Making chemical solutions

An important part of Chemistry is the ability to make up solutions of a known concentration. This can sound quite complex, however it doesn't need to be.

The following is some simple instructions that will produce 250m of 1molar concentration of Sodium Chloride

I have made this solution up using pure Sodium Chloride, from a chemical supplier [1], rather than table salt which contains Sodium Ferrocyanide. If you need extra help with this try asking on Science forums [2] as there is a section on there for home chemistry.

I am also on the IRCNow network, where we are starting up a channel to discuss amateur / home science.

Links

1 Better Equipped 2 Science Forums 3 Amateur Science

Tags

#Chemistry,#NaCl,#SodiumChloride,#Molar,#Mol,#Solution,

Electronic Structures of Atoms

In Chemistry is important to know how electrons are arranged in their orbitals. The guide below is a really good explanation of this.

Links

• Electron Orbitals

Typesetting

If you are using LaTeX to write up reports, then it may be useful to be able to confidently type set how electrons are arranged in their shells and subshells.

if we take an example for Boron from the above website, we can type set this in $\LaTeX$ using math mode:-

$1s^22s^22p_x^1$

The result is a nicely typeset electron configuration.

This is not perfect as it should display the final x as a subscript (below) the the 1 as a superscript next to this. But it should be possible to fix.

• View in Overleaf

This tutorial is sort of related but may be useful for drawing diagrams.

To draw the orbital diagrams you need to use :-

\usepackage{ amssymb }

Then in the document use

\upharpoonleft and \upharpoonright

$\upharpoonleft$ and $\upharpoonright$

For this article I used detexify to figure out the \LaTeX code for the graphics.

Update : 25/2/2022

Having asked on the OU forum about this, in this thread reply I have been advised to use the mhchem package and this will type set the orbitals much better.

\usepackage[version=3]{mhchem} % you may prefer the spacing using version=4
...
$\ce{1s^2 2s^2 2p_x^1}$

Tags

#LaTeX,#Chemistry,#Typesetting,#Orbitals,#AtomicStructure

Growing salt crystals – 2nd attempt

Following my previous attempt at this. I am now repeating the experiment with pure Sodium Chloride. I am also using a 250ml conical flask, which is much larger.

This time I used hot water from the kettle, taking a precaution of warming this up with warm tap water first, just in case the sudden temperature changed caused the flask to shatter. I then added Sodium Chloride powder.

I am now leaving this to hopefully grow some nice crystals which I would expect to be more of a cuboid shape. This prediction is based on:-

• Pictures of similar results
• The molecular shape of Sodium Chloride.

I am doing this for:

• Support the STEM Group events
• Hopefully can use this in a school to help children grow their own crystals.
• Personal interest
• Research purposes

Links

• Better Equipped
• Paignton Library STEM Group
  • Science forum discussion
• Science Forums
• Discourse Discussion
• Tuxiversity
• Qoto Mastodon
• Social coding
• Science Daily

TAGS

#YearOfTheFediverse,#FediverseRising,#Science,#Chemistry,#Growing,#SodiumChloride,#Salt,#Crystals.

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FutureLearn course upgrades

I have two of the courses, that I completed with FutureLearn. The printed certificates should be on the way to me. These two courses are :-

• [Teaching Primary Science : Getting Started]

• [Teaching Primary Science : Chemistry]

Also identified lots of other courses,which demonstrate a commitment to keeping knowledge up to date. These will also be very useful while working as a TA within education settings.

Links

• FutureLearn
• Profile

Tags

#FutureLearn,#Primary,#Science,#Chemistry,#CPD

Science Daily : Articles on Plastics and Polymers

The two articles were posted to Mastodon.

Firstly a look at the problem of Micro-plastics

• Micro plastics

Secondly an article on Polymers

• Polymers with helical blocks

Links

• Science Daily
• Qoto Mastodon Instance

Tags

Science,#ScienceDaily,#Articles,#MicroPlastic,#Polymers,#Chemistry, #Plastics,#Research,#Mastodon,#SocialMedia,#TheYearOfTheFediverse

Growing Salt Crystals

Reposting this due to adding a link to a Science Forum post.

As Salt (Sodium Chloride) dissolves in water, you can grow salt crystals quite easily. There are lots of instructions on the internet, on how to do this with Salt, as well as other chemicals; such as, Alum (Aluminium Sulfate), Borax (Sodium Borate) for example.

For the purpose of my attempt, I used

*a conical flask from my old Chemistry set,
* a wooden lollipop stick, * string * paper clip (to hold the string in the solution)

This is illustrated in the first picture, while the 2nd is a photo of the resulting crystal formation.

Update 17/10/2021

I took more photos on the 4th October to illustrate further growth of the crystals

It is probably worth mentioning that table salt contains Sodium Chloride but also a Anti caking agent called Sodium Ferrycyanide which according to that wikipedia article is a yellow solid.

I am not sure if this somehow affects the growth or shape of the resultng crystals. At some point I should try the same experiment pure NaCl

• Science forum discussion
• Science Forums

Tags

#Chemistry,#Salt,#SodiumChloride,#NaCl,#Crystals