Chemistry stuff topic

[Pengwin]

There's not much information on Bismuth, but I found this which gives the general idea.

I may be able to offer some insights on how to grow bismuth crystals. We have been doing it for sometime in a rather low tech way on an old electrical kitchen stove we bought for that purpose. We just take the metal, it has to be quite pure and put it in a stainless steel bowl and heat it up to melting and then cool it off.

We have to insulate the bowl to keep it from cooling down too much and we also have to insulate the top which we do by floating an insulating substance on the top of the bismuth with little screws going down through the insulation into the molten bismuth and then let the melt cool down a little. At the proper time you just lift off the insulation and magically there are beautiful bismuth crystals growing on the screws.

It is a bit of an art form and takes some trial and error to get a feeling how long you have to wait. Wait too long and the bismuth crystals grow "wall to wall". We really have not managed to work out the kinks to make it more than marginally successful in a commercial sense. To do that you need to grow the bismuth crystals so that they are long and slender or very hoppered so that you get maximum visual appeal for the amount of bismuth in your crystal cluster...

Always consider safety first when working with molten metal at these temperatures. Use the purest bismuth you can obtain.

The crystals form floating in a supercooled bismuth melt and actual growing time is about 5 - 10 minutes

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[Muffinmix]

Another way of doing it would be to cool the liquid bismuth down past it's Melting Point without giving it too much of a shock. Then the still liquid, supercooled bismuth would crystallize as soon as you throw in, say, a small speck of solid bismuth to trigger it to crystallize into a solid.

Here's some dirt on the stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth

Here's some dirt on supercooling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling

[Ronin]

Another way of doing it would be to cool the liquid bismuth down past it's Melting Point without giving it too much of a shock. Then the still liquid, supercooled bismuth would crystallize as soon as you throw in, say, a small speck of solid bismuth to trigger it to crystallize into a solid.

Here's some dirt on the stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth

Here's some dirt on supercooling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling

A company near me works with Bismuth and other elements for who knows what. They used to have a stockpile with heaps of that stuff.

Also I find Alkalines very interesting.

[(MoA) Shaun]

I've never seen the show brainiac before, Its all most as good as bill nye!

[TapeDeck]

except its not

[General Omega]

I like chemistry and all, but I like physics much much more.

[Muffinmix]

Here's a more visual demo of supercooling and Activation Energy (in this case, kinetic energy)

sodium acetate water solution = allot of fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC-KOYQsIvU&feature=related

Supercooled water recieving it's activation energy to crystallize via Agitation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyIOU4qrQDU&feature=related

... via Heat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQdb3BFFXV0&feature=related

Now for something different
Some neat ultra-dense or ultra heavy or something gaseous compound, sulfur hexafluoride, at work!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAsOfqCy4A0&feature=related

Now here's a question, what do you think makes this gas so dense or heavy or whatever it may be? I don't know actually, and now I'm off again to go work on my report.

[jungemann]

Idk, I would have to assume that there are more protons, neutrons, and electrons. That would really be the only way that it would be more dense than the surrounding air.

Really love the supercooled water trick, supposedly you can find the pure water in one of 20 bottles of water. I have yet to try it myself, but it looks pretty awesome.

[Otis Da HousKat]

Idk, I would have to assume that there are more protons, neutrons, and electrons. That would really be the only way that it would be more dense than the surrounding air.

...

/facepalm

[yuki]

Idk, I would have to assume that there are more protons, neutrons, and electrons. That would really be the only way that it would be more dense than the surrounding air.

Lern2density

[Monty]

Everyone non-handicap knows that an electron has a negligible mass of 0.00058.

[Rughugger]

I like chemistry and all, but I like physics much much more.

Oh but chemistry is all about Physics. Primarily all over Newton's laws. 

[General Omega]

Oh but chemistry is all about Physics. Primarily all over Newton's laws.

But that can be said with almost all of science. I am talking about the cool stuff like quantom physics and dimensions and stuff like that.

[cncwarlord]

Man your guyses chemistry conversations arent terribly interesting, someone sysnthesise up some acid so I can understand what your saying

[Otis Da HousKat]

Man your guyses chemistry conversations arent terribly interesting, someone sysnthesise up some acid so I can understand what your saying

H⁺(g)+Cl^-(g)->HCl(g)

There, have fun. I'm fairly sure it is a gas in its natural form so let's add a touch of liquid water.

HCl(g)+H₂O(l)->H₃O⁺(aq)+Cl^-(aq)