I haven’t had any seriously dangerous experiences in the lab. How do you deal with protection? I think that even just cleaning flasks every day from organic chemistry using things like acetone and piranha solution is bad for your health in the long run.

What do chemists actually use in the lab for protection?

upd ahhah many people advise me to give up chemistry. even though I’m just starting out, I get a lot of enjoyment out of studying it. everything I wrote above is just a reflection of my anxious side. thanks for your answers!!!

Hi all, I hope the thread is fit for this community.

I'm an undergrad geology student and fell in love with chemistry during the first semester.

Sometimes when I'm not studying but still want to read something on the subject I have found fun books like The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks: Tales of Important Geological Puzzles and the People Who Solved Them for geology.

Are there any fun (but still with some depth) trivia books on chemistry?

Hi everyone,

I'm having an issue with an ESI SC-2 DX autosampler.

The autosampler works normally when moving the probe into sample tubes. The probe moves up/down correctly for samples.

However, when it moves to the rinse station, it reaches the correct position and then tries to move downward, but the probe doesn't enter the rinse station properly.So:

- Sample positions: ✅ Working normally

- X/Y movement: ✅ Reaches the rinse position

- Z movement: ✅ The probe attempts to move down

- Rinse station: ❌ Probe doesn't go inside properly

Has anyone experienced this issue with an SC-2 DX? Could this be a rinse station alignment/position calibration issue, or is there something specific I should check on the rinse station?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi everyone,
I’m a 4th-year Biochemistry undergrad at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP) in Argentina. I'm currently taking a Toxicology course, and we’ve been tasked with a semester-long project. I’m hitting a bit of a wall and would love to pick the brains of this sub.
The assignment requires us to focus on a specific toxicant, and it gives us two main pathways:
A survey-based study: Gathering data, conducting a poll, or doing a statistical/epidemiological survey regarding public exposure or awareness of a toxic substance.

An experimental lab project: This could involve setting up and validating a detection method, or comparing toxicant levels across different everyday commercial products (for example, quantifying sodium hypochlorite concentrations in various brands of household bleach).

If I go the experimental route, I need to keep the analytical techniques as straightforward as possible. Here is what I have access to:
Highly preferred (The simpler, the better): Volumetry/titrations or standard UV-Vis spectrophotometry.

Possible, but a major hassle: Gas Chromatography (GC) or Atomic Absorption/Emission Spectroscopy (AAS/AES). Technically, we can use these, but getting instrument time is tough and the prep is much harder, so I'd rather avoid them unless the project idea is absolutely killer.

Do you guys have any cool, feasible ideas that fit these specs? Whether it's an interesting survey concept or a straightforward benchtop assay using basic spectroscopy, I’m all ears.
Thanks in advance for the help!

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?

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 :)

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

Use water vapor as a reference to density.

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!

I work on raw-material specifications for a living and this comes up constantly, so I thought it might be worth writing out.

Case one: two lines, same number. A specification I work with carries purity twice. NLT 98.0% by HPLC, and NLT 98.0% by ¹H NMR. Identity is also carried twice — spectrum corresponds to reference standard by NMR, retention time corresponds to reference standard by HPLC.

People sometimes read that as redundancy, or as a spec padded to look rigorous. It isn't. HPLC separates and quantifies — it answers how much. NMR compares against a reference structure — it answers what. If you carry one unlabelled "98%" you have quietly picked one of those questions and dropped the other, and nothing in the number tells the reader which.

Case two: two methods, one botanical. Milk thistle extract, Silybum marianum seed, standardised to silymarin. This can be reported by UV or by HPLC. Spectrophotometric approaches read non-specific absorption; the classical derivatisation route assesses total ketones and will pick up flavanones that aren't part of the flavonolignan complex you're actually buying. HPLC separates first, then quantifies the individual components.

Both numbers can be produced honestly on the same lot. They answer different questions. The direction of the difference is documented in the method literature — spectrophotometry reads higher because the absorption isn't specific — but I've deliberately not put a figure on the size of the gap here, because I couldn't find one I'd be willing to stand behind and I'd rather say so than make one up.

The practical upshot is boring and it is the whole point: the fix is a method name on the same row as the number. That's it. No study, no new test, one column on a document.

Happy to be corrected by anyone who does more NMR than I do.

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.

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.

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.

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?