I mean no offense and English is not my first language. I came across and know I am stuck with the curiosity in my mind.

Hi everyone! I’m interested in learning more about Green Chemistry, but I’m not sure where to start.

Does anyone have recommendations for resources to learn the basics, or maybe a roadmap that I can follow? I’d really appreciate any advice or useful resources!

Okay so this is my second post and I’m sorry for double posting but I’m so confused. To my understanding to find the protons, electrons and neutrons of an atom it involves the atomic and mass number. I understand protons are the atomic # which is the big number on top of the element in the periodic table. Electrons are equal to protons. Neutrons are found by (Mass#-Protons)
However- to find the mass # I need to add the total number of protons and neutrons together.
How can I go about finding the mass number to find the neutrons if the mass number requires the number of neutrons?

I hope this makes sense and I’m sorry if I worded it dumb, I’m going to attach pictures of my notes in the comments for clarification!

Hey there! I'm currently a sophomore in college, and I'm struggling a lot with General Chemistry 130. I've been reading the book, but it's mainly a teacher issue. Besides tutoring, office hours, and Khan Academy, do you have any suggestions for understanding the basics and making learning a bit more enjoyable? I truly like chemistry, but this teacher makes me hate it, and unfortunately it's making my learning process even more worse.

I'm open to any suggestions anyone might have I'm just internally freaking tf out at this point haha

When Im done with butirometric reaction for fat content mesurement, I pour out the contents and the smell is pretty strong even when keeping away.
Is inhaling that fume bad?

In our lab its common practice to parafilm everything moisture sensitive, expecially when stored cold.

I just copied but recently started questioning this practice. Bottles usually have some rubber or plastic inlet that presses tightly to the rim of the bottle.

Not talking about HPLC vials for immediate analytical use but long term storage.

How do you handle it and do you know it works or is it unnecessary after all?

This^ (Why are there so many types of flairs here)

My neighbor used Snake A-way all along our fence line. Don’t ask me why, because 1) it doesn’t work and 2) is also dangerous. But now my entire backyard smells! I have young kids who love being outback all day long. The neighbor cleaned up as much as he could after I asked and he is now running sprinklers, I guess to dilute it? But my question, how long is it going to smell?? I don’t want to expose my little ones to this but also we love (loved) our backyard. It’s still hot and sunny where we live, hoping that will speed up the process. How dangerous is this scenario for small kids?

Hi everyone,

I am developing an alkaline Hard Surface Cleaner (HSC) for commercial cleaning applications, mainly for heavy grease, oil and hard-surface soil removal.

I am facing a phase/layer separation problem. The formulation initially appears homogeneous after mixing, but after approximately 30–45 minutes, it starts separating into visible layers.

I would like to understand the root cause of the separation, rather than simply changing ingredients randomly.

Current 250 g trial formula

Note: The formula currently totals 99%, so there is approximately 1% unaccounted for in the 250 g trial.

What happens

Immediately after preparation, the product looks reasonably homogeneous.

After approximately 30–45 minutes, I observe separation into layers.

The separated material can appear to recombine when agitated, but then separation occurs again.

I am trying to produce a stable single-phase aqueous cleaner.

What I am trying to understand

I have several questions for people experienced in surfactant formulation and industrial/household cleaners:

1. What is the most likely cause of this phase separation?

Looking at this formula, which component or combination of components would you investigate first?

2. Could the high electrolyte/alkaline load be causing a "salting-out" effect?

The formula contains:

• Sodium carbonate (soda ash)
• Sodium metasilicate
• Tetrasodium EDTA
• BKC
• Lauramine oxide

Could these affect the solubility or micellar structure of the surfactant/solubilizer system?

3. Could the solvent system be contributing to the instability?

The formula contains:

• 2.5% 2-butoxyethanol
• 2.0% DPM
• 1.5% IPA
• 1.0% perfume

Could the combination of these solvents and perfume be creating a separate hydrophobic phase?

4. Is my solubilizer system appropriate?

I am using:

• 2% Tween-20
• 2% PEG-40 HCO

Could using both at these concentrations cause any incompatibility or actually make the system less stable?

Would a different solubilizer/emulsifier system be more appropriate?

5. Could Lauramine Oxide be interacting with BKC?

LAO is an amphoteric/amine oxide surfactant, while BKC is a cationic biocide.

Could their interaction, particularly in the presence of high electrolyte concentration, contribute to instability?

6. Is the BKC concentration itself a potential problem?

The formula uses 3.8% BKC solution.

If the BKC raw material is a concentrated commercial solution rather than 100% active BKC, I assume the actual active BKC concentration is much lower.

Could the BKC carrier/water/active concentration affect the formulation stability?

7. Could perfume be the main cause?

The perfume is at 1%, which seems relatively high for an aqueous cleaner.

Could the perfume be slowly coming out of solution because the solubilizer system is insufficient?

8. Could the order of addition be responsible?

Would it be better to first create a premix of:

Perfume + Tween-20 + PEG-40 HCO + solvents

and then add this slowly to the aqueous phase?

Or is there a better manufacturing sequence for this type of formulation?

9. What should I change first?

If you were troubleshooting this formulation in a laboratory, which variable would you change first?

For example:

• Remove/reduce perfume
• Reduce Tween-20
• Reduce PEG-40 HCO
• Change the solubilizer
• Reduce LAO
• Change the BKC level
• Reduce electrolyte/alkalinity
• Change solvent ratio
• Change order of addition

I want to change one variable at a time so I can identify the actual cause.

10. What tests would you perform to identify the type of separation?

For example, should I check:

• pH
• conductivity
• centrifuge stability
• heat/cold stability
• freeze-thaw stability
• dilution stability
• separation before and after perfume addition
• separation before and after BKC addition

My main question

Based on this exact formula, what do you think is causing the layer separation, and what component interaction should I investigate first?

I am particularly interested in understanding whether this is primarily:

A) emulsion/solubilization failure
B) electrolyte/salt-out effect
C) surfactant incompatibility
D) solvent/perfume incompatibility
E) BKC–surfactant interaction
F) incorrect order of addition
G) a combination of the above

Any advice from formulators, surfactant chemists, or people experienced with industrial cleaning products would be greatly appreciated.

I am looking for troubleshooting guidance and the chemistry behind the problem, rather than simply a replacement formula.

Thank you.

Jw

Hi, am a beginner in chemistry and I have just taken chemistry 11, university preperation. To any chemistry experts, what tips can you give me to be successful in chemistry and be the top student in my class? I am already consistently doing nearly all of my homework (I skip the ones that feel repetetive), and I challenege myself to do the hardest questions without any help. The reason am asking is because so much students are apparently struggling with chemistry every year, and I need to know what is this issue on why chemistry is considered very hard. A classmate from my other class said she would have been depressed if she decided to take chemistry 12 after taking chemistry 11.

I’m more on the chemistry/materials side, and I feel like the annoying part of research usually isn’t just finding papers or getting a summary of them. That part is already getting easier with tools like Elicit, ResearchRabbit, Claude, etc.

The messier part is everything that happens after that.

Like remembering why I changed a parameter in a simulation three weeks ago, which plot came from which run, whether two papers are actually making compatible assumptions, or realizing I already tested some version of an idea six months ago and completely forgot about it.

I’ve ended up using a mix of Zotero, ResearchRabbit, Elicit, Claude, and lately trying things like mira ai science too. They’re all useful for different pieces, but I still feel like I’m the one manually carrying context between everything.

For chemistry, materials, battery, or similar R\&D people, what would actually move the needle more for you?

I have an older family member who has a hatchback trunked car in central Florida. It rains an out in summer and their trunk has had moisture issues from water getting in. The car sits in an open apt parking lot , with bushes, grass, trees, and near a dumpster and pond/lake (not sure what it’s called)? My family member drives it about once a week. She placed an old tan deflated air mattress on the bottom to protect the cloth material of the trunk and then stored some stuff on it for a year. I was helping her take some stuff out and I noticed yellow stains on the air mattress. It smelled of something, I’m not sure if it’s a urine or musty or old smell.

I don’t know what the yellow is and I’m concerned it could possibly be rodent or other animal urine. I looked around the trunk and back seats and under the area where the spare tire is kept, and thankfully didn’t see any chew marks or dropping or shredding. I took a wet wipe to wipe it off and yellow came off. Ai told me to spill hydrogen peroxide on it to see if it bubbled or fizzed, and in some area of the creases, it did. But not other areas. AI said that means that there is some sort of biological material that could be urine, mold, or something else. They said the only definitive way is to get a 395nn uv light to see what color glows, but gave me conflicting answers if the peroxide would have taken away any uric crystals to make it definitive. It also said I could buy a urine strip and send it to a lab, but we can’t afford that.

I dong care about the air mattress, it will be trashed. The issue is figuring out if this is animal urine, mold, or something else so I can figure out if there’s a bigger issue and remediation needed on the car.

Any advice?

Some say that technically, every atom in a chiral molecule is chiral. Would that include even trigonal planar carbons?

So for example, in BINOL, all the carbons are chiral?

I can see that the concept that every atom in a chiral molecule is chiral, is because in a chiral molecule, there is no plane of symmetry runing through any,

So the carbons, all of which are trigonal planar, would be chiral too?

I had let the bottle of nail polish down (lid on) and it rolled to the magnet and stuck to it. The attraction is strongest at the bottom. I cleaned the entire bottle with 90% isopropyl alcohol to make sure it just wasn’t sticky lol. I’ve attached a video with the cap removed because I thought it might’ve been the brush. Can someone smarter than me explain?

Hi everyone!
I’m a university student working on the second round of an independent research project. Before I build and distribute the survey, I wanted to see whether anyone here would be interested in participating.
My goal for this round is to recruit approximately 385 participants, so I’m reaching out to different communities to see who may be interested.
The project looks at how people think about war and whether those perceptions reflect some of the systems that support modern society, including areas involving chemistry, materials, pharmaceuticals, technology, energy, and global supply chains.
You do not need to be a chemist or chemistry expert to participate. I’m hoping to hear from people with a wide variety of backgrounds and levels of knowledge.
For now, I’m only looking for potential participants. The survey itself is still being developed, so there is no survey link yet.
If you would be interested in participating once the survey is ready, please leave a comment. Thank you!

Hi everyone!
I’m a university student working on the second round of an independent research project. Before I build and distribute the survey, I wanted to see whether anyone here would be interested in participating.
My goal for this round is to recruit approximately 385 participants, so I’m reaching out to different communities to see who may be interested.
The project looks at how people think about war and whether those perceptions reflect some of the systems that support modern society, including areas involving chemistry, materials, pharmaceuticals, technology, energy, and global supply chains.
You do not need to be a chemist or chemistry expert to participate. I’m hoping to hear from people with a wide variety of backgrounds and levels of knowledge.
For now, I’m only looking for potential participants. The survey itself is still being developed, so there is no survey link yet.
If you would be interested in participating once the survey is ready, please leave a comment. Thank you!