Australia's Science Forum

Although there are some mixed emotions as to whether Elemental Bromine is better than Bromine Water, but personally I prefer Elemental Bromine. This way I can control the amount of Bromine I can dissolve in water. I do this by opening a fresh vial of Bromine and aspirating it through a syringe. I th...

Hi All,

Another alternative to Ocker's recipe is to prepare the Ferroxyl Indicator and exclude the salt.

I hope this has added to your repetiore

Robb.....

Hi All, Just to re-iterate what juliem has mentioned as there are a few recipes for the make up of artificial Crude Oil. Crude Oil which occurs naturally has so many components it is just not feasible to get it remotely close. But I will list a recipe I have here. Like most qualitative recipes this ...

Hi All, Simply the Ferroxyl Indicator is used primarily to determine the Corrosion characteristics in materials. The Anodic area will turn blue indicating the ferrous (Fe[sup]2+[/sup])ion (i.e. corrosion) and the first step in the oxidation of iron that eventually leads to the formation of rust: Fe ...

Hi All, Asset Management could possibly come to the aid here. Talk to your GA or Principal to find out the relevant details of where to go in this case. Most Fume Cupboard testing is per the Australian Standard for Fume Cupboard Operation and is usually performed by NATA accredited testing authoriti...

Hi All, Testing the Radioactive Sources may be a bit tricky in schools because of the Instrumentation used. Usually you would put the sources into a XRD or X-Ray Diffractor and fire X-Rays at it. But these instruments are worth Hunderds of thousands of dollars and are located at Uni. The amount of D...

Just to re-iterate what juliem has mentioned, These pracs rely on the Oxidising solution in combination with the Luminol to produce the Chemiluminescence reaction. All of which are indicated in each Method I have outlined and there is no need for any blood product. These reactions are purely Chemica...

The following Luminol method is my favourite and works well with the chemicals I worked with. Luminol Solution: Dissolve 4g of Sodium Carbonate in 500mL of Distilled Water (This brings the pH to approx 11 which I found to be optimum for dissolving Luminol). Add 0.2g of Luminol and dissolve. Add 25g ...

I usually return to school for part of the holidays, I continue to build my resources and prepare the laboratories like everyone else, (as there is no one present which makes things speedy). I also check suppliers to acquire an ETA on deliveries of chemicals or other equipment to try to meet with th...

Hi All, I will list the steps for preparing a Luminol Solution first, (particularly for those people seeing this for the first time), then move onto some Methods for you. Luminol will only dissolve in solutions with a low pH. pH 11 - 14 Prepare the Luminol solution by dissolving 0.23 grams of lumino...

Hi Dinks,

Take a look at the forum under the heading General and the post called Preserved Biological Specimens. But all in all they are similar to what Juliem and Julia are suggesting.

All the best.

Robb….

When the Tri-Iodide molecule is identified within specific reactions whether in dissolution or specific reactions one must not forget that the Central Iodine Atom shares 5 Lone Pairs of electrons. This means that the set of 5 pairs requires a tri-agonal bi-pyramid arrangement, which in turn requires...

Hi Mary,

I usually make up a Super Saturated solution of Alum and have them cool very slowly..

This makes for some good tetrahedral shapes and sometimes Rhombic.

See you soon,

Robb.....

Fly-Spray and other substances are of course a non-educational item. The confusion lays within the colour coding system for this item. Although Green, Blue, Orange dots are used for our indication of student/staff use it also doubles as an indication as to the Toxicity of a substance. The colour cod...

Hi DJ,

Take a look at topic Glassware Detergent - Need a Recommendation in this forum.

This should be informative,

Cheers,

Robb.....

//EDITED by adam. Reason: Names of some forums have changed.

Hi Colleagues, Just for everyone’s information. I have listed below several water types their Conductivity ranges and their Resistivity. Pure water, 0.05 μS/cm , 18 MΩ-cm Power plant boiler water, 0.05-1 μS/cm , 1-18 MΩ-cm Distilled water, 0.5 μS/cm , 2 MΩ-cm Deionised water, 0.1-10 μS/cm , 0...

Hi Robbie, As I guide the Conductivity of the water you have should be within the range of 0.5 µS/cm to 3 µS/cm, with a resistance of around 2 MΩ-cm. Normal Tap Water is around 0.5-1 mS/cm with a resistance of around 1-2 kΩ-cm. This should be a useful guide for all out there who wish to test t...

Hi Lorrae, The best way that we seem to get a good quantity of gas is to use 125mL Conical Flasks Add Zinc metal pieces to the flask and Hydrochloric Acid to this. The quantity of each can be varied to give optimum gas production, but a good guide is to add enough zinc to just cover the bottom of th...

Hi Justin, Just to let you know that the above preparation step for Iodine is perfect for the 0.1M solution. If you are specifically looking at an accurate solution of 0.0125M Iodine, Potassium Iodide with Iodine cannot be used. The Potassium Iodide contains iodine with potassium. Meaning that you h...

Hi Colleagues, There are a numerous number of ways to re-set the liquid level in thermometers as we can see from all of the posts already. If I could offer some more ideas it certainly adds to the repertoire of methods, which are certainly worth keeping to one side. Submersing the thermometer in liq...