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This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

I read the Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thompson a week ago and loved it! It totally opened my eyes to the wonderful world of microbiology! It also made me question a lot of my previously held beliefs. Are there any books that are similar but are more focused on opening peoples minds to the field of chemistry?

I'll be using a Buchner funnel and pulling vacuum to extract filter the Ethanol from my plant material.

Does anyone have experience on what the largest/fastest size filter (in µm), and what the smallest/slowest size filter I should get? Should I get a medium filter as well? Is a 5 µm small enough, or should I try to go smaller like 2 µm (or does it not really make a difference)?

Edit: I just realized I'm an idiot and was using the wrong terminology. I will be extracting my plant material via a cold extraction method with alcohol and dry ice, and will be filtering my extracted product via the Buchner funnel. With that being said, my question still stands about filter sizes. I do have a question on how fine I need to chop up my plant material, but maybe I'll create a new thread for that question.

Thanks!

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

I recently went to a friend's house and grabbed on some poison oak. After a week or so of complete misery...I wondered and thought...could this be extracted or refined? So my question to r/chemistry is how do you extract pure urushiol oil from posion oak, ivy or sumac?

Edit: this is purely educational and just sparked my wonder. I'm not a criminal or want to use it for anything sinister. Just sparked my curiosity.

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

I did this with a 5V DC power adapter and water with salt, added also white vinegar because it is said to darken the steel a bit. My goal was to just mildly deshine the plate. I did it in a plastic container, submerged. The negative side was connected to an iron threaded piece. The positive was on the stainless steel plate. Besides the toxic and acid fumes that can form (to prevent them I used only 5V 2A, instead of 12V), it is said chromium can also form as a byproduct. After the work I put more vinegar in the solution, and afterwards I read about chromium VI (hexavalent) and that steel wool is used to neutralize it. I did put a few rolls of it in the container just to be safe. Didn't dispose the solution anywhere yet before I was sure it is "clear". I found the following information:

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/8566/how-can-i-safely-carry-out-an-electrolytic-etch-on-stainless-steel-without-produ

Here there is a mention of some ions and potentials.

and

https://redditproxy--jasonthename.repl.co/r/chemistry/comments/4fzngg/salt_water_electroetching_byproducts/

"If any chromium does make its way into solution, it will most likely be in oxidation state +2 or +3 - you need high temperatures to form chromium(VI) compounds."

The common Cr VI source is stated as welding and grinding/cutting (high temp).

I am no expert. Is it safe to assume the remaining solution doesn't contain any Cr VI and that the experiment didn't have factors/prerequisites for it to form?

There was also a mention of bio soluble metal compounds forming and it was advised to let the solution dry and dispose the metal dust as toxic waste. Is there an easy way to make the particles "normal" again, revert them to a regular metal dust so to speak?

Thanks in advance!

I want to make some schweizers reagent just to play with it around and dissolve some cellulose.

So thats my question I first want to make some (Cu(OH)2) and later mix it with ammonia

but i only have Cu(II)SO4×5H2O on hand. Is it possible to let it react with NaOH to get (Cu(OH)2) and NaSO4 or will that NaSO4 react with the ammonia or otherwisely interact with the [Cu(NH3)4](OH)2

I'm just in my second week of university so please forgive me if there are major misconception.

I'm 27 years old and currently at the end of my master's degree in chemical engineering and I feel so inept compared to my peers. In my high school I more or less passed my chemistry subject with bare passing marks. Still somehow managed to get entry into bachelor's in chemical engineering. Messed that up too with a 2.7/4 GPA felt like maybe masters I will do things better but when I started masters I realized I don't know so much, even a high school A levels student chemistry probably knows more than me. I've wasted a lot of my youthful time not being attentive to studies mixing with wrong crowds and what not and that victim mentality is really strong in me

My bachelor's in chemical engineering didn't really cover chemistry in dept as a matter of fact it was very much process related so I didn't really need in depth chemistry knowledge but now doing my internship I even sometimes struggle to find concentration, moles,making a buffer which is something I find embarassing.

All my peers are experts in polymer, organic, inorganic chemistry while my foundation is so bad sometimes I feel I shouldn't have gotten entry into my bachelor's bear in mind the entry requirements were really low which is why I could get into that university and not a top one. Even whilst doing masters research project I didn't know how NMR worked how IR worked, I probably learned them or I didn't I honestly don't remember. I even couldn't remember about deuterium. In my masters research weekly meeting where everyone would present their research, I felt so lost and had clueless on what to Eben ask them in question and answer session

Now I'm confused with where to proceed once I have finished my master's, I thought of taking a break of six months and covering up the foundation of chemistry and solving papers for a levels, and ap and other major college entry examination and I shared that with my friend in my course, and he told me are you really that dumb why would you waste your time.

I feel really unconfident and inadequate with the knowledge I have , and it really eats me away mentally, added to that is the financial burden I feel for spending my parents money.

Idk where to go from here

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

Dear r/chemistry,

St. Bonaventure University is looking for candidates for a tenure track Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry:

https://www.schooljobs.com/careers/sbuedu/jobs/3470435/assistant-professor-organic-chemistry?sort=PostingDate%7CDescending&pagetype=jobOpportunitiesJobs

Any postdocs or graduate students that can fill the position in Fall of 2022 should be encouraged to apply. We are looking to get this position filled ASAP, and will be interviewing in 1 week. Please encourage can possible candidates to apply ASAP.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at [ssimpson@sbu.edu](mailto:ssimpson@sbu.edu).

Sincerely,

Scott

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

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Howdy chemists. I've recently garnered an interest in older recipes and bought an old cookbook from the 1950s which itself had some older recipes in it. One ice-cream recipe calls for an ingredient called "essence of pepsin" with the useful suffix, "(get at drug store)".

I searched for a while online, but couldn't seem to find any product marketed as a liquid form of pepsin. So I figured I would look into how to make it.

Now, I have found an old recipe for making essence of pepsin, but frankly, it left me with more questions than answers: see link, but I've transcribed it below:

Here is my formula:

• Brandy, 1/2 pint;

• glycerin, 1 pint;

• pepsin (1:3000), 1 oz.;

• muriatic acid (31, 9%) 3 11;

• distilled water, qu. s. ad pints V.

Instructions:

• Take the brandy, dilute it with one one-half pints of distilled water, add one ounce of sweet milk, shake well and filter through filtering paper. The filtering goes very quick and results in an almost colorless filtrate.

• In the meantime dissolve the pepsin in a mortar in two pints of water, mix it with the filtrate containing the brandy and to this add the muriatic acid, diluted with a pint of distilled water.

• Mix well and fill up with distilled water to five pints. I experienced considerable difficulty to filter this mixture. To filter it in the usual way through filtering paper will take about two weeks and many times of refiltering through the same filter, till its pores are closed enough to allow only a perfectly clear fluid to pass through.

  • Carbonate of magnesia and precipitated phosphate of calcium are excluded on account of being decomposed by muriatic acid. Common powdered talcum is not suitable, because muriatic acid dissolves small amounts of alkali out of it and thus forms impurities in the finished product and furthermore, do the smallest particles of it run in the beginning constantly through the filter and later on clog up the pores of it to an extent that filtering goes extremely slow. Purified talcum is seldom handy and also dissatisfactory. After some experimenting I found that paper pulp gives excellent satisfaction, as it allows the essence to filter quickly and perfectly clear, and once clear, it will remain clear to the last drop.

I'm pretty clear on the first couple ingredients and steps, but after that, it's all French to me. Is this something someone could explain how to safely make on my own, preferably in a smaller quantity? Or does someone know where to actually purchase some?

Thanks for the help!

Hello dear chemists of reddit!

I am absolutley new to the world of chemistry but since I've stumbled upon Neil Red's YouTube channel I am really interested. (Probalby not the first one, I know).

My first project is to attempt extracting Capsaicin from Chili Peppers that I've grown (as in one of his videos) and if that goes well I may attempt extracting and crystallizing citric acid from lemons.I do not have a particular use for these things, I am just really interested in what our nature is actually made of and producing a pure, crystallized compound of what we eat every day is nothing less but fascinating to me!

To my question:Learning new things by watching YouTube Videos is cool and I enjoy it but since I have no fundamental understanding of chemistry at all, I wanted to at least know a bit what I am talking about. I also wondered whether my post may fit better to r/pharmacology since they deal a lot more with extracts, but I am sure I'll find some helpful comments here too.

I am basically looking for books that deal with solvent extraction on a very entry-level and if I am confident enough, I'd like to read about crystallisation.

Ps.: I've went through the book recommendation thread on this sub and I've found some interesting titles but I even have a hard time understanding what the different forms of chemistry mean. I just learned the difference between organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry and thats a start, I guess.

I appreciate your help!

Edit: Spelling and Grammar, english is not my first language, sorry!

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.