The word alcohol, like the word acid, is the name for a large group of compounds. Alcohols are organic molecules that share certain chemical properties. The word organic refers to compounds based around the element carbon that are usually produced by living organisms. Chemical names ending in -ol are usually alcohols of some sort e.g. ethanol, propanol, …
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Category:Chemistry
Interesting Fire Thing…
I opened my newly cleaned and recently lit wood-burning stove just now and was able to film this glowing movement on the roof of the stove. It was a spreading red glow of burning soot. This is exactly the effect which, if it happened in my chimney, might start a serious fire. The soot had …
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Chimneys Swept…
Today I had my chimneys swept. This is something that needs to be done annually to comply with my house insurance. I don’t often light fires as it is usually fairly warm here but I am hoping to light them over Easter when the house is full of visitors. There is something very comforting about settling …
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Sodium Polyacrylate…
I enjoyed Periodic Videos latest offering on fake snow. If you have watched the above you will know that it is a chemical called sodium polyacrylate, which is highly water absorbent and takes on the texture of snow when added to water. Acrylic acid is quite a small molecule based upon just three carbon …
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Prelude…
You may have seen news items about Shell’s Prelude LNG ship – the largest sea-going vessel of all time. I like the graphic above that shows it in contrast to the Sydney Opera House – the ship is the orange shape at the back! It is designed to be a floating platform for extracting natural gas (methane) …
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What Does It All Mean?
Chemical reactions can be described with word equations. These equations show how the atoms rearrange themselves during the reaction. The first thing you need to understand is the names of the chemicals because this tells you which elements you are dealing with. You will probably only be asked about chemicals containing the following elements. Symbol …
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Cabbage Indicator…
Can red cabbage be used to make an effective indicator? We used methylated spirits (ethanol with 10% methanol added) to extract the colouring from some red cabbage. This was then added to a range of different pH values to see if it changed colour. A reliable and obvious colour change, at a given pH, would …
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Foiled Again…
Aluminium is a typical metal in that it is… Shiny An excellent conductor of electricity An excellent conductor of heat Malleable (meaning it can be bent and shaped without snapping) Ductile (meaning it can be drawn out into wires and rolled into foil) In other ways it is not very typical. It has quite a …
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Calcium Carbide…
Calcium carbide is a simple compound, but it is fun because it liberates a flammable gas when water is added. It is produced by heating a mixture of calcium oxide and carbon (coke) at about 2000°C. A word equation for this reaction would be… When water is added to calcium carbide the reaction liberates the …
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People As Molecules…
How many names of famous people can you spell using the symbols for elements? I set myself a low bar for ‘famous’ and managed… (Mr) BiSHOP (bismuth, sulphur, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorous) & (Mr) SNoW (sulphur, nobelium and tungsten) before I thought I would be better handing it over to you. I have not Googled this yet but …
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