Australia's Science Forum

Another good resource is - Laboratory Arts and Recipes by Peter Ellis and Judy Daniel (Hasse) which can be downloaded from the net. It has been revised several times since it was first produced. Techniques for handling glass tubing and rubber bungs, methods for cleaning glassware, maintenance of bun...

We got ours from a local branch of Office National. Check the Office National store locater to find your local or nearest branch.

The last thing I would be doing is storing sodium metal in a fridge. Every time you pull it out of the fridge you would be exposing the paraffin oil it is stored in to added moisture. Store at room temperature preferably in a flammables cupboard for flammable solids only. I do have a small quantity ...

Yes!!!! Pretty much wishful thinking.

Why can't your school staff and the students be asked to help. I'm sure there are quite a few people who use this type of drink container. Does it matter if the tops are different? You can sterilise any tops bought in by using bleach.

Science Assist has an information sheet showing different types of asbestos containing minerals and useful information for handling and disposal. These safety alerts have been around for the last five years. When I first started here over 30 years ago the other lab tech got rid of the asbestos rocks...

My recipe is the same as Fibreweb's. Always works. Mix 15g potassium iodide in about 50ml or less of water, then add 3g iodine. Because the potassium iodide is concentrated it dissolves the iodine quickly. I just swirl the beaker around to encourage the dissolving. You may need to crush the remainin...

Chemsupply and Sigma Aldrich both stock Kinetin but looking at the price for just 1g of this stuff it will be an extremely expensive exercise. Sigma Aldrich also has little or no supply in stock at the moment for both Kinetin and the Murashige and Skoog medium for cell culture. They are waiting for ...

If it is a purchased bottle of universal indicator then I have never diluted the contents. I have decanted into smaller dropper bottles for use in the classroom. I am not prepared to mess with the quality of the product.
What prac requires that the universal indicator needs to be diluted?

I think that Phillip will need to tweek his labelling program to be more flexible when it comes to labelling indicators and solutions which are made as percentages.

Sodium Phosphate Monobasic NaH2PO4 M.W.=119.98 (Sodium Dihydrogen Orthophosphate) Sodium phosphate dibasic Na2HPO4 M.W.=141.96 (di-Sodium Hydrogen Orthophosphate) Sodium phosphate tribasic Na3PO4.12H2O M.W.=380.12 (tri-Sodium Orthophosphate) I think there might be some difference. I have three diffe...

Soaking in water (soapy) for a day or so (possibly three) should soften up the plaster enough to be able to either chip it away gently from the beaker using a metal spatula, or if softened enough just wipe it out with paper towel. Just make sure that you do not put the solid waste down the sink. P.S...

If you use acetone wouldn't there be a chemical residue of some description left on the interior of the glassware? Just asking.

I think he meant Pyrex. I have pyrex test tubes which are really old and still in use. Also Crown borosilicate test tubes which have survived over the years. We had soda glass test tubes once but they did not survive the heating over bunsens (their bottoms kept popping off) so they were set aside fo...

The "silver mirror" will bring up Jazz's explanation and Re: Tollens reagent should bring up another by NTrivedi. Sorry, it wasn't Labbie's post, it was the post underneath that one. Have just tried to follow my own directions and found that once you get the search page for Re:Tollens reag...

Please do a search for Tollens reagent on this site. There are two very good outlines for this prac. One by Jazz and another by Labbie. Step by step instructions with chemicals and procedure. I don't know how to link up your request with the information provided by these two.

Have set up new topic for dry ice. This is an SDS for dry ice. Just note the transport information.

That's a load of rubbish saying regulations won't allow air conditioners in science labs. They just don't want to spend the money. Back in the 80's we only had fans and open windows and when the bunsens were on the fans were off. It was hell during the buildup with high temperatures and high humidit...

Can you do an authors update on the risk assessment and just delete the saturated KOH and replace it with KI? If the assessment is set because of the signature then make a modifiable copy and then make the adjustment. Then delete the original assessment. Only problem after that is that the original ...

Setting gas in the laboratories can be a pain in the proverbial. Reasons for gas not coming on in labs: 1. You've run out of gas. Major problem. 2. Gas lines will never set if there is just one gas tap even partially open. (It only takes one child to fiddle with a tap to cause problems.) 3. You've g...