're not a student or academic, as most solid evidence for scientific work is in the
journals. And journals are real expensive, particularly if you're only trying to view one article. It can cost $20->$30 to download a single
article, which can then turn out to be useless as you can't replicate the materials or equipment they've used, or it contains nothing you didn't
already know. Students and academics have the luxury of an Athens (or similar) account, which is an account the university buys that lets them have
universal access to a cluster of journals. But on the positive side, the journals usually contain much more advanced ideas that are too hard to repeat
at home anyway; unless you have dedicated all of your spare money to buying equipment over years or decades as one or two here have.
If you've not done much chemistry academically, it would be worth your while grabbing some text books aimed at the level you left it. Time does stand
still in terms of what people know, so there's no point trying to read a book aimed at a graduate chemist without knowing the things it's assuming you
already know.
If you want to get busy in the meantime with some inorganic reactions, extracting the components from an alkaline battery can be fun, it's not too
hard, doesn't require any special equipment, the level of chemistry knowledge involved isn't high but it still contains a lot of useful information
that's applicable to lots of other things and methods of working which are also used for many other things and you get quite a sizeable lump of useful
stuff out the other end; manganese and zinc salt.
The dirty mess of a stripped lantern battery, stewing away. They look terrible, but what's happening inside the thoroughly cleaned and cling filmed
jars is actually very clean. There wasn't a single hair inside them. I'd also scrubbed the casings with sulphuric acid and then pickled them, then
rinsed and immediately dropped them in there, to expose a fresh, clean surface.
Some time and filtering later, I have a pile of well roasted zinc sulphate from the casings. I later turned a small amount of this into the sulphide.
Dropping hydrochloric onto the sulphide will release hydrogen sulphide gas, which stinks of rotten eggs and sewers and it's useful for other
reactions; but there are easier ways of making hydrogen sulphide than this, I'm only mentioning it as a demonstration. More correctly, sewers and eggs
stink of hydrogen sulphide, as that's what the smell is, but in a low concentration.
The manganese is harder work, as it comes premixed with KOH electrolyte, activated carbon and iron contamination. The chloride should be pink. This is
what it looks like filtered, it was black with activated carbon beforehand. It's now a mucky brown / yellow from all the iron chloride contaminating
it.
The challenge is, make it look like bubblegum.
All it took was some clean, empty jars, coffee filters, some drain cleaner (NaOH / KOH), sulphuric (battery acid) and hydrochloric acid (there's a
brand of it sold in the UK that is simply colourless, concentrated acid without any surfactants in it). You could just use one acid if you like;
sulphuric for batteries is always cleaner than the concentrated versions of both it's self and hydrochloric, and it's available from more places.
One reason this is a valuable practical is that manganese is useful in electrochemistry and catalysis, yet the normal sources of it are contaminated.
I bought a bottle of "99%" pure manganese dioxide from eBay a few months back and, after using it, it was obvious it was cut with something. Something
that looked a lot like activated carbon. If I'd filtered it, it'd probably be brown as well. Meaning it's not 99% pure, it's waste from a battery
recycling plant.
Someone else buying it from eBay found his was cut with sand, which will have been done intentionally.
If I want much more pure manganese dioxide again, I can just heat this chloride in the air. Although I made this to use it as a dopant. I have much
more expensive chemistry equipment, but enjoy trying to make do without. I was doing this battery thing with the aim of others who aren't primarily
interested in chemistry being able to repeat it, as some of them wanted the products of the process for their main hobby (electronics). There's also
no point caking more expensive equipment with battery paste when it doesn't need it.
Drying, not black or brown, manganese chloride;
[Edited on 28-5-2011 by peach]
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redox
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When I first started getting interested in chemistry, about 18 months ago, I bought "Chemistry for Dummies" (by John Moore). This was a great starting
point for me.
Also, "An Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry" (by Robert Thompson) is also a great book, which I do not own, but supposedly is very informative.
Once you master the basic concepts, some early-level college textbooks would be helpful.
My quite small but growing Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/RealChemLabs
Newest video: Synthesis of Chloroform
The difference between chemists and chemical engineers: Chemists use test tubes, chemical engineers use buckets. |
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