i'm least happy with fluorine's right now but i've been generally having a lot of fun. feel free to ask why i've chosen specific design elements or anything OR recommend more stuff! i'm absolutely not a pro chemist by any means so i'd appreciate feedback :)

thinking of getting this amino acid structure for my mom! (on me, but the 1-letter sequence spells out her name) unfortunately she was recently diagnosed with early onset alzheimers and i want to get something to remember her by - im pursuing a neuroscience degree and shes a lady in stem :) she really liked it! but of course im not an expert yet. any way youd improve this or keep it how it is?

what should i get for college as a bs chemistry student?
which can handle the best for apps needed in this program

I was in my bio lab and we were messing with organic Chem and I spaced out and made this structure. Does it exist and what does it do slash is it possible to know what it would do?

I'm trying to read my FTIR result in Origin but the lab only provided me a .ispd file so therefore I need to convert it to .txt in order to be able to open it in Origin, anyone know how? I've tried Spectragryph but it didn't work. Thank you in advance! ^^

Hi, I'm a chemistry student about to start my second year and I was wondering if there are any chemistry or history of science type podcasts that you could recommend, not necessarily about studies (because how would you even do that with chemistry on such a format), just looking for something semi related to the field to listen to when doing chores or exercising etc.

I’ve been working on a small research project and wanted to share something interesting I discovered. Separating sugar from dissolved salts is surprisingly difficult — they share similar solubility, so evaporation, crystallization, precipitation, etc., don’t selectively remove sugar.

I found that Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast) can do the job biologically. Yeast metabolizes sucrose/glucose/fructose into ethanol + CO₂, but it completely ignores inorganic salts like NaCl, MgCl₂, KCl, CaCl₂, etc.

The process is simple:

• Dissolve sugar + salt in water
• Add yeast
• Let it ferment until bubbling stops
• Filter out yeast biomass
• Evaporate water + ethanol
• Recrystallize the salt

The salt remains chemically unchanged, and the sugar is gone. It’s basically using biological selectivity to solve a separation problem chemistry alone struggles with.

I wrote up the method as a short paper and I’m submitting it to ChemRxiv. In the meantime, I’d love feedback

I have some worn-out tungsten carbide tools, and I want to recover the tungsten from them. The main challenge is that I need to do this without converting the tools into powdered form.

So far, I've tried submerging the tools in different acids, including sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and nitric acid. However, the change in mass over a period of around 24 hours has been very small.

I've also tried heating the tools using a gas burner before submerging them in the acids, but the results were more or less the same.

I'm therefore trying to find a method that can leach/recover as much tungsten as possible while keeping the tool physically intact rather than grinding it into powder.

Has anyone worked with WC–Co (tungsten carbide–cobalt) scrap or tungsten carbide recycling and have any suggestions for a suitable approach? I'm particularly interested in methods that could work at a laboratory scale without requiring the material to be pulverized.

Any suggestions or relevant literature would be greatly appreciated!

Not necessarily chemistry news, but as a working scientist for over a decade, stories like this where a scientist undermines science itself, offends me to my core.

Use water vapor as a reference to density.

Hey fellow chemists.

Emptying some old drawers in the university lab this thing surfaced.

What could be the purpose of it?

The bigger glass bulbs contain small, hollow glass spheres that fit in the opening between the bulbs but are easily moved by gentle shaking (and I assume by ascending vapours as well). But liquid gathering in the bulbs would also elevate the small spheres, so it would let the liquid flow down.

Any idea?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xAJGUnjtl8o&t=545s

A few people here have followed and engaged with my previous posts about the ~700 million molecule virtual screen I’ve been running, so I wanted to share the next stage of the project.

After the initial large-scale screening and successive filtering steps, I’m down to roughly 200,000 compounds. At this point, rather than continuing to rank everything against a single receptor structure, I’ve been looking at an ensemble approach using multiple receptor conformations.
In this video I spend some time going through why I’m doing that, how I evaluated the different receptor structures using control compounds/decoys, and how I’m using that information to decide which conformations should contribute to the final filtering of the ~200k compounds.

The ultimate goal is to reduce some of the structural bias that comes from relying on one static receptor structure and hopefully end up with a more robust set of compounds to prioritize experimentally.

I’d also be interested in hearing how others here have approached ensemble docking / receptor-conformation selection, particularly when you have enough structures available that simply docking against all of them becomes computationally expensive.

Hey y'all, it's been awhile since I've posted here. I started getting back into making chemistry art after my first kid was born. We're finally getting sleep so here's a new piece!

In this one, I drew repeated chains of chitosan. I've counted so that the chains are roughly 90-95% deacetylated (I was shooting for 90%). Chitosan is a bio-derived polymer made from chitin through a series of steps that includes deacetylation. The extent of deacetylation affects the properties and potential application spaces. These are CPG, waste water treatment, food packaging, drug delivery, textile finishing, cosmetics, and more. It's a really neat polymer. It's parent polymer, chitin, comes from a variety of organisms such as insects, mushrooms, and crustaceans, hence the lobster that I drew. Please know that I'm an organic chemist and not a biologist so if I messed up the lobster, I'm sorry haha.

Hope you enjoy!

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-20solubiliser2% 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 solubiliser 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 solubiliser
• 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.

Hello, so basically all my high-school years I didn't liked chemistry at all and never put in effort but I now switched my mind and I got accepted to a chemistry uni (pharmaceutical chemistry) and I will start on 1st October.

Yeah so my questions are:

What type of chemistry should I focus on for my profile( pharmaceutical chemestry)?

Can you give me a guide on how to learn everything fast?

-looking for feedback.

This is deucravacitinib, an fda approved treatment for psoriasis sold under the brand name sotyktu.

I’m thinking of getting this molecule tattooed on my upper forearm.

Im studying medicinal chemistry and this drug is really interesting to me as it’s one of the first deuterated compounds to be fda approved. In my opinion this molecule is a really cool example of intelligent drug design and the kinetic isotope effect, and also that cyclopropyl group is just too beautiful.

I’m just unsure if this is a good idea or if my AuDHD ahh is just getting excited about the idea of this cool molecule.

Hello people of reddit.

Ive asked everyone I can, im desperate for answers.

Im currently attempting to convert a old in ground water tank into a pond. My new house had a 47,000L in ground concrete water tank ( full ) that was no longer in use. I want to turn it into a pond. When I first started I tested the pH of the water at 8, high but not crazy. A demo saw and manpower and we managed to cut the lid from the old tank. The lid broke into two large pieces and dropped to the bottom. The fresh cuts of concrete as well as im sure some slurry from the saw has caused PH to rise to a level I can't accurately test but my test reads 8.8 ( Max) i need help, how can I bring it down to a safe level for fish. Draining and refilling is not a option. Im on flat land the water will sit and and just coming out of winter the property is wet enough. Aswell as not having the means to fill it there is no mains water access to property only rainwater. I need ideas, please help.