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/sci/ - Science & Math

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File: 20 KB, 320x240, KClO3-sucrose.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5296723 No.5296723 [Reply] [Original]

>Doing a basic experiment to entertain my brother and sister
>Potassium Chlorate and sugar, activated with a few drops of sulfuric acid
>And a bit to much Sulfuric Acid, realize I put way to much potassium chlorate and sugar
>Literally 8 foot high jet of fire
>Oh god what the fuck
>Look down, finger turning black, sulfuric acid on skin
>Run to hose, get it off quickly, no damage
>Absolutely fucking terrified of chemistry now

What's the biggest lab accident you've had, /sci/?

>> No.5296729

>>5296723
while attempting to build a coil gun, I had to extract electrical components such as capacitors from other parts.

I got shocked way too many times.

Theoretical physics it is.

>> No.5296737
File: 56 KB, 471x363, Partially-reflected-plutonium-sphere.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5296737

Engine fired lightning sparks everywhere. It didn't work after that. Project got delayed. Fucking engine.

Pic related to thread. It's the Demon core.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core

>> No.5296739

>>5296729
Should have discharged them properly. Your fault.

>> No.5296741

Dropped a test tube, barely made a scratch on it.

>> No.5296753

>>5296741
How horrifying.

>> No.5296755

we did the good ol' gummy bear flame, but our gummy bear had to be stuffed into the tube, and after a couple seconds of flame at the bottom, it shot out like a rocket and stuck to the wall

>> No.5296833

Someone in my class back in high school was playing with a tube of mercury we were passing around. He smashed the tube off the table shaking it and he got it on his clothes. He had to strip down and run to the chemical shower, because it got on him too. Whole place was quarantined for 2 days or so.

>> No.5296857

Goddard nearly blew himself up several times with his rocketry experiments but that didn't stop him. Otherwise the Germans would have never been able to build V2's.

Man up, OP.

>> No.5296858

Not me, but stupid biochem slut in a lab:
>Using ~18M sulfuric acid in this experiment
>Instructor repeatedly tells us to be careful etc. and don't pour water into acid
>stupid slut pours about 500mL of the concentrated sulfuric acid in a beaker
>I tell her to stop whatever the fuck she is doing
>"I can read the instructions, Anon, don't tell me what to do"
>she proceeds to heat the concentrated sulfuric acid
>I start walking towards her to stop whatever the fuck she was doing
>She pours hot water into the sulfuric acid before I get there
>Acid goes everywhere; papers, notes, and books are blackened
>Few, if any, drops hit her, at least from what I could see
After the incident, I began researching fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and chaotic systems trying to figure out why she didn't get acid to the face(at least enough to scar her).

>> No.5296865

>>5296858
Jesus must have been looking out for her.

>> No.5296952

>>5296833
>mercury
>quarantine
What, can it seep in through your skin or something?

>> No.5296982

>>5296833
People have a strange paranoia of Mercury. Unless you start snacking on it you're not going to have any ill effects.

>> No.5297028

>>5296982
It's not paranoia. You might not be harmed by Mercury unless you ingest it, but it's difficult not to ingest simply because it's so shiny and appetizing. If people were exposed to mercury they may not be able to help themselves.

And of course if you get it on your body you might get it on door knobs, faucet handles, rails, etc. Then people who don't wash their hands might end up getting it on their food.

>> No.5297150
File: 23 KB, 300x225, Nooooo.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5297150

>be in 10th grade english (like 2 1/2 years ago)
>Be making ice cream (salt OP)
>idiot partner bumps into table
>Ice cream, Ice cream everywhere
>mfw I didn't get to eat the product of my toil

FUCK YOU JOHN, I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU

>> No.5297735

>>5297028
>Mercury is removed from fish oil supplements.

Forget about the fluorine in the water, Long John Silver is poisoning people?

>> No.5297747

>>5296982
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

>> No.5297755

>>5297747
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn
dialkylmercury compounds are much more dangerous than elemental mercury

>> No.5297756

>>5296755
Dunno if this is what you were talking about, but a biology teacher at my college tried to burn a gummy bear.

Noxious fumes came pouring out, filled the room, set the fire alarm off and the fire deparment was notified automatically. due to a misunderstanding over what the gas actually was, the fire chief dude called in the bomb disposal squad from the nearest city, turning a half hour accident into a three hour "stand outside in the cold and rain".

Pretty funny in retrospect.

>> No.5298503

>>5297735
yeah i've heard about it. Whats the big deal with fluorine. its at a level of what 4mm per liter wich is what 4ppm max?

>> No.5298511

I accidentally got 1M hydrofluoric acid on my hands once.

That wasn't fun.

>> No.5298618

Not my own story, and not exactly as told before, but I read one on here before that went

>Over sized Undergrad lab
>People sharing ventilation hoods while boiling High Molarity acid solution
>One girl is wearing improper clothing (Open shoes, skirt and baggy sleeves
>Turns around and baggy sleeve pulls on glassware containing acid solution
>Solution pours down leg, burning by with liquid temperature and acid burns.
>Girl never wheres pants again.

Sorry for shitty story telling I'm drunk and tired (Just celebrated finishing a course)

>> No.5298630

>>5298503
Regular consumption of fluoridated water at 4-5 ppm can cause some mottling of teeth. A bit higher and you get fluorosis of bone tissue. Might be serious over a lot of years. You typically see this in very poor mountainous areas of India, where they have high natural concentrations and don't monitor water. A more typical drinking water concentration is 0.7-1.1 ppm, which is low enough to be harmless while high enough to be beneficial.

>> No.5298637

>>5298618
It was another girl's arm that pulled the glassware out (I think her elbow snagged a hose), but that's pretty much it. She was quick and got into the emergency shower, but it was an ugly accident. She had really nice legs, too.

>> No.5298652

I've never actually seen a bad accident, but they must happen a lot seeing as the chemistry building at my university gets evacuated every other day.

>> No.5298655

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/

>> No.5298659

>>5298630
>That feel when you live in an area where they don't even bother fluoridating since the aquifer already contains more than the recommended amount of fluoride

>> No.5298661

when i was young i played with mercury, i was thinking it was some kind of Terminator liquid. I once put my finger on it and them tasted the finger, but never got poisoned... look like i ve been super lucky

>> No.5298686
File: 38 KB, 583x309, 1347742698507.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5298686

>nottingham university
>organic chem 2nd year
>undergrad lab using halogenated organic compounds
>have two large waste bottles set up in a fume hood, one for halo wastes, one for non-halo wastes. big fucking signs not to confuse the two of them
>near the end, the halo waste bottle explodes, showers glass and flaming solvent everywhere. Chunks of glass embedded in far wall.
>time to move
>whole class piles out of lab, fire brigade called, etc etc

Turns out some fucknut poured conc nitric acid into the waste bottle. after a few minutes induction period the whole lot went thermal runaway. Never found the culprit

>> No.5298688

>>5298661

Elemental mercury is very poorly absorbed. Its mercury compounds that are the threat, especially organo-mercury ones.

>> No.5298692

>>5298661
Nah... inorganic mercury's pretty harmless. You wouldn't want to expose yourself to it every day, but once in a while is no big deal.

>> No.5298693

>>5298655
>in the pipeline
yes, yes indeed
pharmalot.com (that is, if you don't already know)

>> No.5298707

Spilled a saturated Cobalt solution over my hand, had eczema for a year.

>> No.5298720
File: 43 KB, 500x410, 1314196130729.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5298720

Just the other day I was using a machine in my lab which has 2 pressure gauges. Low pressure (0-2000 psi) and high pressure (0-10000 psi).

Underneath those two gauges is a switch to select which gauge you want to use, and a wheel to wind up/down pressure.

I had my pressure set to 5400 psi on the High pressure gauge and finished up my test. Then I absent mindedly grabbed the switch instead of the wheel and flipped it over to the Low pressure gauge.

Needless to say, we're up for a $500 pressure gauge now.

>> No.5298741

>spill corn syrup all over floor
>no soap or other nonpolar substance available
>skate on it instead
>YOLO

>> No.5298760

>in highschool class
>partnered for a lab with two cute girls and a jock friend of mine
>say "hey wanna see me drink this tube of vinegar?"
>girls say yes
>friend says do it
>down the hole thing in one gulp, almost a pint
>have a bad stomache ache all day
>and a migraine

>> No.5298765

>>5298760
You're a retard because:
A) Your fellow retards work in those places and the odds of it being actual vinegar are less than normal and may in fact be something else
B) High school labs aren't well cleaned and there could have been traces of something else in there too

Shame it wasn't something worse. Then you could have doubled it as a lesson in Darwinian evolution.

>> No.5298767

>>5298765
Yeah I wasn't too smart while still in highschool, at least I got it out of the way while I was young and had a good time too.

>> No.5298769

>>5298767

>good time
>stomach ache and migraine all day

Pick one

>> No.5298771

>>5298769
I was referring to my general experience during my youth.

>> No.5298774

>>5297028
Actually, ingesting mercury is pretty safe. Ingesting organic mercury will fuck you up, but the shiny liquid metal mercury is okay because you barely absorb it.

>> No.5298824

I accidentally drank a test tube embryo because I was thirsty.

>> No.5298908

>HS grade 9 science class
>Some new graduate from university is there learning about teaching HS science while helping the teacher
>we're going to do an experiment today, class
>puts box shaped glass containers of fine, white powder on each desk
>my retarded classmates decide that the best way to determine the identity of this unknown white powder is by tasting it
>most people dip their fingers in and put them in their mouths
>graduate guy reems out kids for their stupidity

Turns out it was sugar. Still stupid though.

Fun fact: Tasting new chemicals used to be standard lab practice many years ago.

Also, worst thing that happened to me was just having a drying agent (or something, I can't remember exactly) we were using eat through my latex gloves and burn my fingers a bit. No big deal though.

>> No.5298916

>>5296741

>continuing to use a potentially damaged test tube

>> No.5298917

>>5296755
>>5297756

These are both hilarious.

>> No.5298981

I once broke a 100 mL beaker which had 1.0 M HCl.
Nothing serious happend. Most of it came on my cloths.

>> No.5299022

In high school I once convinced a bit over half of the class to give me their magnesium for their experiments, and in exchange I would "do something cool."
Held it all together with long tongs, closed my eyes, held it to a Bunsen, harvested tears.
Teacher was so pissed and yet he found it funny because he told the entire class not to look directly at the reaction. It was glorious

>> No.5299025

>get high before chemistry day
>paranoid as fuck all the time
>classmate ask me to stir boiling water
>nope

It was the longest day in my life

>> No.5299722

.

>> No.5299735

>Be 10 or so
>at school be shown the hydrogen ballon experiment by teacher, using highly diluted HCL and magnesium strips to create the H, fill small ballon and blow it up with a match tied to a long pole
>fuck this I wanna do it
>get large plastic bottle
>fill with comparatively strong HCL we used for the pool at home
>get a bunch of aluminium foil, crumple it up and dump it in
>mfw reaction goes nuts
>hcl everywhere, reacts so rapidly the bottle heats up and melts, fast
>ballon is fucking huge
>manage to grab it off before bottle ruptures and spills everywhere burning the ground, fumes pouring out
>decide to blow ballon up anyway using match on pole method because safety first
>ballon explodes in a fireball so large it partially engulfs me
>slight burns to face adn arms plce breathig issues from inhaling the noxious fumes from the plastic and HCL


worth it that fireball was awesome

>> No.5299743

>>5297735

Yeah, loads of fish are barely edible because of the high concentrations of heavy metals. Here in Sweden doctors advise pregnant women not to eat fish from the lakes.

>> No.5299746
File: 1.52 MB, 275x206, 127408041932.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5299746

>>5296858
>she proceeds to heat the concentrated sulfuric acid
>She pours hot water into the sulfuric acid before I get there

>mfw I read this whole damn post

>> No.5299747

>>5296982
Mercury vaporizes easily and is pretty damn harmful if you breathe it in, and it soaks into everything really quickly.

>> No.5299754

>>5298981
1M HCL is pretty harmless.

>> No.5299775

>making methyl orange
>instructions say "now neutralize with solid sodium hydroxide until pH >> 7
>mkay
>start tossing in potassium hydroxide pellets, one by one
>constantly stirring
>man I used a lot of acid for that, better put in some more
>neutralization generates a metric fuckton of heat
>stuff turns red, then dark red, then black
>steaming hot, vapor everywhere
>OH SHIT WHATTHEFUCK
>reaction yields some brownish sludge, stinks like hell
>spend an additional day recovering what can be recovered
>end up with a clay-like substance, never spoke of it again
But hey, it worked.

>> No.5299813

>>5296952
Methylmercury can. Elemental mercury is quite stable and no thread unless you're eating it or you're exposed to it for a really long time.
I guess people just confuse mercury and methylmercury.

>> No.5299825

>>5299813
Of course metallic mercury is a threat if it has a chance to form vapors.

>> No.5299826

uwotm8

>> No.5299843

>>5296833
I was once doing experiments with vibrating mercury. We were using a device similar to a speaker to vibrate a few grams of mercury sitting in a dish on top of it.
The function generator wasn't powerful enough to drive it directly so we put together a quick amplifier on a breadboard. During the experiment, a trimpot was accidentally knocked loose from the board, increasing the gain to ungodly levels. The dish was thrown into the air, it overturned, and the mercury dumped onto the speaker-device, which was now being driven directly by a +/-15v square wave. The mercury was thrown ALL OVER THE PLACE. Most of it landed in the spill tray, but still, the better part of that night was spent cleaning up all those tiny little droplets all over the table and floor. Nobody died.

>> No.5299883

>>5299825
Yes, but running to a chemical shower is pretty unnecessary.

>> No.5299908

Why were you preforming chemical experiments without taking proper safety measures? No gloves? Are you fucking retarded? No accident here, just stupidity.

Hope you learned your lesson

>> No.5299922

I have an amalgam.

Am I fucked?

>> No.5299946

>>5299922
In short, no you're fine. The media likes to go apeshit over things like that.

>> No.5300177

some chick in chemisty class at my uni spilled aqua regia on her feet, she had to get 4/5 of it amputated, although the acid probably did most of the amputating

>> No.5300195

>>5299883
Maybe the teacher wanted to see them undress.

>> No.5300223

>>5300177
How loud were her screams?

>> No.5300237

>>5300177
poor girl

>> No.5300246

>>5299747
mercury doesn't soak at all. It's safe in open glass containers so long as you're not breathing over it.

>> No.5300250

>>5296723
You should be terrified of chemistry. I bet you weren't even wearing goggles. Jesus.

>> No.5300268

>>5296723
>Dicking around, as you do
>Get a huge pile of magnesium powder
>Set on fire
>?
>Almost destroy everything

>> No.5300315

class got to build and launch model rockets in gr 12 physics..
Teacher kept saying only 1 engine each
Snuck an extra engine into the rocket
Forgot to account for time delay from one rocket engine finishing its burn and the next one starting
Rocket reaches it's peak *pause* turns around toward the ground, ignites next engine
Rocket quickly turns into missile and crashes on fire in the parking lot nearly hitting the principles car and fairly close to a group of people

>> No.5300362

>>5300315
That's hilarious.

>> No.5300439

>be aeroastro student
>slip on wind tunnel floor
>concussion

>> No.5300470

>doing chemistry without understanding fundamentals

you all deserve it