Week 6--- Alchemy: Historically an attempt to understand the cosmos... leading to scientific discoveries in chemistry, physics......, some  misguided attempts to use magic to achieve certain goals (making gold out of other things,  achieving immortal life through various means)  , Historical Chinese Taoist "external alchemy"-the search for herbs of immortality- led to some practical herbal medicine....(and lots of death by mercury ingestion) .... "internal alchemy" in which the alchemist overcomes the limits of individuality and gains transcendental knowledge... has enduring relevance for anyone interested in meditation, energetics, philosophy/spirituality or achieving a higher state of being....TCM is an "alchemical" art in the sense that it combines energetic manipulation and herbal elixirs, etc.

So yes, alchemy is or has been science, art, and magic....

 The halogen of the week: Fluorine. Symbol is F. Atomic number is 9. It is the element for which the largest number of atoms combine with atoms of other elements..."univalent"....it readily forms compounds with most other elements...It is the most chemically reactive and electronegative of all the elements. 

In pure form it is a poisonous pale yellow/brown gas. Like the other halogens , contact with skin gives you severe chemical burns. It is a powerful oxidizing agent and reacts EXPLOSIVELY with hydrogen. It is too reactive to be found in elemental form.

Fluorides are compounds that combine fluorine with some positively charged counterpart.

--atomic fluorine is used in semi-conductor manufacturing

--sodium fluoride compound and others are used in toothpaste and water fluoridation,  more        about that controversy later....

--SSRI anti-depressants are fluorinated molecules! And because our bodies have difficulties metabolizing fluorinated molecules, these are the major cause of fluorinated organics found in sewage and waste water!

--Fluorochlorohydrocarbons are used in air conditioning and refrigeration. CFC's, or chlorofluorocarbons, are banned due to ozone destruction, but it is the chlorine and bromine radicals which are the guilty parties, not fluorine, thus hydrofluorocarbons are not banned by the EPA. They have a relatively small greenhouse effect compared to CO2 and methane.

Week 6:   Science Toys website:

These were really interesting-  I'm glad Lise made one of them! (film canister cannon looks like the most fun).  I will keep this link for the future when I might have time to attempt to do one of these with my soon to be six year old son. 

The plastic H bomb experiment helped me to get a grasp on the electrolysis of H2O into hydrogen and oxygen gasses.... what is going on at the cathode and the anode.... a bit better than the fuel cell one.... I'm regretting not taking the chemistry lab class through community college, because I think that would be the best way to really understand,  but there are only so many hours and months and years. Sigh.

The metal that melts in hot water was interesting--- I learned about "Field's Metal", a non-toxic fusible alloy that melts at a low temp: bismuth+tin+indium.

It's used in fire sprinkler systems-- the temp gets hot enough, melts the metal, and then water sprays out!  I took a lot of notes from this one, about pure substances vs. mixtures ... Trust me.

STRONTIUM sulfate crystals form the exoskeletons of Acantharea protozoa in the ocean!

Colors in my kitchen:

Red group:  Apples, raspberries, pomegranate, cherry tomatoes, Lingonberry Jam (IKEA!), Goji Berries.

Orange/Yellow group:  Grapefruit, tangerines, bananas, mango, mango juice.

Green: Celery, Kiwi

Pink: smoked salmon

Blue: frozen blueberries

Not bad,  but there is also PLENTY of brown and beige crackers, nuts, chips, etc etc.

I've been having to eat the beige diet for a week since I had the stomach flu! I'd love to get back to the colorful groups, but rebellious stomach qi says NO!

Week 5:   New info absorbed:  

Color of Minerals: Azurite (deep blue) and Malachite (deep green) frequently occur together and have remarkably similar formulae:     Azurite: Cu3 (CO3)2(OH)2

                                                               Malachite: Cu2 (CO3)(OH)2

Incandescence:  light from heat energy, like the sun, or the tungsten filament in old school light                                  bulbs glowing hot....

Luminescence:  "cold light" from other sources of energy, can take place at normal or lower                                          temps...

Some types of luminescence:

        Fluorescence: lum. from energy supplied by electromagnetic radiation

        Chemiluminescence: lum. from energy supplied by chemical reactions

        Bioluminescence: lum. caused by chemical reactions in living things!

STRONTIUM is an interesting alkaline earth metal.  Sr, atomic #38, atomic mass 87, electrons per shell: (2, 8, 18, 8, 2) . It's a soft, silver-white or yellowish metallic element (turns yellow when exposed to air) . It is HIGHLY reactive.... a fine powder of it ignites spontaneously in air! It burns crimson in a flame.....

Metallic strontium was first isolated by electrolysis by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1808, although the mineral strontianite was discovered in the lead mines in the Scottish village of Strontian in 1787.  

Strontium occurs naturally in the minerals celestine and strontianite. It's compounds are used in glass for color TV cathode ray tubes to prevent x-ray emission.  Strontium is also part of a durable magnesium alloy used in BMW engines! 

Week 4:  Atom Economy:  "Chemists need to measure efficiency of chemical reactions in order to compare alternative routes to products and their associated economic and environmental costs". Atom Economy is the method of expressing how efficiently a particular reaction makes use of the reactant atoms.  I'm glad that guy invented this equation to help green chemists do this-- even though it does not take yield into account. Also encouraging to see that ibuprofen is made in half the number of steps than it used to be, increasing atom economy.

Green chemistry as social movement:  great idea.  Consumers can bring their influence to bear on the profit driven uncaring industries. It's already starting-- people don't want damaging chemicals in their (household, personal, food) products . If more people are more informed,  we can make changes like that in ibuprofen production.  I liked the first website, Phillip Sutton has some inspirational ideas for resolving the conflict between economic growth and ecological sustainability. He mentions green chemistry, nanotechnology, and biotechnology as a way to have economic growth occur naturally in a physically constrained world. Basically, future economic growth needs to be generated through net qualitative change, not physical expansion. We need less stuff. No more landfills filling up with plastic shit, etc.

He points out that in the developed world, countries and provinces with the strongest environmental controls have the strongest economies and the leading exports of related technologies.....

Week 4:  My "Catalyst of the Week" is Iron, Fe, a transitional metal. Silvery looking!

Iron's atomic number is 26, neutrons:30.  It has 4 energy levels (2,8,14,2). Iron was known to the ancients. Its symbol is from the Latin Ferrum. "Iron" comes ultimately from celtic origins, or German=eisen, Old English= Isen, Iren......

It is obtained from iron ores. Iron and nickel are the most abundant metals in metallic meteorites and the earth's core. It is used in steel, and is a constituent of the biological molecule hemoglobin (carries oxygen in the blood).

A catalyst increases a reaction rate while remaining chemically unchanged at the end of a reaction. Iron is the catalyst in the Haber process, which is the reaction of nitrogen  and hydrogen over an iron substrate. This produces ammonia, which can then be oxidised to make the nitrites and nitrates for production of nitrate fertilizer and munitions.