Moose's Moderately-Maniacal Menagerie of Mixing Materials (The Yet-Unofficial Rulebook of Basic Chemistry and General Science)

A nice and well-crafted title such as that deserves an informative and comprehensive work of science literature. But that's not going to happen because life isn't fair. Like science.

Currently, this work is only meant to bring to those wishing to throw together those powders, liquids, and rocks with names which vaguely recall memories of torn textbooks and watching Bill Nye the ability to do so with at least a minuscule of sense (and perhaps caution.) No, wait, currently this is only a numbered list of rules to be followed. *gasp* Content appeared! But still. Follow those rules.





1. No, you still may not mix those.
All those warnings in textbooks, from teachers and on those YouTube videos are not only to evade legal fights; that stuff actually does kill. Or tear off your arms, or melt your face off. Literally.

2. Boredom is not a sign of a task's completeness.
If the instructions say to crush, you crush it. NOT PARTIALLY GRIND. If it says to stir often, STIR.

3. Purity is power.
Why buy the pint container of 70% pure isopropanol when the quart of 91% is right next to it? Or even 99% in a well-stocked location? Also, while some chemicals are commonly sold >90% pure, others are more easily taken from household cleaners, fancy Cold-War-spawned gadgets for your home, etc. With these, purity is not much of a choice, but that is why the chemicals are extracted. So purity is still power. Don't compromise the experiment with your filth.

4. "High explosives and electricity, woo!"
Nein. Except for large mammals, of course. But still nein. No.

5. Don't do things which you don't know much about.
It is important to know about the science of every task. It is even more important to know if the byproducts of an experiment are dangerous. Or if the contents of that jar might suddenly explode. Or if that outlet is powered before sticking a fork in it. If at any point you do not understand something, do not do it. Learn about it. Then do it. Science has a weird vocabulary. But you knew that already.

6. Don't sniff the experiment. Or lick it. Or rub it all over yourself.
Unless you are making something meant for these purposes like food additives, aromatic substances, or giant flaming knives, it is not a good idea. No matter how tempting it may be. Or how much research you have done.

7. Without experience and research, you are nothing. Or just very little.
If you don't research anything or don't know one thing about your procedure(s), your chance of failure will significantly rise. If you are new to science or a branch of science, you can't and shan't do much. Except read. And watch. Without learning everything about one project, you will not succeed. Most likely.

8. Cotton and Pyrex prevent heat from maiming you.
If ever you are heating or cooling glassware, Pyrex is a necessity. While proper laboratory glassware is better, Pyrex is an apt substitute because it is stronger than other glass and is made to withstand heating (of course, dipping your hot glass into cold water is still idiotic.) If at any time your clothes have any chance of catching fire, you must wear cotton or wool. Synthetic fibers will melt to your skin and burn. Cotton just burns.

9. The large land mammal is always right and wrong.
And horribly unlearned in any field of science. But that doesn't matter.






Projects



Metal-plating Without Electrochemistry.

Notes: Apparently there is a hierarchy involved with metals plating other metals, but copper seems to plate anything and iron gets plated by anything, so that's probably all what you need to know since those two things are most common. Also, this process is very crude; do not expect to give your knife a shiny, even copper coating. Also, vinegar vapors smell fun.

1. Estimate and pour equal parts of hydrogen peroxide and vinegar (distilled white) into a glass container. Make sure that your metal objects can be fully submerged in it. Peroxide is easily found as an antiseptic in drugstores and vinegar is, well, vinegar. It must be clear and say something like "distilled white vinegar" on it or it may interfere.

2. Heat it up in a microwave (or with something else, obviously) until it starts to bubble. The time needed changes with the amount you have.

3. Place your chosen metal into the hot- it should be hot- mixture. Copper should be clean, as in shiny and not tarnished, and could include pennies or wiring. Wiring is good because it has guaranteed purity. Iron has yet to be tested by me but allegedly there is a difference for rusted and "clean" iron. Iron is everywhere and nickle is found in nickles, obviously. Some metals do not work with this process, but with it being such a crude process, nothing else would make sense to use. Also, getting enough of it is important because the result will be weak without enough dissolved.

4. A reaction should occur between the solution and the metal and many bubbles should form. If it seems violent, it presents no danger at all and will not shoot everywhere. In fact, the only waste is oxygen and vapors given off by the hot vinegar. (That probably isn't true, but it's all you need to know.) One of the most interesting parts of this experiment is that the color of this mess of science changes to fun colors based on the metal used. Copper turns into a nice green-blue, nickle into a slightly lighter green-blue, iron into something else, and rusty iron into a red.

5. The reaction should slow down soon and bubbles should stop forming. Remove the metal from the liquid and admire its soiled form (more on that later.) Also admire the colorful solution before you possibly ruin that too.

6. Heat up the solution (your colorful liquid) again, trying to get it as hot as possible without boiling or bubbling over. It should be hot.

7. Place the metal object you want to coat, which should be clean to avoid dirt, well, dirtying the solution, into the solution. Bubbles, less than before, should appear on it. The coating of metals should become visible after a few minutes and may even be done then, depending on a few things. To help, you could heat it up again (the metal object is in the water thus microwaving it won't kill you, but you could remove it if you want) and/or throw in more clean metal for the solution to eat if you feel you didn't put in enough. The most helpful thing would probably be to give it time.

8. Your chosen object should eventually have a coating of your chosen metal. It is important that you realize that it won't be a clean or even coating. But it's still fun. And might actually look nice.

Conclusion: This is effective at coating metals to a point, but when you realize that your metal-coated object could become slightly eaten and that your coating may be eaten, it's easy to see how it is not a good replacement for the real thing. Your leftover solution could be reused, disposed of, or used to make something else. Technically, the liquid is a combination of the vinegar and peroxide (and their water, mostly) and an acetate. This can be taken out as shown in a later project. Your metal used to form the colored liquid can be washed using the old pennies-in-vinegar trick. This means that the process is very repeatable. Overall, this is a very simple and surprisingly fast way to play with metals.



Fun with Acetates
An acetate is the product of vinegar reacting with a metal. In your solution made above, you would have copper, iron, nickel, or something else acetate which are all different from each other. Since most acetates are used in dyeing as dyes themselves or to set dyes into a material, you probably do not have much use for your acetates. Yet if you want to become Master of the Acetates or are a hipster-tastic artist looking to mix chemicals and make fun colors, your vinegar fumes and tarnished metals shall not go to waste with the guide I will compile here.

Copper acetate appears as either dark blue crystals or lighter blue-green crystals. It is used as a dye and as a part in complex pesticides (which you couldn't make with common products.) Most interesting is, like all copper compounds, copper acetate makes a green flame when exposed to fire. Yes, green fire is about the most productive you'll get from these if you aren't an artist.

Iron(II) acetate is the product of clean iron and is used to set dyes, Information is very scarce so it seems eating iron with vinegar is not very useful.

Iron(III) acetate is the product of rusty iron and is used as a dye. It is red. And about as useful as the above iron acetate.

Nickel acetate, despite looking very nice, is really only used to plate metals with nickel. It probably could be used as a dye, but I don't know anything about what makes a chemical good for dyeing. It is a vivid off-cyan color.

Zinc acetate crystals are clear and look like "rock salt" and are perhaps the most useful in the list. It is used to treat the common cold, is in anti-itch ointments and appears in some gums to freshen breath. It's only manly use is to preserve wood, which is actually quite useful if you think about it. Naturally, it is used to set dyes.

Aluminum acetate is white and powdery. Its properties appear to contradict, being an irritant (which means it makes you itch) and working as an antibacterial and antifungal agent. It appears to be able to relieve the itching and inflammation in an infection. That's probably more reliable, but don't take a risk and smear it all over your infection.

Sodium acetate is popularly known as "hot ice" and is made by carefully mixing baking soda and vinegar, but is more expensive, impure, and frustrating than simply buying it. My guide can not be nearly as effective as a video, thus does not exist. Sodium acetate is also used as a food additive, tasting like table salt.

Notes: This guide only includes metals you are somewhat likely to even recognize. The "dye-setters" are known as "mordants" to people who actually dye things. I have no idea how to use them or the dyes and would probably be much less reliable than a common dyeing-at-home book if I did. These should not be used randomly for their other uses as bad things sometimes happen when chemicals are randomly thrown about, Most of these, especially copper acetate, will oxidize if left in air.



Making Charcoal
It's fairly easy. Just put some wood in an airtight metal container, poke a hole in the container, and roast for a while over a fire. If you want good-to-high-quality charcoal, you probably should not look here. Just use one type of seasoned (little water, traditionally by baking in the sun under a tarp for a year) wood at a time and in similarly-sized chunks/branches and you should be fine. For actual high-quality charcoal, this method (insertnamehere) is not most effective.

Charcoal apparently burns hotter and longing than its unrefined wooden ancestor (which is weird) and is about 20% of the weight of the original product. All the water, tars, and random tree ingredients are burned off and disappear through that fancy hole you made. If you didn't make it, those things will be exploding out of your container due to steam pressure. That clumpy (your charcoal is probably very breakable or powdery) stuff sold in stores has added ingredients with allow it to form in clumps and whiten when hot (the whitening chemical is lye, by the way.) That stuff should do for most occasions, but if you want to be cool or need relatively pure carbon, this works. And yes, charcoal is just carbon.

Notes: Apparently, charcoal is infamous for spontaneously lighting hours after being cooked. This is simply explained. Charcoal is wood roasted in the absence of oxygen. Using a small hole in an airtight container allows the steam and such to escape without letting oxygen in. By failed experimentation, I discovered that smoke coming from the hole is good and means it is working. When the smoking piece of wood mentioned was removed from its (horrible excuse for an) airtight container, it burst into flame. Why? The sudden rush of oxygen gave the hot, ready-to-burn charred wood the fuel it was looking for all that time. And their marriage of carbon to oxygen was made into a failed independent film. Or something like that. Just wait for it to cool off and don't store it near anything flammable. Charcoal can be made from any plant, but wood is easy and the traditional choice.



Blacksmithing
Charcoal. And bricks. And pipe. And a cheap hairdryer.
Oh and steel. A hammer might help. And an anvil substitute. That's the fun part.



Experimental Rocket Fuels
This will written as soon as I find more firewood. Somebody thought it would be a good idea not only to place the compost pile right behind the uncovered stack of logs, but ignore the fact that the supply of such logs is dwindling. Now the only firewood is slightly damp and reserved for a camping trip or halfway to becoming dirt (which some of it has.) Doesn't anybody know how to season wood?
And there's the issue of boiling bleach. Some people don't like that.



Making Hydrogen
Using common household materials, hydrogen gas can be made. And with any bit of care, it could be pure.



The list shall be updated as knowledge and sleep is gained. For publication at a later date on a website.

Celery would hit it. Hard.

o.O

I approve of this. Kind of surprised that you got out so many safety regulations, but I like it.

On the topic of possibly destructive science, is there anything that isn't napalm which moose should make/use/perform?

Making copper acetate was fun, but it doesn't seem to be pure. Maybe pennies aren't a good source for copper. And nickles not a good source for nickle. Both shouldn't leave a similar residue.

Making charcoal failed horribly because there somehow is not a spare metal container in the Moosecave and beyond. Note: Aluminum foil is weak. Especially in a fire.

If you use a penny make sure it is at least 20 years old, they had higher Copper amounts then.

Moose could always use copper wiring.

I reckon.

Perhaps it would be wise to buy a textbook and a chemistry set.

Moose knows more than moose thought.

For a complete Manual of Life as a Shoe-bearing Citizen, a survival text could be compiled by various people. First Aid goes well with chemistry.

Well, I know first aid, to a degree. I could probably help with that.

Anyway, an acetate is not specifically the product of vinegar reacting with a metal.

For the purposes of unofficially educated teenagers it is.

And it IS. Household vinegar is 5% acetic acid. Acetic acid makes acetates. Vinegar is just diluted acid. ROCK should know this.

Moose, you should probably be made aware that it's "Copper (II) Acetate" and "Nickel (II) Acetate," since fancy transition metals require the Roman numerals denoting the charge, since they can have multiple oxidation numbers. And Acetate has a charge of -2. But you had it correct for the Iron Acetates.

That made no sense.

Moose should take a chemistry course.

The best that could be done was order a textbook, which was done.

Since Snipe said the thingy contained too many big words, moose's painful work of simplifying the instructions and information in the actual content to be understandable to everybody may have failed. Unless Snipe read the title and got bored.

Its a very good job. Fancy words may be fancy but they make any pony that says them look smarter

will mooose be able to create/sell (Bad type of drug) with this?

Mod Edit: No drugs please

Slice, if you had actually read the Manuscript, you would see that it contains primarily safety rules and guidelines. Also, read the site rules. I'm fairly certain there's something about there against discussion of illegal content-- this includes the manufacture, sale, and consumption of illegal drugs.

shouldn't ROCKs last post have been a mod edit?

Moose does not know how to nor has made drugs. At least the illegal types. Yet. But prison is not fun.

ALAS, PURE HYDROGEN GAS. Who knew aluminum was so reactive? Well, many people did. Who knew that anybody, using very common household ingredients, could produce hydrogen? Few people did. And soon a few more shall learn once this large land mammal puts his hide in danger (the actual experiment is not dangerous) for your enjoyment.

GUNPOWDER HAS BEEN MANUFACTURED.

And what will be done with this newly manufactured item, prof?