we show how to make flowers glow in the dark under ultraviolet light using a fluorescent dye.
You really only need two things, an ultraviolet lamp and a fluorescent highlighter. Open the highlighter and squeeze a few drops of the fluorescent ink into a cup of water. Now take the flower (i find white carnations to be the best) and cut the stem underneath the solution. Leave the flower in overnight and the dye will have been absorbed into the flower.
Now simply shine an ultraviolet light onto the flower to cause the highlighter dye to glow. whats amazing is that the glow isn't uniform but will glow bighter in areas where the dye accumulates. Often this gives a more complex pattern to the flower.
So for valentine's day, give glow in the dark flowers.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vhcHuaArdg
In this video we make copper formate, a useful precursor to copper conductive ink.
We simply dissolve 65g of copper sulfate in 250mL of water and 33g of sodium carbonate in 150mL of water. Then we mix the two together. Copper carbonate hydroxide precipitates and we filter that off. Then we react the copper carbonate hydroxide with formic acid to create copper formate.
Copper formate has the useful property that it decomposes into copper metal (along with carbon dioxide and hydrogen) when heated. The copper produced this way isn't well bonded and not very conductive. But in upcoming videos additives may be added to improve the quality of the product.
Related videos:
Silver conductive ink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBlqPS8boLI
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auyCK8-DMP0
In this video we make the alkyl halides bromoethane and bromohexane by nucleophilic substitution of alcohol under acidic conditions.
the highest yielding method is to use alcohol with hydrobromic acid and sulfuric acid. To make bromoethane 350g of 48% hydrobromic acid, 120mL of ethanol and 145mL of sulfuric acid were combined in a flask cooled in ice with plenty of time between additions to allow full cooling. The mixture was then gently heated to 40 degrees Celsius and slowly ramped to 70 Celsius to distill off the bromoethane that forms. What's happening is the classic Sn2 nucleophilic substitution reaction taught in basic organic chemistry. The alcohol is protonated by the acid conditions and essentially forms water still attached to the carbon backbone. Bromide ions come in and attack the carbon and the water leaves. This forms bromoethane. The bromohexane is washed with water and 5% sodium bicarbonate solutions before being dried with anhydrous magnesium sulfate.
Bromohexane is made in a similar fashion. 1 mole of 1-hexanol is mixed with 1.5 moles of sodium bromide and 2 moles of sulfuric acid. the mixture is refluxed for six hours and the bromohexane is recovered using a separatory funnel. it is then distilled and washed. Then fractionally distilled to remove water.
Related videos:
Make hydrobromic acid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3n4Xqfb9qk
Make Chloroform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvkuqLxQd2c
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydn1D4FSqkc
In this video we make ammonium nitrate from various off-the-shelf chemicals.
Note: This is not cheaper than buying it directly, once again our objective is to explore the chemistry.
Warning: The chemicals are corrosive and ammonia has a horrible smell, work outside or in a fumehood and wear gloves.
First get 138 grams of sodium bisulfate and add just enough water to dissolve it, usually 300mL.
Then get one mole equivalent of a pure nitrate salt. Some common salts include:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2IG49Nw1Fo
In this video we the thermal decomposition of copper to directly produce nitric acid without using any other acid.
Normally to make nitric acid you react a nitrate salt with a strong acid like sulfuric acid. But what if we wanted to make it without any acids at all? Copper nitrate has the interesting property that if it's heated it will decompose into nitrogen dioxide and oxygen, two components needed for nitric acid. Best of all copper nitrate itself can be made with domestically available that don't require acid either.
First calcium ammonium nitrate is boiled with calcium hydroxide to produce pure calcium nitrate. This is done only to remove ammonia and not necessary if calcium nitrate can be obtained directly. Calcium ammonium nitrate is a fertilizer. The resulting calcium nitrate is reacted with copper sulfate which is available as a root killer. The resulting copper nitrate solution and calcium sulfate are filtered and the copper nitrate is boiled to remove most of the water until it starts to change color to green/blue.
The copper nitrate is then hooked up a distillation apparatus and heated until it decomposes. The nitrogen dioxide gas produced is lead into water to dissolve. The nitric acid produced is then purified by distillation. Yield is between 60%-80%
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmB5x0LYfSE
I stick my hand into Hot Ice.
"Hot Ice" is Sodium Acetate trihydrate. It has a melting point of 58 celsius but can be easily super cooled well below that and still remain liquid. If initiated by solid crystals of sodium acetate it will rapidly crystalize in bulk.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZxaXH70k5o
Some lab notes for the month of august 2020
I was exploring more nitric acid and wanted to see if calcium nitrate and sodium bisulfate would be viable. The rationale is that the reaction of calcium nitrate and sulfuric acid is well-known but almost never done directly since it produces insoluble calcium sulphate that solidifies into a rock in the flask. It has to be drilled out and risks break the flask. The traditional way to use calcium nitrate is the "wet process" where we first mix it with water and then add sulfuric acid. The calcium sulfate precipitates out and the dilute nitric acid is filtered and purified by distillation. This is slow and laborious so i was wondering if sodium bisulfate could be advantageous in producing a residue that didn't need to be drilled. This would save time and less risk of breaking glassware.
So i mixed 49g of calcium ammonium nitrate decahydrate with 150g of sodium bisulfate monohydrate and heated it directly in the "dry process" of making nitric acid. Nitric acid was distilled over and the yield was 85%. But more importantly the solid residue of sodium sulfate, sodium bisulfate and calcium sulfate was soluble. Upon addition of water it dissolved into a slurry that could easily be poured out. So i think the process is superior to using sulfuric acid as there is overall less labor involved.
For thoroughness i also tried the wet process by first dissolving the calcium nitrate in 50mL of water and adding sodium bisulfate. After distillation the yield was 95% but with 50mL of extra water diluting it. Personally i prefer higher concentration acid and don't mind the lower yields of the dry process.
Anyway. I was going to do additional nitric acid experiments but my hotplate failed.
Turns out the temperature sensor failed open and the safety limit of the hotplate refused to turn it on. It was a simple matter of finding the broken sensor and replacing it. The interesting note is that the hotplate uses a PT1000 RTD and it seemed the original was spot welded in. I didn't have spot welding capability so i used copper foil to crimp the connection.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa2OMNaHn_Y
We make silver acetate used for making conductive silver ink.
Silver acetate is made by reacting 20g of silver nitrate in 10mL of water with 20g of sodium acetate in 50mL of water and filtering the precipitated silver acetate. It is washed several times with water and allowed to dry.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J6V4acKels