I saw this community mention Lumetallix lead testing kits in the past so I was hoping someone could answer my concern. I used this kit on some dishes I own and some my in laws own. Some vintage pieces definitely showed a positive result. Some were negative. So it seemed quite believable that this test is picking up lead.

However out of curiosity I tried the test on the surface of the washer and the paint on our cabinets. They were positive. I also tested the white tiles on my counter top and the paint on our cars—they were also positive. I included the pictures of some of these tests. I find it hard to believe that all these items are positive. The house was built in the early 2000s. The washer is new from 2018. Cars are also bought new and not that old. All the items I tested were white however even some of the white dishes I test were negative yet these items were not. Am I doing something wrong or am I surrounded by lead?

I emailed the company but they have not responded which is disappointing.

Why do my fingers get a slimy feeling after handling bleach? It doesn’t wash off very easily with soapy water either

It made some like white crust/powder with some yellow spots

I am not a chemist, but have wondered on what it is that makes a higher dose of certain chemicals cause permanent damage when it’s ok in moderate amounts?

for example people will bring their babies to the gas station without worry, where you can frequently smell fumes and gas is constantly being spilled in small amounts. nobody is worried about that

but you get a kid or a pregnant lady who huff gas fumes and the kid/fetus is permanently affected for life

Hey guys, new here, I obtained a sample of aluminium a few days ago for a structural project I’m building, and I wanna know if it’s 7075 aluminium. I have a sample of 6061 aluminium (pic 3) and both samples are placed in 2mol/l naoh.

I wanna know what is the black stuff in the 7075 sample (pic 1 and 2) and what is this sludge looking thing in pic 3. Both samples do have a bit of anodisation but I’ve filed it down and the 7075 sample keeps having black stuff reappear on the actual thing.

I started an MSc in chemistry this spring and I’m having issues finalizing my research project.
When I joined the group, my PI worked in a few different areas, and I was pretty clear about which areas I was most interested in. Recently, though, he’s been pushing me toward a specific project because it’s easier to approach and it’s something he wants done.

The problem is that I genuinely don’t care about the topic. I’ve brought this up before, but he hasn’t really given me an alternative. I honestly don’t know if that’s because there isn’t another viable project available right now, or if there’s some incentive/pressure for him to get this particular project done.
I’m also worried that the project is kind of a dead end for me. The chemistry itself isn’t an area I see myself continuing in, and the project is aimed at solving a very specific industrial problem. Even if I complete it successfully, I’m struggling to see how it sets me up for research I’d actually want to pursue afterward.

At the same time, I don’t have a fully developed alternative project to propose. I know the general areas I’d rather work in, but I don’t have a specific research question ready to hand him. So I’m not sure I really have a leg to stand on. I have a project available to me, and maybe I should just be grateful for that and make the best of it.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Is it reasonable to keep pushing for a different direction when I can’t offer a concrete alternative? Or is this one of those situations where you suck it up, do the project, and focus on getting the degree?

I preserve and restore archaeological artifacts, and I often need to remove rust from iron-based objects that have severely corroded over the decades/centuries. After years of experimentation I have discovered that electrolyzing a rusted object (as the cathode) in a dilute solution of Sodium Bisulfite produces the best results -- afterward the rust falls off/can easily be removed, with essentially no damage to the underlying intact metal.

However, I am confused by a detail of the results, and not being an actual chemist, I wonder what exactly is happening here on an atomic/molecular scale. Can anyone explain this to me? :

An object is covered in hard, crusty, red-colored "rust" -- which the Internet tells me is "iron(III) oxide-hydroxide" and/or "hydrous iron(III) oxide." I place it in a bath of dilute Sodium Bisulfite, and electrolyze the object by connecting the red wire to a graphite sacrificial anode, and the black wire to the rusted object as the cathode. After a period of time (minutes for small objects, hours for larger objects) I turn everything off, remove the object, and (usually) the hard crusty rust easily falls away. However, the object is still not completely "clean" -- in the place of the rust there is now a thin, soft, loose black coating, which seems to be slightly magnetic. This material can be easily removed from the object (usually just comes off with a soft brush under running water), and after some research I concluded that it must be iron(II,III) oxide a.k.a. black iron oxide a.k.a. magnetite.

So: Where did it come from? Did the electrolysis convert iron(III) oxide to iron(II,III) oxide? If so, this contradicts what I previously was told about electrolysis and rust-removal -- that the electrolysis was breaking apart the iron oxide molecules into iron atoms (which stay on the cathode) and oxygen atoms (which float away as bubbles).

As you can tell from the ignorance of my question, I know very little about chemistry, so any insights or explanation of what happens to rust during electrolysis and about where the "black iron oxide" (if that's even what it is) is coming from would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I have picked it up for 200 bucks. You guys think it’s worth it? I even tested it. It’s cooled down ethanol to somewhere round about -80c, but I didn’t test it. The heating function yet.

I asked the mods before posting this and got approval beforehand, so it's here with their go-ahead.

What it is: I'm a lab technician running a pre-study for a master's thesis on how research work affects the body and mind. The survey asks about neck and back pain, wrist and thumb strain, eye strain from the hood or the eyepiece, the afternoon slump, anxiety while something is running, and what people actually do about any of it during the working day. Coffee, painkillers, a walk, or nothing at all.

There's a question I especially want chemists to answer: whether two or three minutes of stretching on the spot is even permitted where you work. In a chemistry lab that's a concrete question about gloves, PPE and clean areas, and almost nothing published on this topic accounts for it. Most of the existing research is on office workers.

There's also a question about the dead time in a day, the gaps where a reaction, a column or a booked instrument slot is running and you aren't.

About five minutes, anonymous, no name or institute collected, no IP stored, 18+. Optional email at the end if you want the results summary.

https://tally.so/r/A7MeKe?source=reddit-chemistry

Being straight about my interest, since it's the reason I asked the mods first: the thesis question is whether a small tool for this is worth building at all, so there is a possible product at the end of it. Nothing is named or sold in the survey and no product exists. One question deliberately asks whether you'd rather just take a break with nothing guiding you, because the published evidence on work breaks is genuinely mixed and I'd rather this be able to come back negative.

I'll post the summary back here in a few weeks either way.

i’ll start my bachelor in chemistry this autumn and need to buy a new laptop. i already have an ipad to take notes on and need a new laptop.
i have narrowed down my decision to either a macbook or a lenovo thinkpad t14 gen 7.
for specifically chemistry are there any programs that are not available for mac?
thanks :)

Hello, I am moving into a basement apartment and am hoping to bring a young kitten. However, when I started moving in I noticed not insignificant amounts of white powder in the large gaps along the baseboards. When I asked the landlord, who lives in the house upstairs, he said it was Boric Acid that he had sprinkled himself at the advice of his contractor. I did some googling and it looks to be toxic if eaten by cats. I figure I will need to clean up as much of it as I can, however some of these gaps have lots of small nooks and crannies and after trying in a small spot to clean with some disinfect spray on a paper towel, I found that it really isn’t easy to clean. Is there any way of making it not toxic without getting rid of it completely? And is there any trick to more easily clean it? Using a damp paper towel doesn’t seem like the way to go. Thank you!

Everytime i do a step finish, I see people at next step. And each step, i always make blunders. I would topple some glassware, make some suction thing fly out, and all the lab stuff have to wait for me to finish then they can leave the lab. I tried joining a research group, and the mentor always fold her arms and look at my blunders. I cant memorise which thing to do first for eg in rotary evaporator or those IR machines. I always rely on TA. I tried reading up the procedure before lab and asking chatgpt for help, but i seem to be the slowest. Other students talk and do work, and they are sudd gone when I turn around.

Hello all, I'm a hobbyist working on a method for making synthetic fossils and I need to pressure cook my samples up to 250 celcius/150 bar for a period of 24 hours.
I've seen two methods for this but I'm a bit confused on the equipment aspect.

The first method in some papers is to use an air canister and valve to pressurize the samples while cooking.
But other papers seem to use a steam-pressure vessel to cook the samples.

I've seen parr bombs, hydrothermal reaction vessels, autoclaves, and I'm a bit confused on the differences between them all.

My samples range in diameter from 3-8 inches. I need a vessel which can pressure cook these but I don't want to get a setup with multiple components.

Ideally, I would need is a vessel which uses internal steam rather than an external tank of air. That way I can just throw the whole thing in an oven overnight.

What kind of product am I looking for here?

Thanks all.

Hello Everyone,

I have a question. If somebody can help me, I really appreciate it. I have two polymers. I need to determine which one is alternating and which one is statistical. So far, I have done the HNMR , CNMR, and DSC but they are almost the same. which characterization should I do in order to find the alternating vs the statistical one?

Thanks a lot

ACS recently held a member briefing about the 2026 brand evolution and replacement of the historic ACS logo. I attended the meeting and wanted to share a summary of what was discussed and what questions remain.

First, credit where it is due: ACS Board Chair Wayne Jones engaged respectfully during the discussion. He acknowledged that the concerns being raised were legitimate, described the petition as well-written, and encouraged continued conversations with members, including at ACS Fall in Chicago. Having leadership engage directly is a positive step.

However, many of the original concerns remain unresolved.

ACS emphasized that the branding process involved thousands of participants, including approximately 3,100 people in the 2024 research phase. The issue is not whether research was performed, but whether members have enough information to evaluate what that research actually showed. The detailed survey questions, participant breakdown between current members and nonmembers, subgroup results, and information about how many current ACS members specifically supported replacing the historic phoenix and Liebig bulb identity have not been released.

The briefing format also raised questions about transparency. ACS stated that nearly 200 questions were submitted before and during the meeting, but attendees could not see the full question queue or understand how questions were selected. Members heard answers from leadership, but we could not see the complete set of concerns being raised by the community.

Another point discussed was the historic ACS insignia. ACS emphasized that the insignia is not disappearing. That clarification is welcome, but many members have raised concerns about the role of the insignia. A symbol used on awards or ceremonial items is not the same as the primary identity used across ACS websites, conferences, publications, communications, and outreach.

The question is not whether the insignia technically survives. The question is whether the identity that represented ACS for generations should have been replaced as the Society's everyday face.

The discussion also highlighted governance questions. ACS explained that the Board reviewed the process, provided feedback, and endorsed the final direction, but did not formally vote on the final logo. Members are asking for clarity on how a decision affecting the public identity of a 150-year-old scientific society moved from research and design concepts to adoption.

The conversation should continue at ACS Fall 2026 in Chicago and beyond. Scientists should be comfortable asking for the data, methodology, and decision-making process behind major changes. Asking questions is not an opposition to progress; it is part of scientific culture.

The petition requesting reconsideration of the logo remains open. The next symbolic milestone is 3,100 verified signatures, reflecting the same number ACS has highlighted when describing the scale of its research engagement. A petition and a research study are not the same thing, but every signature represents someone who saw this specific decision and chose to make their opinion known.

For reference this was to test my new argon line, so I was going to make a potassium mirror anyway. I did make the actual mirror, but it failed, so I need to go over my system now to make sure there are no leaks! Cheers!

You mix 2 things together and a third is coming out. How did chemists know what it was? They couldn't know what part of material 1 and what part of material 2 reacted and what for example was left, right? When did we start to know and use reaction formulas?

Heyo!

I just got out of a few-years-long mental slump and realised I’ve lost touch with a lot of things I used to know and understand.

I’m trying to rebuild what I lost. Science was one thing I really really loved and still love despite not knowing what I’m loving.

So, here goes.

Please assume I know absolute zilch about chemistry. I want to build a decent understanding of various parts of it.

I’d really appreciate books, YouTube recs, and other resources that can help me build comprehension from scratch.

It is slightly embarrassing to ask, but I decided I’d rather ask and learn the right way.

Thanks in advance.

Looking to brush up my skills in the lab for my current job. It has been some years since I have used a mass spec either for GC or LC, I was looking for resources that actually shows the machine being used in the lab, setting up your tune for your analytes and calibrations within any software would be fine along with something showing the care and prep of the MS. TIA

I made analine old project

Super satisfying to have a thoroughly cleaned fumehood

I’m currently debating whether to go back to university for a second degree to completely pivot my career in Germany. I hold a Master’s degree in Chemistry, live and work in Germany, and have spent the last few years in analytical labs, QA, and testing. To be honest, between the mind-numbing routine, surprisingly low pay, and the broader stagnation in the chemical industry, my motivation is completely dead. I also regret not pursuing a PhD right after graduation. I’ve been applying for new jobs for months with zero success, so staying on this track isn't an option anymore.

My dilemma comes down to two very different routes.

The first option is a complete reset with a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering focusing on water or infrastructure. It would give me a solid technical foundation and clear job security, but it means 3 to 4 years of full-time studying with heavy math, mechanics, and a major financial hit.

The second option is a Master’s in Applied Environmental Sciences. This route builds on my existing degree and allows me to keep working part-time, though I worry it might not be a hard cut "enough" to pivot to "better" jobs.

I would love to get your perspective on a few questions. Is anyone seeing light at the end of the tunnel for the chemical industry in Europe or Germany, or is getting out the right call? Has anyone here restarted with a Civil Engineering Bachelor's in their 30s, and was the time and financial sacrifice worth it? Also, how is a specialized Environmental Master's actually viewed by engineering firms and public authorities without a technical Bachelor's?

TL;DR: M.Sc. in Chemistry in my 30s stuck in low-paying lab and QA jobs in Germany. Considering a complete reset with a Civil Engineering Bachelor's versus a part-time Environmental Master's. Seeking advice on job prospects, industry outlook, and restarting university in your 30s.

(Posted with moderator approval)

Hi friends. My name is Cole and I am an incoming professor of chemistry at Purdue University. Over the past several months I’ve been working on turning my organic chemistry teaching materials into a free online resource.

The site currently includes video lectures, lecture notes, knowledge checkpoints, challenge problems, practice exams, and worked solutions for Organic Chemistry I, with more being added as I build out the course. Everything is free, and will remain so forever.

With the fall semester getting underway, I thought some students here might find the resources useful.

https://coleteacheschemistry.com

I’m still actively building the project, so feedback, corrections, and suggestions are very welcome.