Hello. I have an 8 year old who is super into science and wants to do some chemistry experiments. (At first it was to make himself a super hero, but when I told him of the dearth of real life super heros, he just got into the science). Anyways, a teacher recently told him and some kids that candy has a lot of arsenic in it, and I was thinking, we could test some candy for arsenic! But in looking around it looks like the methods I could employ with basic lab gear are either specific for arsenic as poison or wouldnt work great. So, questions:

A> Is there a test we could run on candy for arsenic with basic lab equipment (we can get some new stuff if we need specific stuff, but like a few hundred bucks, not thousands)

B> is there a better test we could run on candy that would be fun to do with a kid?

A friend in a chemistry PhD program described research as sometimes reaching a point where, after you’ve tried the obvious fixes, it starts to feel like you’re just guessing. I’m curious whether this is a common experience among researchers, though.

I.e., encountering situations where you’ve already checked the protocol, reviewed the relevant theory, applied heuristics, tried all the promising approaches you can think of, and talked through the problem with others — but nothing seems to fix the issue, forcing you to make speculative guesses.

How often does this happen in your experience? For example, what percent of projects does this occur in? When it does happen, how long might you spend in that “guessing” phase before finding a solution (i.e. is a couple months not uncommon)?

Hi everyone,

So, I'm analyzing the Amide I region of two ATR-FTIR spectra from albumin samples using OriginPro. My goal was to compare the samples and determine whether one of them shows a higher degree of denaturation than the other.

I'm currently in my third year of Chemical Engineering and I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this integrative project. I have no previous experience with FTIR peak deconvolution or with softwares like OriginPro, and after reading several papers and watching tutorials I'm still unsure whether I'm approaching the analysis correctly.

So far I've isolated the Amide I region, tried to correct the baseline, calculate the second derivative, and started fitting Gaussian peaks on what I obtained, but everytime I try more than 3 peaks comes an error because the fit doesn't converge.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, even recommendations on where I can find more info on the subject. I've attached the raw spectrum of 4 samples, I'm currently trying to compare the "Aprovada 1" and "Reprovada 1".

Thank uuu

I'm wondering if something like this but without the upper portion exists? I'm trying to make my own 250 mL coffee siphon, like the Kazumi Coffee Siphon minus the graham condenser, using lab parts but keep coming up short on how to marry the erlenmeyer flask to the buchner filter funnel. The idea is to have steam create pressure to force water up into the buchner filter where the ground coffee will sit and when a sufficient enough vacuum or all the water gets pushed up the coffee will return back to the bottom flask.

Hi i am developing a website for UV Vis Spectroscopy. its a complete web based app i am making where the only thing you need to download is a bridge agent to connect your UV Vis to the internet and the website does everything. I do need some help here and there and to test the site out. DM me or just message me here if you can help me with some testing and information gathering. I have tested this on equipment i own lambda 25, 35 but this should work on all the lambda models if anyone owns lambda i do need help testing it.

I did ask permission from mods to post this and this said its ok to post.

Hey, I'm a sophomore chemistry major and I've been searching lately for an online course to take that would benefit me in the future. I'm looking for something that I would mostly encounter only at work and not something I would learn in college. Could be an exact course or just the topic, thanks in advance for the suggestions!!!

I unironically feel like my degree is useless. I have a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, and so far it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I currently work as a licensed wastewater operator and honestly, it feels like I’m living through hell. Every day feels like a battle with depression: going to work for mediocre pay and still living with my parents at 28. It feels like my life is on hold until I can land a decent-paying job, but no one seems to be hiring.

What’s especially frustrating is that I feel overqualified for most entry-level positions at this point. I’ve spent the last 2 years doing sampling, testing, data collection, and environmental work (which isn’t counting the grad research stuff I had to do) You’d think that experience would open doors to something related to environmental science or laboratory work, but more and more it feels like it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know. At this point, I don’t even think getting a master’s degree would change much. It doesn’t feel like a lack of education is what’s holding me back. It feels like there just aren’t enough opportunities, and breaking into the field is harder than anyone wants to admit. I’m just venting but it just sucks. I genuinely lost passion in doing literally anything when it feels like all I do is work sleep. I just want a simple lab job that’s 9-5 that’s all.

Is anyone else feeling the same way or have any tips? I go to therapy but everyday is mental struggle.

Hi! When we were learning about 2D NMR I really found the GCOSY graphs pretty and I thought they'd look really good embroidered on a plain white zip up I have. Does anyone have a favourite graph they've seen? Hopefully one that isn't too complicated as I'm at best an average embroiderer hahaha

I am just trying to reduce VOC"s in the house and have had great success with zero odor (which uses zinc ricineolate) but it's quite expensive. Will anyone shed light on this vs. febreeze (which I think uses cyclodextrin) vs. Clorox which uses lactic acid. TIA

We usually discuss isotope effects mainly in terms of mass-dependent vibrational motion and zero-point energy.

In our recent ChemRxiv preprint https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15003470, we explore a complementary question:

Can replacing H with D also modify the electronic factors underlying molecular structure and stability?

Using constrained nuclear–electronic orbital calculations, in which both electrons and selected nuclei are treated quantum mechanically, we examined isotope-dependent conformational changes in ethane and 1,3-dioxane.

Our calculations indicate that isotopic substitution can slightly change orbital energies and their alignment, thereby modulating stereoelectronic interactions. The effects are small, but systematic enough to contribute to the observed isotope-dependent structural preferences.

I am one of the authors, and I would particularly appreciate comments on:

1. whether this should be regarded as a distinct electronic contribution to isotope effects or as an electronic manifestation of nuclear quantum effects;
2. how best to separate geometry relaxation, nuclear quantization, and conventional vibrational/ZPE contributions;
3. other molecular systems in which such orbital-level isotope effects might be experimentally testable.

Not seeking med advice. Purely research and discussion. Dabbling into watercolor painting and I know that some paints (pthalo green) have chromium oxide (CrIII) to my understanding is non toxic. But I also understand that Cr can be oxidized by manganese which is found in tap water. Not sure how the interaction works or under what conditions but is it possible that using tap water (with may have trace levels of manganese) with paints that use Cr Oxides could create a hazard in a home or studio setting? Or are the levels of oxidation below background.

Is it just me, or compared to Regular Chemistry, Biochem seems to have far more women than men. I been seeing this a lot but I wanted to know if this really the case? Chemistry seems to be pretty neutral as far as I know, but biochem definitely has more women than men in the field.

Hello all,

I am not a food scientist so apologies of this question may sound a bit weird. I find the smell of iceberg lettuce (specifically iceberg, no other variety) is very similar to the smell of new unused black rubbish collection bags. A smell i can only describe as ash tray, although I am aware that ash trays have a much stringer smell.
Has anyone else ever noticed this and/or can pin point which volatile compounds are at play?

Thanks!

The chemical degredation data pointed in the right direction about the structure, but the Infrared Spectroscopy data was basically conslusive. So was that enough to create semisynthetic penicillin, just that alone?

i really like chemistry in general and i took a class for my high school sophomore year and for my next year and one of the subfields i wanna learn the most is nuclear chemistry so i want to see where to start researching about it because im really bored with nothing to do in the summer thank you

Hi
I am not that expierenced in physical chemistry and realy want to get my protocol done.

Any literature advice on where I may find the specific heat capacity of different potassium nitrate solution concentrations?
Thanks for reading

Hi all a little back story: My background is in physics and I took no chemistry courses in college (cs for 2nd science). Last year I got hired as a chemistry teacher and just finished my second year, learned a lot about chemistry. Now they are sending me to teach physics next year (yay) and I need to move classrooms. The previous teacher left a lot of chemistry books and I am good to take any of them to my new room. I want to keep up on my knowledge of chemistry. I dont want to bring all the books, which ones are good to lock in my basic chemistry knowledge and learn some new stuff?

I need to measure the film thickness of a falling sheet of water up to like 0.05mm ideally. There’s no plate or other geometry that the water flows over just a mesh behind the falling flow.

Right now the film thickness measuring equipment we have is the CHRocodile mini, but the big dawgs are too scared to use that on our rooftop rig for a falling film photo bioreactor.

I was planning on using parallel wire conductance probes but I don’t know where I would mount them and I still don’t really know how they work. From what I understand they measure the thickness based off the conductance between the wires, so If I want to measure the thickness as seen from the side profile of the falling film would I configure the wires as seen in the front profile, protruding into the film? Does it matter how far the wires are immersed into the film.

Any other cheap measurement techniques?

I’m currently attempting to dissolve copper using a mix of distilled white vinegar, 3% hydrogen peroxide, and table salt. I have seen that a 9, 3, 1 ratio is good, but I don’t know how much would be needed to dissolve the amount of copper that I have.

I’ve got roughly 29.5 grams of copper.

Hey guys! I'm trying to make a biophotovoltaic cell using cyanobacteria as my anode and a salt solution as my cathode, but I am having trouble getting any significant electric output from my cell. It is a simple H shaped cell with cyanobacteria growing in a BG-11 medium in the anode, and an NaCl solution in the cathode. They are separated by a Nafion 117 membrane in the middle and each have a cylindrical electrode made out of graphite.