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Archive: Chemistry

Chemistry Home | Next >

August 21, 2009

How-To: Etch aluminum panels

Instructables user sineSurfer brings us this straightforward process for etching aluminum using the same tools required for PCB etching, but with a milder etchant consisting of hydrochloric acid and peroxide to replace ferric chloride.

August 20, 2009

Zubbles!

According to some reports, toy designer Tim Kehoe spent 15 years and $3 million US to bring his vision of colored soap bubbles to market. Making a colored bubble is apparently hard enough, but the real challenge is making them non-staining. That's right: By virtue of some very fancy dye chemistry, Zubbles are only colored as bubbles. Once they pop the color disappears. After years of hype, they can finally (and only) be purchased here.

August 18, 2009

Beautiful, deadly fountain pumps pure metallic mercury

For my money, it is one of the more perverse facts of the physical universe that elemental mercury, which is so beautiful and has so many amazing and useful properties, is also so dangerous.

This fountain, commissioned by the Spanish government from Alexander Calder for the 1937 World's Fair, pumps quicksilver instead of water. Today the entire fountain, located at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, is enclosed in a glass box to prevent exposure of visitors to the toxic metal. Professor David Eppstein at UC-Irvine has a nice gallery of pictures, including the above.

More:

Mercury driven motor

Sculpting metal with high explosives

In 1985, American artist Evelyn Rosenberg developed a technique for embossing thick metal plates by blasting them onto a mold with sheets of plastic explosive. "Detonography," as she calls it, can impress very delicate images into metal surfaces, and can weld dissimilar metals together into single panels. Shown above is "Pillars of Knowledge," featuring four detonographs treated with various chemicals to produce different patinas.

August 17, 2009

August food science Fridays at The Brooklyn Kitchen

Better late than never with this announcement, but The Brooklyn Kitchen is giving two more Food Science Fridays demonstrations this month at their store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 21 at 4PM: IT'S ELECTRIC!

Tuber Town: We're going to see what kind of kitchen electronics we can run with potatoes and citrus fruits!

Sparks!: Not the malt liquor! We're going to see what sort of minty things we can get to spark in the dark recesses of our mouths.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28 at 4PM: UP, DOWN AND OVER

How Do You Get An Egg In A Bottle?: We'll demonstrate how temperature and air pressure interact to pull a hardboiled egg into a narrow mouthed bottle. The real question will probably end up: How do we get the egg out?!

Chemical Propulsion: We're going to build a rocket to the moon. Well, maybe not the moon, but we are going to propel things short distances into the air using baking soda and vinegar.

Dry Ice Cream: Making ice cream always feels a bit scientific, especially the old fashioned rocksalt and ice way. But today we're going to go nerdtastic and make ice cream using dry ice.

Their September class lineup is online today, too!

The pitch drop experiment

In 1927 Dr. Thomas Parnell at the University of Queensland heated a sample of petroleum pitch, also called bitumen, and poured it into a glass funnel, with a sealed neck, set in a ring stand. Three years later, in 1930, he broke the neck off the funnel and set it aside. It took eight years for the first drop of pitch to fall. The experiment has been running continuously ever since, and has produced a total of eight drops to date. The man shown in the photograph above is Dr. John Mainstone, who is the experiment's current custodian.

The most recent drop fell in November 2000, which means the next one should be falling sometime in the next couple of years. The funnel contains enough pitch to run, it is estimated, at least another hundred years. To date, no one has ever witnessed or photographed a drop falling, but that's likely to change with the next one. The University of Queensland maintains a webcam showing a live view of the experiment at all times. The photograph below shows a screenshot I captured of it just this morning:

pitch drop experiment webcam capture.jpg

How-To: DIY Ferrofluid

Though the recipe does call for some flammable and toxic ingredients, curious chemists may want to check out these instructions for making your own magnetic ferrofluid over at Sci-Spot. Anyone come across a any better methods? Please drop a line in the comments!

August 14, 2009

Make: Projects - Bottle cutting

There are lots of ways to do this particular trick. You may have seen bottles "cut" using a bucket of ice water, a string soaked in fuel and set alight, a hot narrow gauge resistive wire, or some combination of the above. I've tried all of these ways, at one point or another, with varying degrees of success, and I'm reporting here the method that gives most consistent results for me. But if you're interested in trying some other way, by all means experiment. Glass bottles are freely available just about everywhere, and you can always recycle your mistakes.

Regardless of which of these methods you favor, "bottle cutting" is generally a misnomer, as what's really going on is a process of controlled breakage. (Unless, of course, you're actually using a tile saw or something similar, in which case I'm prepared to agree it's really "cutting.")

Anyway. Glass, molecularly, is mostly silicon dioxide, but it's distinct from crystalline solids like ice or table salt in that the molecules are not well-ordered in space. You may have heard some balderdash about how glass is really a liquid with practically infinite viscosity; generally the swelling of ancient cathedral windows at the bottom is sited as evidence to that effect. Well, it's not true: There is, to my knowledge, no reliable evidence that glass will flow at room temperature regardless of how long you wait. Turns out cathedral glaziers made their windows thicker at the bottom on purpose.

But as an analogy, "infinitely viscous liquid" is not a bad way to understand the random molecular ordering of bulk glass. The upshot of this anisotropy is that glass does not cleave in orderly ways: Cracks tend to wander off in random, unpredictable directions, and shattering can easily occur due to internal stresses. There is, therefor, an element of luck involved in the bottle cutting operation, but with a bit of practice and good technique you can make it work most of the time.

Read full story

August 12, 2009

Do you eat the moldy stuff?

My husband and I have battled continuously for years about whether scraping the mold off the top of -- well, anything -- makes it OK to eat, or if once a spot of green invades the top of a barely used jar of jam we've got to call it a loss and toss it out. I'm always willing to scrape off the top, cut off the moldy crusts, etc., and carry on with the meal. My husband, not so much.

Well, turns out the USDA has weighed in on the argument with interesting findings. My favorite part of the Safe Food Handling fact sheets is this chart on how to handle moldy foods (very, very carefully is not one of the answers):

An article on CNN takes it one step farther, suggesting that you shouldn't eat the pizza you left out on the counter overnight (What? Even my husband finds this to be absurd). And I never would have thought about eating moldy sausage, hard or not.

In the end, experts and the USDA report both recommend throwing out most moldy foods. I admit, the idea of threads of mold weaving their way into the bottom of the container gives me a moment of pause; but if you read about what happens if you eat a slightly tainted dollop of sour cream, the most likely effect will be a stomach ache.

Sad mold and happy mold. (Photos by napalm nikki and jkuma, respectively)

I've had stomach aches from eating myriad meals over the years, made by friends, family, and fast food joints, so this news isn't likely to change my habits. After all, we all know about the happy molds found in blue cheeses and on the outside of Bries and Camemberts. Now there's some mold I can sink my teeth into.

Anyone out there have any experience working with molds in cheese-making, or have a gruesome tale that will cure me from my "just scrape it off" attitude? Tell me about in the Comments.

August 10, 2009

Amazingly simple magnetic heat-switching valve

Here's an interesting article about a very clever gizmo by two scientists at Denmark's Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy. It's being hyped as a totally original invention, but the idea is so conceptually simple that I have a hard time believing it's entirely new under the sun. Still, though--very cool.

So, quick science review: If you take a magnetic material and heat it up, eventually it stops being magnetic. The temperature at which this happens is called the "Curie temperature" (named for Monsieur, rather than Madame, Curie). The process is completely reversible: Cool the stuff down again, and its magnetism returns. And it turns out, with modern manufacturing, a very wide range of Curie temperatures is possible depending on the specific materials involved.

What Danish scientists Christian Bahl and Dan Eriksen have done is exploit the Curie effect to create a simple, heat-switching mechanical valve: At low temperatures, a magnetic attraction keeps the spring-loaded flapper in one position, but at temperatures above the Curie point, the magnetic attraction is annulled and the spring drives the flapper into the other position. Like other devices commonly called "magnetic valves," the Bahl-Erikson valve has the advantage that it can be operated without introducing any holes into the valve case, which is handy if you're working with nasty or delicate materials. Unlike other magnetic valves, however, it does not require any kind of external power to operate, and hence is more reliable as a failsafe.

August 7, 2009

Theo Gray on electrochemical machining

In this Boing Boing Video, PopSci columnist and author of the splendid and high-recommend Theo Gray's Mad Science, explains how electrochemical machining (ECM) works and shows off a rig he put together to do ECM in his shop.

The entire how-to can be found at popsci.com.

Carve Steel with Saltwater, Electricity and a Tin Earring (Popsci)

More:
Theo Gray on why "safety" is overrated
Behold: the flaming bacon lance of death!

August 5, 2009

How-To: Build your own IcyBall

The Crosley IcyBall (wikipedia) is a commercial early-twentieth century portable chemical refrigerator that runs without moving parts or electricity. Cooling is caused by the evaporation and re-adsorption of ammonia into a water-based solution, which is a spontaneous process that can be reversed by applying heat, as from a campfire. Authentic IcyBalls are valuable antiques, but Larry Hall has posted a cool write-up of the one he built for himself using gas pipe fittings.

August 3, 2009

Home science projects from Exploratorium

Julie Yu, a post-doc at San Francisco's Exploratorium, has a really good collection of unusual home lab activities on her page, including a home column chromatography experiment using common materials, which is the first of its kind I've seen.

July 30, 2009

Printable batteries

A research team at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems (ENAS) in Chemnitz, Germany, led by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Baumann, have developed a 1.5V battery that weighs less than a gram, is less than 1mm thick, and can be printed using a process similar to that used in silk screening.

The new type of battery consists of different layers: a zinc anode and a manganese cathode, among others. Zinc and manganese react with one another and produce electricity. However, the anode and the cathode layer dissipate gradually during this chemical process. Therefore, the battery is suitable for applications that have a limited life span or a limited power requirement, for instance greeting cards.

The team hopes to have products using the method available by the end of the year.

Need battery power? Just print it out

July 29, 2009

Capillary action colors calendar in real time

Artist Oscar Diez created this amazing calendar, made of different types of paper and special inks, which is carefully designed to slowly color in the days of the month by capillary action, in real time, over the course of each month. Via Boing Boing.

July 26, 2009

Persimmon wine: patience pays

Persimmon wine

bbum's posted the results of his latest project. It looks very tasty:

The sweet essence of persimmon is both present in the nose and in the flavor. And the characteristic astringency of persimmon carries through, too, giving the wine a slight "pucker" at the end...

And this was an exercise in patience. Despite an iffy initial impression, the final result seems to have wowed its maker:

Way back in February, I racked the persimmon wine between the various glass carboys to get it off the yeast poo (lees).
At the time, the two carboys showed 11.5% and 12.5% ABV. Not bad. But it didn't taste very good in early March/April; way too bitter and *bleh*.

So, I let it sit until last week. The flavors have mellowed and, chilled, it is quite a drinkable beverage.

Make: Persimmon Wine Finished!

As a bonus, check out bbum's forced carbonation rig, which he used on a couple bottles of the persimmon wine:

forced carbonation

July 20, 2009

How-To: Change Lego element colors

It turns out the same dyes that work on computer parts also work on Lego bricks, which are also, in my experience, seemingly never available in the color you need. Lego purists generally frown on paints and adhesives, but frankly being an active builder can get pretty expensive pretty fast, and a lot of that is due to having to order elements you may already have in abundance, but in the wrong color. And sometimes the element you want may not even be manufactured in the color you need at all.

These pictures come from SaveTheAggie's post over on Classic-Castle.com, and show his own results in dying the armor on one of his Lego knights. His report also includes some abrasion tests of the dye's fastness.

How-To: Dye computer parts

If you even remotely care about the aesthetics of your computer, you've probably wished at some point that one or more of your components were a different color. For instance, I prefer my computers to be basic black all over, but more than once have been driven to install a beige part because it was what I needed at the right price.

Up until this weekend, I didn't think there was really anything to be done, short of making a mold of the offending part and recasting it in a different color plastic or resin, which is way too much work for such a small annoyance. There's spraypaint, of course, but it's tacky, IMHO; I can almost always identify a spray-painted surface, and although there are good spray paints for plastics on the market today, any kind of finish that leaves a coating on the surface can affect critical dimensional tolerances and impede fit or performance. And it may eventually wear off.

Turns out, however, that there are dyes for plastics, which is counter-intuitive for me because I think of a dye as requiring a porous substrate, and I don't generally think of plastics as porous. To find these products, the googlon is "vinyl dye," and the conventional market is folks restoring automobile interiors. These dyes, although they come in spray cans, are not paints. Their colorants actually ~~adsorb onto~~ absorb into the polymer itself and do not leave any kind of coating behind. To do so, they must soften the plastic surface with a solvent, so they can negatively affect its glossiness, but most of the plastic I'd want to dye isn't high-sheen, anyway. Here's a nice tutorial from GideonTech.com.

July 16, 2009

How-To: Build a heat pipe

Heat pipes, I am obliged to point out, are awesome. When somebody first explained to me how they work, I was like, "No way. Uh-unh. Don't believe you." And yet they persist in existing, and working, in spite of my disbelief. I'm still getting over the pain.

Lots of people sell heat pipes to overclockers/PC performance hackers for processor cooling. But I've often wondered about other applications--dark, brooding, evil applications for which there may not be suitably diabolical commercial units. Hence I'm curious about rolling my own, and hence I'm very appreciative of Jim over at Benchtest.Com, who has built several of his own pipes, and done a great job documenting the process and the performance of the resulting devices.

July 15, 2009

World's most perfect spheres

These silicon spheres, manufactured by metrologists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) as part of efforts to alleviate dependence on the International Prototype Kilogram, have properties that are as close to truly exact as measurable properties are likely to be for a long time to come: They weigh 1.0000000 kilograms, are smooth to the nearest 0.0000000003 meter, and are round to within 0.000000050 meters. One of them is even monoisotopic. Via boing².

Chemistry Home | Next >

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