After wearing for 4 years, my pendant wrap is on its last legs!!

One of the loops eroded so much that it broke, and the other one is also quite thin. I'll have to arrange for it to be rewrapped before it becomes unwearable. This pendant is SO DAMN HEAVY, just the weight of it hanging from the chain erodes away the metal till it snaps.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 9 days ago

LOTS of osmium dioxide means lots more Os chem is to come!

Current goals are several osmiamate salts, bromoosmic acid and its potassium and silver salts

This osmium dioxide, THANKFULLY, was the result of a botched attempt to make potassium osmiamate. When ammonia was added to a hydroxide-deficient solution of potassium perosmate, instead of K[OsO₃N], reduction to potassium osmate occurred, followed by ammonolysis (with the help of a frantic addition of EtOH) and a brown insoluble compound was formed. Fortunately, upon evaporation this compound decomposes to osmium dioxide!!

The potassium perosmate was made by dissolving osmium metal in molten KOH/KNO₃ at around 1000°F for 4 minutes. The dissolution rate was magnitutes faster than anything else I've seen osmium react with.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 10 days ago
▲ 21 r/Wallstreetosmium+1 crossposts

I tried to fake osmium, and it turned out terrible.

I used a simple ball bearing and coated it with Volvo's "osmium gray metallic" paint option.

My curiosity here was appearances only.

The color is off, the reflectivity is fuzzy, it's ferromagnetic, the density is way off, the paint easily chips off and can be removed with solvents.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 13 days ago
▲ 113 r/MetalsOnReddit+1 crossposts

*Current* osmium collection

Inventory frequently changes. The ozzy tet for example is going to be reduced with SO2 in a matter of days. Long-term storage of that stuff is no-bueno in my book, and I've already had it for a month.

I don't have any better pictures of the osmyl oxalate sample because it's mixed with black osmium dioxide right now, so basically hidden.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 15 days ago
▲ 24 r/Wallstreetosmium+1 crossposts

Potassium osmate and potassium osmyl oxalate.

First two pics are of potassium osmate K₂[OsO₂(OH)₄], the latter two are potassium osmyl oxalate K₂[OsO₂(C₂O₄)₂]. Both are hexavalent osmium salts with actual applications.

Potassium osmate finds use in the Sharpless Asymmetric Dihydroxylation, whereby the long and tedious industrial process of converting alkenes such as ethylene into ethylene oxide, and ethylene oxide into ethylene glycol can be accomplished simply, conveniently, efficiently, and safely in a single reaction. Vicinal diols (like ethylene glycol) are very important reagents used in food, medicine, and for creating fabrics, plastics, antifreeze, etc., and an entire century was spent improving and refining the multiple complicated industrial processes necessary just to produce one of them. The asymmetric dihydroxylation method came with a Nobel Prize, and today AD-mixtures are available pre-made for use in labs. (it goes without saying, this reaction can't be scaled up to industrial size due to the rarity of osmium and probably because it might not scale safely either. The OMEGA process developed by Shell is still being used).

Potassium osmyl oxalate containing synthetic Os-191 began use for radionuclide angiocardiography in children's hospitals in the 1980's. In 2012 a paper was published investigating a possible improved production of this method using potassium hexachloroosmate (which I've made previously).

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 2 months ago
▲ 16 r/Wallstreetosmium+1 crossposts

Colorful osmium!! Silver, ammonium, and cesium hexachloroosmates.

Silver hexachloroosmate is the latest compound I've synthesized. It's extremely rare and obscure, potentially tricky to make, and extraordinarily useless. The neat part is the molecule contains 2 precious metals.

The ammonium salt is pure and was prepared differently from last time, via precipitation and drying. The residue was used to make the silver salt.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 3 months ago
▲ 75 r/MetalsOnReddit+1 crossposts

Osmium, cesium, and their shared compounds

Cesium hexachloroosmate and some weird aquated version of the former (at least I think it is), which I guess would be cesium aquopentachloroosmate.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 3 months ago

10yo oxidized sample of red phosphorus.

Originally bought from JDchemist in good condition.

Now that 10 years have passed, some phosphoric acid has accumulated, and a really acrid odor is slowly leaking out of the vial.

I've got no plan for resolving this cause it's only 1 gram and I'm not well versed in the chemistry of phosphorus.

If you're gonna buy RP buy it in an ampule so it will last long-term.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 3 months ago

Ammonium hexachloroosmate (NH₄)₂OsCl₆ the compound used to produce osmium metal sponge

Made from scratch and nearly pure, it just needs to be washed with ethanol to remove all the excess ammonium chloride before I can turn it into silver hexachloroosmate.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 3 months ago

Unlike the slightly soluble potassium and ammonium salts, which both require evaporation to isolate, the cesium salt is almost totally insoluble in water. It also centrifuges very easily.

The chloroosmic acid (H₂OsCl₆) was prepared by dissolving osmium dioxide in hot concentrated hydrochloric acid, and the cesium chloride was purchased from Metallium.

u/Infrequentredditor6 — 4 months ago