Here are a couple of fun chemistry experiments that your kids are sure to love.

Chemical Reaction Experiments for Kids: Green Pennies and Copper-Plated Nails

This awesome experiment is really three chemistry experiments for kids in one! First, in Part 1, an acid-base reaction gives dull pennies their original shine back. Then, in Part 2, we use redox chemistry to turn some of those pennies green. Finally, in Part 3, we coat ordinary steel nails in copper.

What you’ll need:

• About 20 dull pennies
• A shallow bowl (glass or plastic only)
• ¼ cup white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• A couple of clean steel nails
• Water
• Paper towels

Part 1: Making Dull Pennies Look Shiny and New

1. Combine the vinegar and salt in the bowl and stir to dissolve the salt.
2. Start by dipping a penny halfway into the vinegar solution and holding it there for 20 seconds. Make a note of what you see.
3. Dump the remaining pennies into the bowl and leave them there for 5 minutes.
4. Your pennies should be bright and shiny again! Reserve the solution for Part 3.

What’s going on?

Over time, shiny copper pennies get dull because the metal is gradually oxidized when in contact with air. The chemical reaction for this process is 2 Cu (s) + O₂ (g) –> 2 CuO (s). Copper (II) oxide (CuO) or cupric oxide, the product of this reaction, is dull and greenish. So, a layer of this substance on the surface of the penny makes it look dark brown and dull.

Cupric oxide is also soluble in many acids, including the acetic acid in household vinegar. When you place the dull pennies in the vinegar solution, the acetic acid dissolves the cupric oxide on the surface of the pennies, revealing the shiny pure copper metal underneath.

It’s an acid-base reaction that results in invisible copper ions (Cu²⁺) being left in the vinegar solution: CuO (s) + 2 CH₃COOH (aq) –> Cu(CH₃COO)₂ (aq) + H₂O (l). This will be important in Part 3, so don’t throw this solution away!

Part 2: Green Verdigris Pennies

1. Remove the pennies from the vinegar solution. (Keep it for Part 3.)
2. Place half on a paper towel to dry, and rinse the other half thoroughly in clean water before placing them on a separate paper towel. Label the paper towels so you know which is which.
3. Wait about an hour and note the difference between the two sets of pennies.
4. The unrinsed pennies should have turned a blue-green color!

What’s going on?

The turquoise-colored coating on the unrinsed pennies is a patina called verdigris. You might recognize it as being similar to the color of the Statue of Liberty—that’s verdigris, too! While verdigris can be several different compounds, in this fun chemistry experiment, it is copper (II) acetate, or cupric acetate.

It’s a two-step process. First, the copper metal is oxidized to cupric oxide, exactly the same way it does naturally over time. However, in this experiment, we have sped up the oxidation reaction using salt (NaCl) dissolved in the vinegar. Sodium chloride is an electrolyte, and since oxidation-reduction reactions rely on the movement of electrons, an electrolyte acts as a catalyst by increasing the conductivity of the solution.

In the second step, the acetic acid left on the unrinsed pennies reacts with the cupric oxide to form blue-green cupric acetate: CuO (s) + 2CH₃COOH (aq) –> Cu(CH₃COO)₂ (s) + H₂O (l)

Notice that this is the same reaction that dissolved the cupric oxide in Part 1. The difference is that we’ve taken it out of the aqueous environment. Because of this, the solid cupric acetate remains on the penny as the water evaporates.

Part 3: Copper-Plated Nails

1. Place one nail in the solution from Part 1 so that it is half covered, and completely submerge another nail. Note any changes you see.
2. Leave the nails that way for about 10 minutes. If the color hasn’t changed, come back again in an hour.
3. The parts of the nails in contact with the solution should now be coated in copper!

What’s going on?

Steel is an alloy whose main component metal is iron. When you dip the nails in the penny-cleaning solution, the acid in the vinegar dissolves some of the iron and iron oxides on the surface, leaving it with a negative charge.

Remember those invisible Cu²⁺ ions that were left behind in solution? Those positive ions are attracted to the negative charge on the surface of the nail. As a result, the copper ions are reduced (i.e. gain electrons) to pure copper metal, which is deposited all over the nail.

This is definitely one of the coolest chemistry experiments to do at home, and you probably have everything you need already!

More Chemistry for Kids: Coffee Filter Chromatography

This is one of the easiest chemistry experiments with household items, which makes it suitable for even younger kids. It’s an at-home version of something chemists do in the lab every day: chromatography. Here, you will take a dye from markers and separate it into its component pigments.

( As a fun continuation of this experiment, why not use water to pull the dye off of colored candies, like M&Ms and Skittles? Do you think red M&Ms contain the same pigments as red Skittles? How can you find out? )

What you’ll need:

• Coffee filter
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Non-toxic markers (or other source of dye)
• Water
• Table salt
• A tall glass

What to do:

1. Cut the coffee filter into a square, approximately 3 inches by 3 inches, and use a pencil to lightly mark a line straight across the filter, about a half inch from the edge.
2. Next, use the pencil to make dots for each dye color you are going to test, equally spaced along the pencil line, and label each dot with the name of the color.
3. Now, use each marker to make a small dot on the pencil dot by its corresponding label. Ensure that each colored dot is approximately the same size.
4. Prepare a 1% salt solution by dissolving 1/8 tsp table salt in 3 cups of water. Once the salt is dissolved, pour a small amount of solution into the tall glass. The water level should be approximately ¼ inch high. It is very important that it be lower than the marker dots on your coffee filter.
5. Crease the filter square vertically down the middle so that it can stand upright. Then, gently set it in the glass so that the edge below the marker dots is in the salt solution. Water will start to move up the coffee filter.
6. When the water has almost reached the top of the filter square, remove it from the solution and let it dry.
7. The pigments in the markers should have been carried up the filter, some farther than others. What do you see?

What’s Going On?

This chemistry experiment with household items is a simplified form of chromatography, a technique that real scientists use to separate components of a solution every day.

There are two phenomena at work here. First, capillary action is what causes the liquid to defy gravity and move up the coffee filter. This happens in small tubes (like the porous fibers of the coffee filter) when the intermolecular forces between the liquid and the tube are stronger than the force of gravity pulling on the mass of liquid in the tube.

But the second part is what makes chromatography so useful. Some of your marker colors will have moved higher up the coffee filter than others. It’s likely that a few of them even separated into multiple dyes (e.g. a blue spot and a yellow spot came from your green marker). Chromatography uses the different physical and chemical properties of different molecules to separate them in this way.

Sometimes, a dye will move faster up the coffee filter (the “stationary phase”) simply because it is a smaller molecule and weighs less. Usually, though, molecules are separated by their affinity for the stationary phase or the “mobile phase” (the salt solution in our case).

More polar molecules will have a stronger affinity for the positive and negative ions in the salt water, for example, and will be carried up the filter more easily. Nonpolar molecules, on the other hand, will not have any attraction to these charges, and will not get swept away by the solution so quickly.

Your Own All-Natural pH Indicator

Tons of household liquids “behave” the way they do because they are acidic, neutral, or basic. You could check the pH of these liquids with test strips or an indicator solution you buy at a pool supply store or the pet shop. But did you know you can do this with an ordinary vegetable?

The gorgeous colors in this simple experiment make it chemistry for kids at its best!

What you’ll need:

• Half a red cabbage
• 2-3 cups boiling water
• Strainer
• Various household liquids for testing (e.g. plain water, lemon juice, baking soda solution)
• One clear glass for each liquid
• Additional water for diluting

What to do:

1. Prepare the pH indicator from the cabbage. To do this, chop the cabbage into small pieces, cover in a saucepan with boiling water, and let cool. Strain to separate the liquid, which should be dark purple. This is your indicator solution.
2. Dilute a small amount of your household substances in water in separate glasses. Make sure to label them so you know what’s what. It’s a good idea to have one glass of plain water to act as a control.
3. Predict what color each liquid will turn when you add the pH indicator, and then see if you’re right by pouring a small amount into each glass.
4. Neutral liquids should be purple, like the indicator itself. Acidic liquids should turn hot pink, and basic liquids should turn blue!

What’s going on?

Acidity, for the purposes of pH, is a measure of hydrogen ions (H⁺) in a solution. A pH of 7 is considered neutral. If a liquid is acidic, its pH will be between 0 and 7, and if a liquid is basic or alkaline, its pH will be between 7 and 14.

A pH indicator works by reacting with acidic (H⁺) and basic (OH^–) ions in a solution; the product of that reaction is a different color than it was originally, thus indicating whether the solution was basic or acidic.

In red cabbage, the plant pigment anthocyanin has a molecular structure that allows it to act as both a base (reacting with acids) and an acid (reacting with bases). It therefore has three different forms, each with a different color, depending on the number of acidic hydrogens it contains (fully protonated in an acidic environment, partially protonated in a neutral environment, and fully deprotonated in an alkaline environment).

Final Thoughts on Chemistry for Kids

These fun chemistry experiments with household items are simple, safe and visually interesting for kids. But to make sure they get the most out of it, don’t forget to ask them questions (and do your best to answer theirs). What do they see? Why might that be happening? What would happen if you changed the conditions slightly?

You’ll have a budding scientist before you know it!

Also, make sure to check some of the more general science experiments that you can do at home that we have also published recently.

The post Awesome Chemistry Experiments For Kids To Do At Home appeared first on Chemistry Hall.

Making soap at home is a fun and crafty way to get some firsthand chemistry experience and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Soap and soapmaking encompass many chemistry concepts:

• Acids, Bases and Salts
• Biochemistry: Lipids
• Organic Chemistry: Esters, Carboxylic Acids and Alcohols
• Hydrolysis
• Emulsification
• Hydrophilic/Hydrophobic Interactions

But don’t be intimidated—the actual process of making homemade soap is easier than you think!

Read on for a summary of the chemistry behind soapmaking, the chemical reaction that is used to make soap, and the science of how soap works. Most of these concepts are further expanded in any organic chemistry textbooks, which we have reviewed here.

Otherwise, skip to the bottom of the post for a simple beginner-friendly DIY soap recipe.

It is a fun experiment with kids, but always supervised! If you want to do chemistry with children, make sure to get one of the best chemistry sets for kids and adults out there!

The Chemistry of Soapmaking: Saponification

The chemical reaction that produces soap is so ancient and characteristic that its name literally means “to turn into soap”.

Saponification, from sapo, the Latin word for soap, is one of the more memorable chemical reactions learned in the first semester of organic chemistry because of its obvious applications in everyday life.

Here is a Summary of the Overall Reaction

First, we begin with a triglyceride (the fatty molecules found in vegetable oils and animal fats). A strong base is added, which breaks the ester bonds of the triglyceride into three carboxylic acids and glyceroxide. Finally, after proton exchange, the products are three carboxylic acid salts and glycerol.

Explanation of the Saponification Reaction Mechanism

Saponification is an alkaline hydrolysis of an ester. You may recall that the formation of an ester is a dehydration reaction between a carboxylic acid and an alcohol.

In biochemistry, this reaction creates a triglyceride from three free fatty acid chains and one molecule of glycerol. Saponification uses a strong base to essentially undo that reaction. We have explored this and other simple reactions in this tutorial review about organic chemistry concepts.

Remember that a carbonyl carbon, such as the one in an ester bond, has a partial positive charge due to both resonance and the greater electronegativity of the bonded oxygen. Because of this, it is a good target of nucleophilic attack by the hydroxide ion. The product of this step is an orthoester intermediate (note the negative charge on the former carboxyl oxygen).

Remember that oxygen is most stable when it has two bonds and two lone pairs of electrons. Its electrons rearrange in order to achieve this stability, reforming the double bond with carbon to make a carboxylic acid and expelling the other half of the ester as an alkoxide, in a second step called “elimination” (the conjugate base of an alcohol).

We know that alcohols in general are very weak acids. Their conjugate bases, alkoxides, are therefore quite strong. As a result, proton exchange takes place, and the acidic proton of the carboxylic acid is readily donated to the alkoxide. This results on the formation of an alcohol, plus the sodium or potassium salt of the carboxylic acid.

Products of Saponification

This same reaction is occurring at all three ester bonds in a triglyceride during saponification. The three resulting fatty acid salts are also known as soap salts. Their properties are highly dependent on the number of carbons in the fatty acid chain and the degree of saturation.

Longer carbon chains (stearic acid, C18, for instance) tend to yield soaps that are harder and less soluble.

On the other hand, unsaturated fatty acids will yield a softer soap with a lower melting point. Some fatty acid salts are more cleansing than conditioning, and vice versa. Similarly, some will work up a nice, rich lather, while others will not. It’s important to consider these effects when deciding which fats and oils to use in a soap recipe.

How does soap work?

Take a look at the molecular structure of this soap salt:

Is this molecule polar, or is it non-polar? The answer is, both! At the top right, the carboxylate, acting as the anion in this sodium salt, is a very polar functional group. However, the rest of that long hydrocarbon chain is non-polar.

This type of compounds are called amphipathic.

Everyone knows that oil and water don’t mix, but not everyone knows that the reason for this is the polarity (or lack thereof) of each substance. As a chemistry student, you have probably already learned that like dissolves like, and that polar molecules are hydrophilic (water-loving) while nonpolar molecules are hydrophobic (water-fearing).

You can probably see where this is going… Soap works by allowing hydrophobic substances, like grease and oil, to dissolve in water. Its two ends, one polar and the other nonpolar, allow it to mix with both water and oil. It does this by forming tiny spherical structures called micelles.

In this cross-section of a micelle, you can see the hydrophobic (nonpolar) hydrocarbon chains inside the sphere, while the hydrophilic (polar) ends form the surface. When you wash a greasy pan with soapy water, the grease is attracted to the hydrophobic ends, trapping it inside these micelles. Since the surface of the micelle is polar, it is soluble in water and can now be easily rinsed away.

Soap is also a natural surfactant, which means it reduces the surface tension of water, effectively making water “wetter”. The “wetter” the water is, the better its solvent properties are, and the better it cleans.

Chemistry at Home: How to Make Your Own Soap

Now, let’s put all this chemistry knowledge into action and make some homemade soap!

This DIY (do it yourself) soap recipe is a very basic one that is perfect for beginners. You will need some basic equipment and a few easily accessible ingredients:

Soapmaking Equipment

• Safety goggles and gloves
• Kitchen scale
• Pitcher*
• Jar*
• Large pot or bowl*
• Thermometer
• Mixing spoons*
• Immersion blender (stick blender)
• Rubber spatula
• Soap molds

* Make sure you use nonreactive materials, like plastic or glass.

You can find our personal recommendations on home chemistry labware here. It would be ideal to be able to use appropriate beakers or flasks for this experiments. But if you don’t have access to those yet, you can get away with the household items listed above.

Lye is caustic (very basic) and can react with many things, as metals (or you skin!). This reaction is exothermic, and the rapid temperature change may cause low-quality glass containers to crack.

Basic Soap Ingredients:

• 500 g of olive oil
• 100 g of coconut oil
• 80 g of lye (NaOH, caustic soda)
• 200 mL of water

Keep in mind that, while you can use practically any type of oil or fat to make soap, they will have vastly different properties and may require different amounts of lye. If you use different oils, make sure you use a lye calculator to ensure you aren’t using too much. Having excess oil in your soap is not a big deal, but having excess lye is!

Instructions:

1. Prepare the lye/NaOH solution. Weigh the water in the pitcher. Separately, weigh the NaOH into the jar. Then, slowly add the NaOH to the water. DO NOT ADD THE WATER TO THE LYE! Remember how they made you memorize “add acid to water, not water to acid” in your chemistry lab’s safety module? The same goes for bases. A strong base like NaOH is highly reactive by definition. That means a LOT of energy is released when it makes contact with water. If you do this step backwards, the mixture will quickly heat up. This might end-up in a caustic soda geyser, which can easily cause a chemical burn. When you add NaOH to water, there will still be heat release, but it will be much less dangerous. Carefully stir to dissolve (rinse the spoon immediately after mixing). This solution can get to almost boiling temperature all by itself, so you may need to allow it to cool down slightly until you can easily handle the pitcher.
2. Weigh out and mix your oils in the pot or bowl. This will be easier if you warm the coconut oil up a bit first until it melts.
3. Carefully add the NaOH solution to the oil mixture and gently mix with a spoon until it gives an homogeneous mixture.
4. Now you can pull out your stick blender and start the emulsifying process. Remember, you are blending a highly caustic mixture right now, so keep your distance and try not to splatter.
5. After a few minutes of blending, the mixture should start to thicken, indicating that the saponification reaction is underway. Optionally, this is when you can add other ingredients to customize your soap, like essential oils, colorants, mix-ins, etc. Otherwise, you can proceed with transferring the soap to whatever you are using as molds. Silicone baking molds work great for this. Use a rubber spatula to get every last bit out and facilitate cleanup.
6. Let your soap harden for at least 24 hours before trying to remove it from the mold. Once it is hard enough to handle, you can cut it into different shapes/sizes if desired.
7. Finally, the soap needs to cure for about one month to be sure the saponification reaction is complete and to dry out the excess water. Once it’s fully cured, you can enjoy using your homemade soap!

And that is pretty much it! As you can see, it is an easy procedure.

Now that you know how to make your own soap, and you understand the chemistry behind it, time to put the experimental procedure into practice!

Let us know in the comments if you have any question or suggestion. Also, feel free to share the results of your first batch of soap!

The post How to Make Your Own Soap at Home (with Chemistry!) appeared first on Chemistry Hall.

Chemistry is an experimental science, and the best way to enjoy it and learn about it is performing experiments. No matter if you are a hobby chemist or a parent that wants to enjoy learning about chemistry with your kids.

There are countless chemistry experiments for kids that can be educational and safe. On this matter, make sure to check out some already assembled chemistry kits for kids (and adults!)

Doing experiments goes a long way for inspiring kids to get interested in science!

Maybe you are just a science enthusiast. In any case, this guide is certainly for you, we have the best recommendations for setting up a home chemistry lab.

We have a huge selection of materials listed and described in this review, but if you want to skip right through it and just check out my best recommendation, you can just check out this set of glassware:

Keep reading if you want something more specific. This is basically what we will cover in this post:

Introduction: Can You Really Do Chemisty Experiments at Home?

I have been working on a professional level lab for several years. But my passion for chemistry started by just doing chemistry experiments at home. Mixing salt and water in plastic beakers that I found sitting around my house. My love for chemistry evolved over time, and I got my hands on a good collection of glassware and chemicals, mostly ordered online. This is probably the simplest way to set up a home chemistry lab easily and cheaply.

When I was just getting started, (before taking university level chemistry courses), I was overwhelmed by the possibilities. Now, ten years later, I decided to put together this guide. This will be as close as possible to what I would have loved to read when my interest in chemistry started to grow.

Disclaimer: This is not intended nor will disclose any information regarding the preparation or manipulation of illegal/dangerous substances. Relevant safety considerations will be pointed out throughout the guide.

Safety First: Basic Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

No dangerous experiments will be described on this guide, but the use of basic PPE should come as natural as breathing when working in chemistry. Even I, a professional chemist, wear my safety glasses all the time even when performing the most trivial tasks in the laboratory (even just sitting around talking with a colleague).

You do not really need anything fancy, some goggles such as these will work perfectly to keep your eyes safe:

Besides from safety glasses, it is always good to have at hand some protective gloves. Any kind of nitrile or latex cleaning gloves in the supermarket will fit the purpose of handling most chemical substances that you will use doing chemistry experiments at home. I am not going to lie, a lab coat might seem like overkill in many cases, especially if you are just performing chemistry experiments for kids, but it is always handy to prevent things to spill and ruin your clothes. It does not have to be anything expensive to fit this purpose.

Keep Record of your Chemistry Experiments in a Lab Notebook

This is the cornerstone of scientific research and experimentation, making notes about observations. Plan clearly beforehand what you are going to do, write down the “recipe” of what you “mixed together”, record what happened, when and how. Then try to rationalize why it happened afterwards, and write it down. As simple an observation or a way to add an “ingredient” as it may seem, I can assure you will not remember it properly in a few days. It happens to the best of us. For this purpose, any lab notebook will work, as long as it is resistant. You can browse some examples in the pictures below, or just visit our post about choosing the best lab notebook.

Defining the Space for your Home Chemistry Lab Set Up

Even if the materials you use for your chemistry experiments are not very harmful, it is a good practice to clearly define a working area in your house. If you live in a small flat, any table as far from where you keep your edibles would do. I used to use my bathroom when I was a kid (it was my only option), but if you have a ventilated garage, a shed, or even better, an outdoors zone, that would be a great place. You usually want a source of tap water and electricity close-by. Try to keep it to that working zone, or “lab bench”, it will not only be safer, but it will make it easier to handle everything.

Essential Equipment for a Home Chemistry Lab

So you are almost ready and cannot wait to set up your first chemistry experiment at home. What do you need? Of course, you need lab equipment. Specifically, glassware and plasticware are the usual options. Borosilicate glass is better because it allows heating, and in most cases it will be easier to clean and last longer in good shape. As long as you don’t break it!

If you really want to take this seriously and you want to make your life easy, here is your perfect solution. Get your hands in a bit of everything you need. A starting chemistry glassware set will set you on track. Out of the ones that I found online this seems to be the best for the purposes of setting up a lab for doing chemistry experiments at home, just click below to see more details and grab your own chemistry set:

This set gathers essential items. Beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, volumetric cylinders, glass bottles, test tubes (and its racks), stoppers, a metal clamp to heat things up, a glass rod for stirring mixtures, glass pipettes and some other things. This is basically everything that someone wanting to set up a home chemistry lab needs to begin with, so it is my first recommendation and a safe bet.

But maybe you want to buy some specific things. So here are my basic recommendations for doing chemistry experiments at home.

The Most Basic Chemistry Glassware

Before starting: Keep in mind that you can always take a look at our guide of chemistry flasks if you notice something missing, or if you want to identify a piece of glassware that is sitting around in your garage.

The first must have: beakers. Glass beakers are the bread and butter for doing chemistry experiments at home, extremely multipurpose. Check out the set below if you are interested:

Coming up second, the Erlenmeyer flask. Just like beakers, but can be better for specific situations, for example, for shaking mixtures without spilling. Get your hands on some Erlenmeyer flasks, it is an absolutely essential item in any home chemistry lab.

The Best Accessories for a Home Chemistry Lab

It is always extremely handy to have a metal support stand, and especially with some clamps attached to it. These are multipurpose and once you get used to them you will not be able to live without one. Basically it allows holding flasks while you work with them. This is an example of a support with clamps and retort rings:

While not so common to test reactivity in professional set ups, one of the best things to have a round in a home chemistry lab is a plastic rack with some glass test tubes, with its corresponding rubber cap. This is the absolutely best way of, as its own name says, test things! Just toss reagents in the tube, add a solvent and shake it. The rubber stoppers will prevent contamination, and allow shaking without spilling a drop (always be aware of possible overpressure building when working with closed systems, though!).

And this pretty much summarizes the basic requirements. Of course the possibilities on equipment are endless, and as you progress on your home chemistry experiments, you may want to purchase more advanced or specific equipment. See the appropriate section below to explore the next level.

Gathering Basic Chemicals for your Home Lab

I will start with an honor mention: my favorite “home-level” chemical for doing fun experiments, copper sulfate (CuSO₄). This beautiful blue solid is not harmful, and is usually employed as algae control agent in swimming pools. But the nice thing about it is the beautiful crystals that you can make with it:

They look beautiful, don’t they? Well, keep reading, I will share with you a procedure to make them in the “your first chemistry experiment at home” section. Get your hands on some of copper sulfate:

Now that I got my baby blue out of my chest, let’s talk about typical chemicals that you can obtain in supermarkets, grocery stores or hardware stores.

The Most Basic Chemicals in a Home Lab

• Distilled water. Regular tap water will work for most chemistry experiments performed at home, but you can easily get your hands in a bottle of distilled water in hardware stores.
• Organic solvents. Such as acetone (great for cleaning up glassware, we spend gallons of it every day in our lab), or toluene mixtures (paint thinners) can be also accessed through hardware stores. Also alcohol (ethanol or isopropanol) of decent purity can be acquired in any pharmacy or most supermarkets.
• Common acids such as hydrochloric acid, can be bought in supermarkets, and are extremely common reagents. If concentrated, they should be handled with special care, always wearing safety glasses and gloves. If you get a spill with an acid (or a base, for that matter), rinse with plenty of water and if it hurts or stings, don’t hesitate to go see a health professional.

Another very common chemical is sodium hydroxide. You can buy water solutions, but in my opinion is easier to just buy it as a pure solid (NaOH) and dissolve the amount you need. This reagent has plenty of home applications, besides doing experiments for fun or educational purposes: Sodium hydroxide, or lye, can be used to unclog drains, or even better, to make you own soap.

Useful Household Chemicals

Your usual best bet is looking for household chemicals. To list some more:

• NaCl (sodium chloride), also known as table salt. It also works for growing crystals, but not as pretty as the ones made with copper sulphate.
• Borax, or sodium borate, can be found in many department stores.
• Vinegar: It is actually an aqueous solution of acetic acid. White is probably purer.
• NaHCO₃ (sodium bicarbonate), or baking soda, is a very mild base. It reacts with acetic acid on vinegar, and a typical chemistry experiment for kids is making a volcano with baking soda and vinegar.

The list could go on forever. We will list the specific reagents that you will need, and how to find them, in each post about doing chemistry experiments at home.

How to Properly Store your Chemicals

You need appropriate containers to store your reagents. This prevents any contamination, which can go either way (contaminate your precious chemicals or contaminate yourself with them). In terms of storage of solid chemicals, or small amounts of liquids I recommend you to get some screw-cap glass vials:

To store large quantities of liquids, glass storage bottles are a must:

Make sure to get a good permanent marker, or a set of labels, so you can always label every container and make sure what is inside, or how much.

More Advanced Equipment and Set-Ups

Two of the most basic operations in a chemistry laboratory are flitration and ditillation.

Filtration is separating a solid from the liquid that it is suspended on. You can get away with a regular coffee filter and filtering paper, but if you really want to go pro-mode, this filtration kit, with your own vacuum pump, provides everything you need for a very reasonable price:

The most famous operation or experiment in a chemistry lab is a distillation. A distillation is basically the process of separating mixtures of liquids with different boiling points, or level of volatility. This is a extremely educational experiment for kids, and has found many applications in home chemistry labs, such as distillation of essential oils. There is so much that you can do with a distillation kit that I will revisit this experiment in a future post. In the meantime, you can get your hands in a proper distillation, which is not particularly expensive. Of course, to hold it up, you will probably want to have also a support and clamps (see the basic section above).

Gearing Up to the Next Level

A stirring plate with magnetic stirring bars is literally something that you use every day in a professional chemistry laboratory. Although you can get away with a glass stirring rod, the joy of automatic stirring is difficult to overcome, especially if you want to run a chemical reaction at home that takes a significant amount of time to complete (some chemical reactions are virtually instantaneous, but others can take several hours, or even days!). Apparently, small stirring plates are not particularly expensive.

Furthermore, you probably also want to have some extra magnetic stirring bars around, like that you can stir different containers using the same plate.

This is how stirring plates work:

Accurate Weighing your Chemicals

Finally, a balance that allows you to weight your reactants for your chemistry experiments comes in very handy. You don’t need to go for a super precise professional analytical balance. Any food balance will do, just don’t mix it up with your actual balance for food in the kitchen… You can grab some cheap kitchen balances here:

I will close this section now, though I could really go on forever. I will revisit home chemistry equipment in the future, probably in each post about specific home chemistry experiments in which I will mention what material you are going to require.

Your First Chemistry Experiment at Home

You are almost ready to start having fun. I promised before a nice experiment to start with. One beautiful thing that you can do in chemistry is growing crystals. Some compounds, especially inorganic salts, tend to be able to crystallize easily, and you don’t need a huge set of glassware. Just one or two beakers, a piece of cardboard, some strand to hold the seed crystals, and of course, the material you are going to crystallize. I recommend you to go for the good old copper sulfate (CuSO₄).

Copper sulfate is a nice blue solid that crystallizes very easily from saturated solutions in water. In the corresponding section I gave you the link to buy copper sulfate and some beakers. You would be all set with that!

There are plenty of visual guides online about the procedure that you must follow, so check out the following video:

Where do I Go Now? Further Reading and Final Remarks

If you purchased some of the material discussed on this post, you will be ready to carry out many chemistry experiments at your own home! Stay tuned for more content on specific experiments, but you can go ahead a check some experiments in chemistry textbooks. I strongly recommend Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture, by R. B. Thompson. It’s been on my shelf since it was published 10 years ago, and I absorved it from cover to cover. Take a look at it below!

Another cool technique that you might want to introduce at your home lab is thin layer chromatography, so feel free to check this other guide.

Feel free to ask for any further orientation that you need, or information about any experiment in the comments. Best of look and good chemistry!

The post Chemistry Experiments at Home: Setting Up a Home Lab appeared first on Chemistry Hall.

Writing down and reporting what you do is the most important thing in science besides making observations. Especially if you are a student, you probably want to get better at organising a laboratory notebook. This is natural step while learning chemistry. On this article we will share keys, tips and tricks to handle this important task from the beginning.

Before we start with all our recommendations, if you want to jump real quick to our top recommendation for a lab notebook that will work for you in every case, check out the following one to fit all purposes:

But, what should a laboratory notebook contain? What information should you keep? Why should you keep record of things? What are the best options out there for lab notebooks? We will answer all these questions one by one.

Why is a lab notebook important in chemistry?

Chemistry is the experimental science by definition. We want to make observations to prove hypothesis. For this purpose, we perform experiments in the lab. But human memory is very limited. Not even the greatest scientific geniuses in history remember everything. For this reason, you need to keep track on what exactly you have performed, and write down the outcome of those experimental conditions. As we have remarked in other occasions, writing all your observations down is a master trick in any chemistry lab. Especially if you are taking a chemistry course at school, keeping a good student lab notebook is going to be the key to be successful!

Lab Notebook Format: What to Include in your Reports

Any laboratory session, from the first one that you take at school to the ones that I do in a daily basis as a chemistry researcher, starts with writing down your “hypothesis”, or your “problem” that you want to solve, or understand.

If you are about to run a synthetic chemistry reaction, the first thing you should write down is all the data a about that reaction:

• Write clearly the overall chemical equation: What are the reactants? (Left side) Which is the reaction product, or possible byproducts? (Right side) What are the reaction conditions? (Other reagents, solvent, temperature, time… Over the reaction arrow).

• Table of reagents: Typically you need to make a table with a list of all the reagents you use, its molecular weight, number of moles, number of equivalents, and other relevant data about the experiment.

This is how a reagent table typically looks like:

If you are taking organic chemistry courses, and you have trouble visualizing 3D structures, makes sure to get your hands into a chemistry model kit.

Recording your Procedures, Results and Observations

After all the appropriate preparation, you can jump into the actual chemistry experiment! But as you run it, you need to make as many observation as possible. The more the better, keep in mind that you will not remember everything afterwards. This is something that is hard to swallow at the beginning, but everybody ends up learning.

Do not limit yourself to writing the experimental procedure that you follow (which is obviously a basic requirement, including the different pieces of equipment and identifying all glassware that you use). Color changes in your chemical reactions, a mixture heating up (exothermic reaction), a solid precipitating from a reaction… Everything can be useful for coming up with a conclusion of the experiment!

To end up, the last step is putting everything you learnt together in your mind, and then writing it into the chemistry lab notebook. Learning how to extract conclusions and put them into words is one of the most important skills of a chemist. Why my reaction yield was low? In which experimental step could I have lost some product? Is there a byproduct forming? What caused that beautiful color change after adding the last reagent? These are great questions to ask yourself.

If you are doing organic chemistry, don’t forget to include data from your thin layer chromatography (TLC) on your lab report.

Buying the Appropriate Chemistry Lab Notebook

As for anything else, the bedrock of a good project is in the foundations. You need to buy a decent laboratory notebook for your sessions. Otherwise it will probably look messy, get damaged, or not look very good or professional. But worry not! We have some selected recommendations. I tested many lab notebooks over my years working in research. One of them which will fit your needs.

1. A Solid Professional Lab Notebooks to Fit Most Purposes

This kind of BookFactory lab notebooks are the ones that I actually use professionally. The cover and the pages are extremely resistant, you would have to try really hard to destroy it. You can buy them in several colors and with different pages (depending on how long your lab sessions are going to be), which is nice. As it should, this is a notebook with numbered pages, ruled pages, index, owner data page, and even some nice guidelines page. You cannot go wrong with this one:

2. Carbon Copy Notebooks: The Best Option for Student Labs

If you are taking a school or university chemistry course, there is nothing that can compare to carbon copy notebooks. Many universities are adapting to this format entirely, because it makes it easy for grading purposes: The student writes down their reports in the notebook, and everything gets carbon-copied to the page right after it. Then the copy can be handed in to the lab teacher for him to grade it. But it goes further than that: it can be very useful in profesional environments as well, since keeping records of everything is extremely important. Or maybe you are collaborating with a colleague and want to quickly share a piece of your notebook with them: this notebook is your solution. This is one of the best options that you can find.

I have tested these myself, and the copy works wonderfully. This notebook comes with 100 pages, and allows a perfect permanent documentation of any observations. The best thing is that, since you keep your own writing and hand in the copy to another person, if they need to grade it, you don’t need to wait until they give it back to check it any time. Besides, since you can hand in individual copies, you can use the very same chemistry lab notebook for all your courses or lab sessions! Back in the day when I was at school, I had one regular notebook for each course, and probably >80% of the space and paper ended up wasted. Not anymore!

3. Carbonless-Copy Student Lab Notebook

A clear alternative to carbon copy is another way of making non-electronic copies. Works similarly but basically does not use carbon, as you can probably tell. There are several options, but the most recommended one, and also quite affordable is this one:

4. More Affordable and Simple Lab Notebooks

If you want something simpler, more affordable and smaller, we got you covered. This recommendation will work especially well if you are just keeping track of your own chemistry experiments at home as a hobby chemist. It has plenty of pages, easier to handle and store due to its reduced size, very cheap and fairly resistant. The only downside is losing all the space that a regular A4 sized notebook offers, and in many cases is required.

5. The Definitive High End: BARBAKAM Carbonless Copy Lab Notebook

This is our personal best recommendation. We already have listed some of the advantages of having a carbon copy notebook. This performs great in the task of allowing you to hand in a copy of the pages to your professor, your boss, or your collaborators, and then you can keep all the originals for reference.

This notebook has 100 carbonless pages, but this is not its only feature. It comes with room for an index and personal data, but also plenty of reference pages! The periodic table of elements, common NMR shifts, formulas for calculating molarity and concentrations of typical solutions, metric units and conversion factors, properties of common acids and bases, or properties of solvents. This is something that you would use on a daily basis either as a student (I did) or as a professional chemist (I do). It is an awesome complement for a chemistry lab notebook. If I ever have to choose a notebook for a university or company department, it would probably be this one.

Enjoy your New Lab Notebook, and Fill it with Wonderful Chemistry!

Now that you have already selected and bought your new notebook, the only thing left is to fill it with all your observations and conclusions.

Do you need to write a report in a word processor afterwards? Check out our post on how to draw chemical structures in Word and much more!

You are now ready to ace your lab sessions if you are a student, to keep perfect record of your research if you are a professional, or just enjoy chemistry if you are a hobby scientist doing chemistry experiments at home!

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