Combustively Synthesizing Europium-Doped Alumina
The insufficient heating of the precursor mix resulted in the formation of a sparse, somewhat sticky and wet foamy solid, protruding and threatening to spill out beyond the walls of the crucible.
Aryl
Latest posts
Synthesis of Tetranuclear Chicken Feed Copper Complexes; including a section on Deep Eutectic Solvents
“…it feels like an ad in a cheap hardware store in a part of town where there is at least 4 different people injecting heroin under that store” - Rosa, when presented with this article, 2 days ago
Warzone Grebewatching
Somewhat recently 1 , a dear friend of ours and friend of the website Catherine Whitequark alongside some associates has finished a project of its own, a static webpage host by the name of Grebedoc . Though it’s name is based on a pun wrt its architecture (“grebedoc” is “codeberg” backwards, grebedocs architecture is the inverse of the old codeberg pages architecture), the website prominently…
Exploring Interfaces Glasgowly
…the “Pivot to Hardware”. Now, that everyone feels the heat around the corner it is inevitable that everyone around you contracts a case of severe ROEED 1 , complete with all the symptoms such the diffusion model-generated breadboard picture posting or inane posturing about “hard tech” and “industrial capability”. This is a short introduction to 2 of the applets that are currently present on the…
Making Ferrofluid (?) from OTC (?) Materials
A goal that we set for ourselves this year was to publish an article on here once or twice a month. Another one was “stop sitting on old science with the hopes of “you’ll elaborate on this further and publish a bigger one instead””. A side effect of this policy is that, through gritted teeth, we have to publish some halfdone ambiguous semifailures. The academically-approved alternative to this is…
Violurates I Have Known And Loved Vol. 1: Ground Zeroes
Derived from the better-known-for-other-work barbituric acid, violuric acid is notable for exhibiting pantochromaticity 1 - the tendency to form brightly coloured salts with just about any cation you can find available. The chemistry of it is varied, complex and somewhat niche, with some reactions valiantly defying every attempt at comprehension. This is volume 1 of a set of articles documenting…
Using a 25€ Induction Heater
Sometime back in the Winter of 2025 I have ordered a 25€ 1kW induction heating board off Aliexpress and put myself up to the task of closing my teenage gestalt of High Temperature Chemistry.
Favourite Light Sources of Yesteryear
The emission of visible (and invisible) light is up there among the best pastimes available to a researcher/tinkerer/infantile individual. Light sources sit in a very pleasant area of “spectacle-danger”, making them a fun activity to engage in for children and developmentally stunted adults alike. Most of these were part of bigger projects, however due to technical difficulties or just general…
What in the world is a Salen Ligand?
What is salen? (don’t worry, this article starts off on a bit of a tangent on the background of salen complexes before we actually make some. this is still a synthesis writeup in the end and you will see these pretty coordination compounds just a few paragraphs away) Salen is the contracted name of N,N′-bis(salicylidene)ethylenediamine, which is a compound made by condensation of sal icylaldehyde…
Making a Tungsten Heteropolymetalate
In the year of 1783, Juan Jose and Fausto Elhayar were able to prepare from tungsten-containing starting material a salt that they described as bitter, spicy and yellow ( que tenian un sabor picante y amargo ) 1 2 , finally separating tungsten as a separate element after it’s discovery in 1781 and starting the field of polyoxometalate chemistry in the process. After a while of mucking about with…