Queer & Khmer

It’s #NationalPopcornDay! Learn what makes popcorn pop and the chemicals behind its flavour: http://wp.me/s4aPLT-popcorn

#ChemistryAdvent Day 18: Present wrapping chemistry! Keep up with the advent calendar here: https://goo.gl/YmQ7We

#ChemistryAdvent Day 7 looks at how silver baubles are made!

All stocked up on candy from yesterday’s trick or treating? Here’s the chemistry! More info and high res image: http://wp.me/p4aPLT-DB

What’s the difference between acid strength and concentration? This graphic has the answers! More info here: http://wp.me/s4aPLT-acids

It’s almost blackberry season here in the UK! Here’s a quick graphic looking at what gives blackberries their colour: http://wp.me/p4aPLT-1ZB

More ‪#‎WorldChocolateDay‬ chemistry: this time with C&EN, looking at dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white ‘chocolate’: ow.ly/ugB93021z64

Some potassium permanganate what I used for oxidation of an alkyl aromatic compound. 

Potassium permanganate is an inorganic chemical compound with the chemical formula KMnO4 and it’s a strong oxidizing agent (just an example: it you mix it with glycerin it will simply ignite). It even oxidizes an alkyl groups (with a benzylic hydrogen) on an aromatic ring, e.g. toluene to benzoic acid: 5 C6H5CH3 + 6 KMnO4 + 9 H2SO4 —-> 5 C6H5COOH + 14 H2O + 3 K2SO4 + 6 MnSO4

A RECIPE FOR SALT

Students in Christy Thomas’s AP chemistry class at Powhatan High School, in Virginia, demonstrated how to make sodium chloride—common table salt. First, they made chlorine gas by mixing sodium hypochlorite with hydrochloric acid in a fume hood. They let the gas flow through a hose into a reaction flask. Because Cl₂ is heavier than air, it sat in the bottom of the flask as the students added about a gram of molten sodium. The reaction released a lot of heat, exciting the sodium atoms and producing this yellow-orange glow for several minutes.

Submitted by Christy Thomas

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Related C&EN stories:

New structures discovered for table salt

Salt Grows on Trees

Here’s some cool chemistry for ‪#‎NationalIceCreamDay‬! More info/high-res image: http://wp.me/p4aPLT-1j9

Over the past week, I got asked by Sense About Science, a UK-based charitable organisation dedicated to preventing scientific misinformation, to make some graphics for their new, free guide, “Making Sense of Chemical Stories”. In it, they attempt to dispel some of the common misconceptions about chemicals. These are the two graphics I made to support the guide’s content. You can read more about the graphics here. You can view & download Sense About Science’s excellent guide right here.

Preach

cool little chart.

I have thought that aspartame was linked (significantly) to cancer? and other health problems? I could be wrong. I’ll need to look that up.

or perhaps this graph does not allow for defining that specifically enough?

Worth reblogging to address this. Aspartame has previously been flagged as being linked to cancer. However, the most recent reviews of research have very much played down this link. This 2013 paper concludes that ‘aspartame has no significant carcinogenic effect in rodents’.  Additionally, another paper from 2013 contains the following conclusion: “Evidence on low-calorie sweeteners – and specifically aspartame – does not support the existence of a consistent association with hematopoietic neoplasms, brain cancer, digestive sites, breast, prostate and several other neoplasms.” Hope that makes it a bit clearer! The graphic does just consider the median lethal dose values for each of the chemicals - so, the dose required to kill 50% of a test population. That said, for the non-toxic selections, I’ve also tried to pick compounds that aren’t even considered carcinogenic. MSG is another that gets a bad reputation, but is perfectly safe. It does actually occur naturally in small quantities in some fruits and vegetables, but I’ve included it under the synthetic column, due to the fact that MSG supplements in food will usually be synthetically created. There is some debate over endocrine (hormone system) disrupting chemicals, and whether they may disobey the 'dose makes the poison’ rule of toxicology; this is still very much a developing area of research, about which you can read more in this brief article by C&EN magazine.

Today, a look at the contributing compounds to ‘old book smell’, and the origins of the less well researched 'new book smell’: http://wp.me/p4aPLT-hV