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Author Topic: What are you going to do today?  (Read 57301 times)

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Offline "couldbecousin"

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #870 on: March 17, 2017, 11:23:41 PM »
I'm flying back home. Going to write as much as I can of a paper I want to present in August.

  Why work on it now?  You've got till August.  Put it off.  >:D
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Offline "couldbecousin"

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #871 on: March 17, 2017, 11:26:00 PM »
  I'm going to kick ass at work with friends!  Git 'r done!   :fatchef:
"I'm finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don't think they are."
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--- Edward Walker, The Village

People forget.
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Offline odeon

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #872 on: March 19, 2017, 12:52:13 AM »
I'm flying back home. Going to write as much as I can of a paper I want to present in August.

  Why work on it now?  You've got till August.  Put it off.  >:D

There is a paper deadline followed by a peer review happening a lot sooner than that.
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Offline Lestat

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #873 on: March 19, 2017, 06:11:04 AM »
Busy performing electrolysis on a solution of sodium borate, in an effort to produce elemental boron,.
I think I already succeeded, in preparing a vitrous state of the stuff, by passing current through borax heated with a torch until it melts. Result was a reddish-ruddy brown coloured ceramic like material that cannot be scratched by steel, although it is gouged by a tungesten carbide cutting tool.

And there were some intereresting 'crystals', not sure if they are amorphous glass like vitrified states doped with copper (was using Cu electrodes) but these attractive looking crystals formed amidst what I think is amorphous boron, vitrified into a solid under the torch flame. The red stuff is fucking hard as hell, and I've seen nothing in the house that will scratch it, bar tungsten carbide, although diamond cutters would work obviously. Needs purification via preparation of magnesium diboride then acid treatment in inert atmosphere to release B2H6, diborane. This will be useful when complexed to things like pyridine (ugh, I HATE pyridine, it smells terrible) or THF. Although it ignites spontaneously in moist air, and is extremely toxic, it will at least allow me to purify samples of impure boron from crude melts.

If I can break it up that is.
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Offline "couldbecousin"

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #874 on: March 19, 2017, 04:38:29 PM »
I'm flying back home. Going to write as much as I can of a paper I want to present in August.

  Why work on it now?  You've got till August.  Put it off.  >:D

There is a paper deadline followed by a peer review happening a lot sooner than that.

  In that case, you'd better get busy!   :police:  :chores: :police:
"I'm finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don't think they are."
--- Ripley, Alien Resurrection


"We are grateful for the time we have been given."
--- Edward Walker, The Village

People forget.
--- The Who, "Eminence Front"

Offline Lestat

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #875 on: March 19, 2017, 08:21:39 PM »
http://oi67.tinypic.com/214dym1.jpg




Vacuum distillation (of chloroform, single-stage rotary-vane pump) I so have to buy a better vac pump. Although it'll boil CHCL3 at room temperature or just above it. Yes I'm lazy sometimes,
Don't need vac to distill chloroform, atmospheric is fine, but it shortens the process by lowering the BP)

The pump is the blue finned thing with the top-mounted handle  on the floor with the blue hose line.
Coolant line is the yellow needle-disposal bucket that has two hoses dipped in, theres a little pump in there thats sending water to the Liebig condenser. Ignore the wires. Thats an experiment in electrolytic boron synthesis from sodium borate (borax) (if you never hear from me again, thats probably why, its  intended for diborane synthesis, got to buy a nuke-suit to work with the stuff since the boranes are extremely toxic. Enough to gimme the creeps.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2017, 08:25:33 PM by Lestat »
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Offline Lestat

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #876 on: March 19, 2017, 08:32:56 PM »
Way more of this:



This is molten salt electrolysis, using a eutectic mixture of sodium hydroxide and calcium chloride, the latter helps lower the melting point. Although I intend to use this principle further by switching to a melt of sodium-potassium hydroxide. I need to design a proper, damn good cell to handle NaK alloy though, its liquid at room temperature or just above and violently reactive, more so than potassium metal. I've been messing with surface-tension  based removal from the melt, using Cu wire electrodes with coiled tips, to dip into the melt although its pretty violent and messy even with sodium alone. NaK alloy is VERY violent from what I read, I've never handled it, but even with Na you need a blast shield over your face or you will be blinded by flying hydroxide. And once, I managed to have a lump of molten sodium fly up my nose and  burn a crater in my septum lmao.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2017, 09:01:53 PM by Lestat »
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Offline odeon

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #877 on: March 20, 2017, 01:35:34 AM »
I'm flying back home. Going to write as much as I can of a paper I want to present in August.

  Why work on it now?  You've got till August.  Put it off.  >:D

There is a paper deadline followed by a peer review happening a lot sooner than that.

  In that case, you'd better get busy!   :police:  :chores: :police:

I always have this problem. I leave them until the last week before the deadline, sometimes less. OTOH, some of my better papers were produced in two days.
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Offline Queen Victoria

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #878 on: March 20, 2017, 09:54:58 AM »
http://oi67.tinypic.com/214dym1.jpg




Vacuum distillation (of chloroform, single-stage rotary-vane pump) I so have to buy a better vac pump. Although it'll boil CHCL3 at room temperature or just above it. Yes I'm lazy sometimes,
Don't need vac to distill chloroform, atmospheric is fine, but it shortens the process by lowering the BP)

The pump is the blue finned thing with the top-mounted handle  on the floor with the blue hose line.
Coolant line is the yellow needle-disposal bucket that has two hoses dipped in, theres a little pump in there thats sending water to the Liebig condenser. Ignore the wires. Thats an experiment in electrolytic boron synthesis from sodium borate (borax) (if you never hear from me again, thats probably why, its  intended for diborane synthesis, got to buy a nuke-suit to work with the stuff since the boranes are extremely toxic. Enough to gimme the creeps.

I'm going to start a GoFundMe account to get you a decent lab. 
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Offline Fun With Matches

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #879 on: March 20, 2017, 10:00:49 AM »
I don't see why Lestat can't work for some university or something? He could get the funds from elsewhere instead of his own money, and really contribute something. I think you have great potential, Lestat.
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Offline Lestat

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #880 on: March 20, 2017, 03:28:18 PM »
That isn't the lab, its the kitchen. I don't have enough SPACE in the lab for all my lab equipment, only a small proportion of it is actually permanently located up in there. The chemicals are, bar a few small cans of solvent, and some NaOH in the kitchen, currently also some borax since I'm experimenting with it a lot lately. Attempting, and I believe succeeding in forming amorphous boron plus a vitreous material of uncertain composition, which is a very pretty clear blue, and quite hard, I believe due to electrolysis of molten sodium borate (borax) using copper wire for electrodes.

 This is the electrolyzed borax melt, reddish-brown is the color of at least one amorphous and several crystalline allotropes and polymorphs of elemental boron.




And this is the vitreous, possibly crystalline, possibly amorphous, uncertain material, that I am currently attempting to replicate production of experimentally. Could be an allotrope of boron, although I don't think so, but I am not familiar with them all, and especially not with exotic allotropes/polymorphs. Could be a composite of fused borax, boric oxide (B2O3) etc.  The bottom piece, has what is most likely vitrified amorphous boron or a boron-borax or boron-boric oxide or boron-borax-boric oxide all vitrified together with copper ions providing the color. A further experiment will be to use a non-color donating set of electrodes, for example platinum, or palladium-plated ones, or iridium-plated electrodes of either copper, nickel or silver as the base, covered by a thin layer of course, since iridium, platinum, palladium and the other platinum-group metals are sodding expensive and I don't have very much platinum metal, and likewise I only have a little palladium chloride, iridium, none but can get it, albeit at a price. But especially iridium is useful, and I want some of the compounds (so I can plate what I like with it, rather than relying on solid pieces, which would be a bastard to work with, being incredibly hard, impossible to melt without resorting to a powerful arc furnace or plasma torch and resistant to all but the most brutal chemical assaults. Fused alkali metal hydroxides and molten potassium or sodium cyanide are some of the very few things that attack it. I think fluorine gas might do, or chlorine trifluoride, chlorine pentafluoride, and chlorine will when the metal is already very hot. But other than that iridium is neat stuff, tough as old boots, with one of the highest melting points of any element, along with osmium, carbon and molybdenum, as well as tungsten. So easier by FAR to select one's electrodes or other items of choice them plate onto them a thin surface layer of the hard to work with and rather expensive iridium metal. Osmium-iridium alloy was/is used for coating the nibs of some high-end fountain pens under the name osmiroid, the alloy being known as osmiridium, owing to its great durability.

anyhow, here is my unexpected, although not unwelcome little creation. Will be experimenting next with doping using chromium, manganese, vanadium, various valencies of said metal ions, and also cobalt. Cobalt glass takes a beautiful deep ultramarine-indigo blue, as well as uranium (VI) ions as a dopant aiming if the rest of the experiments are successful in serving as dopant ion species for color donation since I can get hold of some uranyl nitrate or acetate easily enough, just need to have a reason to want to buy it. Or make some U(VI) cation salts or complexes myself, using staballoy, after first leaching out the depleted uranium, since the tungsten can be dissolved in a peracid mixture consisting of hydrogen peroxide and phosphoric acid.

Also planned are experiments in spray-coating and vitrifying thin protective layers of potash glass using potassium silicate solution to assist in preserving and making this and any other such differently colorful materials more durable. These crystals or amorphous vitreous chunks I found in my electrolytic melt, after first breaking up the boron or boron and remaining borax, found them waiting for me under the surface, to my rather nice surprise, had to go digging for them and then hack them out, carving off any borax-boron composite or amorphous, fused, vitrified boron.

Beyond the pale. Way, way beyond the pale.

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Offline Lestat

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #881 on: March 20, 2017, 03:30:59 PM »
Here we are:



The stuff, whatever it be in composition is already pretty tough stuff. And fused boron is really fucking tough too, I tried and failed utterly to scratch it with the tip of an iron nail, and likewise to make a mark on a piece with a hard tool-steel hacksaw blade. A tungsten carbide-tipped cutter did however scratch it.
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Offline Fun With Matches

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #882 on: March 20, 2017, 03:49:37 PM »
Lestat, you must glow in the dark. :P

I've purposely left the image below as a link, as it's almost flashing, and I don't want to cause any seizures. It's a cool image though.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_madibvi0lp1qmt85zo1_500.gif
« Last Edit: March 20, 2017, 03:52:37 PM by justcurious »
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Offline Lestat

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #883 on: March 20, 2017, 03:51:15 PM »
Lol why?
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Offline Fun With Matches

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Re: What are you going to do today?
« Reply #884 on: March 20, 2017, 03:53:21 PM »
Why you glow in the dark? Cos you're a mad scientist! Hehe.
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