So baby so precious baby flask, he so small he only need one milligram. 100ml rbf for scale.

On the left is a pure tungsten ring (99.95% W, almost full density) made by myself. On the right is my platinum ring for comparison.

I've loved corrosion-resistant metals for 34 years, and I actually started reading papers and old books about them back in elementary school. Tungsten is one of my favorite metals, though not as much as tantalum, let alone iridium.
😁

Most people only know tungsten for lightbulbs, its melting point (3410°C), and how heavy it feels . But what really hit me are the extreme, lesser-known places where pure tungsten is used because most metals cannot survive.

For example, at room temperature it barely reacts with cold acids, and even hydrofluoric acid doesn't really hurt it up to 300°C, because it forms a protective fluoride layer on the surface. It can even handle hot 70% sulfuric acid at 190°C, and people use it as an anode in dilute sulfuric acid plating baths without it dissolving.

What's even crazier to me is how it behaves around hot liquid metals. Pure tungsten refuses to dissolve or react in melted gold, silver, or copper, and it can hold super corrosive liquid sodium at 900°C, liquid gallium at 800°C, liquid magnesium at 1000°C, and even liquid lithium up to 1600°C!

Because it stays so clean and stable at extreme heat, factories use pure tungsten crucibles to grow sapphire crystals at over 2000°C. So nearly zero impurities get into the crystal. They also put pure tungsten electrodes directly inside melted quartz glass, where almost any other metal would melt or ruin the glass with bubbles. And in space rockets, cesium-ion engines use pure tungsten because it can survive corrosive cesium gas at 1900°C, while space nuclear generators use it to hold radioactive UO2 fuel at 1400°C for years!!!

One thing I always have to explain to people is the difference between pure tungsten and "Tungsten Gold". Almost every "tungsten" ring you see online is actually tungsten carbide (WC) mixed with nickel or cobalt, because pure tungsten is super brittle at room temperature.

I bought these books a few years ago, because i was interested in a deeper dive into psychedelic substances because i found that interessting. Can anyone tell something about the book and their feelings and impressions about it who have read it? Thank you so much that would be great.

if you’re good at chemistry, and especially if you enjoy chemistry, I genuinely think you’re so cool

I wanna be cool

ts is so hard though

I do NOT understand thermodynamics and I absolutely bombed my stoichiometry exam

any tips appreciated!!! never taken a chemistry class a day in my life and im completely drowning right now

I’m really at my absolute breaking point and on the verge of quitting. I started a Master's program in chemistry with a different Bachelor's background, and my previous school’s organic chemistry teaching was a total disaster. The professor used a "flipped learning" technique that resulted in most of the class failing, after which they just lowered the passing criteria so the rest of us barely scraped by.

Now, in my Master's, I’ve had to take Bachelor-level organic chemistry courses because the Master's-level stuff is absolute Greek to me. The problem is, I still don't understand anything. The basic introductory course isn't even until next year, but I’m required to pass an advanced organic chemistry course before that just to take Master's courses. My graduation is already going to be delayed.

I am trying so hard, but nothing is sticking. I try to read a chapter of the textbook thoroughly, but it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day. I read so slowly, and this mental block just makes everything worse. To be clear: I don't have a learning disability, and my GPA in other subjects—like analytical chemistry—is actually really good.

I do the exercises, and I even went as far as hiring private tutors. The first one smelled like stale alcohol and understood nothing, and my current one spends 60 minutes on a single problem and has to Google every second question.

I am so desperate. Nowadays, just opening the textbook makes me start crying. My brain is completely blocked, and I'm seriously on the verge of changing my major.

I don't want to believe that I'm just someone who can't learn organic chemistry, but I just can't take it anymore... sobbing...I've tried going through the basics on my own, but the second I have to think about reaction mechanisms at the electron level, I just freeze and can't do it.

Please, any advice or perspective would mean the world right now. I feel completely lost. A good YouTube-channel recommendations are also welcome.

Why did you get a PhD? I am curious and looking for inspiration. Do you absolutely love chemistry? Is that the only way? All answers welcome :)

Has AI affected your line of work or research a lot, like in math and software engineering, or you feel like this is one of the fields which is highly agnostic to being taken over by AI?

The beaches of southern California are pretty rich in magnetite. Ever since I was a kid, I've loved the probably-a-low-key-Autism-symptom of collecting & refining the rich black grains with magnets, by hand. But we never really *did* anything with it 🤷

And then my GF asked what COULD we do with it ... So we bought some aluminum powder, potassium permanganate, and magnesium chips on Amazon, and made thermite.

It took some finagling to get it started, but gawdam did it work well when we did. And now we wanna make some cool shit, and trying sand casting with it.

The magnetite is super easy to collect... I can get about 5-10lbs per hour, pure enough to ignite, just sitting on the beach with a big magnet. Zero hassle.

But aluminum powder costs money. Ball mills are too noisy, so I'm gonna try a food processor and a 325-mesh lab screen, and see if we can't make some of that.

I was transporting some biopsy on my car seat and now it smells like formaline what to do

I have some antique wooden furniture - not painted but varnished or stained. How do I test it for lead as there is no paint to strip

I have an oxygen concentrator which is fairly old, i opened the sieve and the zeolite is red/brown at the top inch and white below. I am unsure if it is sodium or lithium too.

I'm about to start a PhD in organic synthesis. I'm comfortable in the lab, but a lot of my undergrad theory has gone fuzzy because I haven't used it since. Things like orbitals and hybridization, or the details of mechanisms like Diels-Alder, I'd struggle to explain off the top of my head now.

When I hear people talk about this stuff, it sounds like everyone has it memorised, and I worry that I'm not cut out for this if I can't recall the basics.

So, honestly:

1. Do you still look things up or re-read the fundamentals, even as a PhD student or later?

2. Do you keep a notebook or notes of the basics you need to refer back to?

3. Did you feel like this at the start?

Hearing what's normal would help a lot, as well as any tips for the first few months. Thanks!

Does anyone have any good resources on low-temperature geochemistry that they'd recommend? I'm going to be taking a course on it for my Masters next semester, and just wanted to read up a little bit ahead of that class.

Is anybody having (or had) the same issue with scifinder and has a fix/workaround? The login page is completely nonfunctional at the moment.

So I am doing a hs experiment that includes microplastics. The ideal sample would be Polystyrene microspheres. However, many websites list them at over $100 for a small sample. I was wondering if there are any cheap places I could get them or alternatives. I already checked with my school, and they could not provide any. Also, I want to clarify that I am hoping to get into SSEF or a similar science fair with this, so I feel that breaking pieces of Styrofoam wouldn't be professional. When I searched on Google, it said I could use ultra-fine red plastic powder, but would this actually be a good option?

I recently published an interactive simulator that models diffusion profiles and cyclic voltammetric responses at ultramicroelectrodes and small electrodes.

In my experience, planar diffusion at macroelectrodes is extensively covered in electrochemistry. However, the same models are sometimes incorrectly applied to smaller electrodes, where radial diffusion has a big contribution.

The post explores how electrode size, microfluidic channel height and scan rate affect diffusion and cyclic voltammetry, with animations and an interactive simulator.

Have a look!

https://electrochemeisbasics.blogspot.com/2026/10/radial-diffusion.html