r/AskChemistry

In my school, we have a knowledge fair every year, and this year I'm in the class of scientific initiation. We have to present a project, and it doesn't have to be a subject like biology; it just has to be something scientific. I don't know what to do, cuz all the ideas that I had weren't so good. They were: Bioremediation/phytoremediation in the local river (this didn't work out because it was more of a study than a project ready for presentation; plus, dealing with heavy metals isn't very safe). A repellent perfume (most of the group was making products like lip balm or moisturiser, and we wanted to avoid the cliché, but the perfume would have required constant reapplication since it was made from essential oils with poor staying power). Emergency water biofilter (there isn't much new here, aside from the fact that we can't be certain the water is potable). And the best Idea was a mycelium foam and a biodigester, but the second was made last year. Any tips, ideas?

And DOES it leave residue? I've been searching day and night trying to figure out how chloramine gas would be dealt with after dissipating but I can only find information on CHLORINE gas, not CHLORAMINE gas. Would water reactivate it? How would it get cleaned up without starting another reaction? I saw that chlorine gas residue could be cleaned with baking soda and water, but I don't know if that's accurate.

Well, for some reason i became massively intrigued in the process thanks to an anime called Dr Stone. I've been searching for about two hours now but my guess is that either I don't know exactly how to express what I'm searching for or people overcomplicate it a lot.

The process, from what i saw in this anime is like so:

Making Ozone (Zapping an Iron stick while it is hanging inside a glass tube, the tube being wrapped in a copper wire? I know normal oxygen is O2 so maybe the zapping is in order to put the extra oxygen Ozone needs, to become O3)

Boiling Laurel leaves inside Sodium hydroxide?

Mix both of them?

I'd love to learn more about this, i don't want it to be like "Why not just buy the thing instead of going through all this trouble?" from the people around me so i asked it here. It sounds fun, plus it apparently is a chemical used massively world wide.

The only difference between the two bases is a methyl group instead of a hydrogen, and those two aren't the part of the base that bond to the pentose, and also don't participate in hydrogen-bonding with adenine, so why do we have a different base for each of the nucleic acids?

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I would imagine licking one every once in awhile would do little to no harm as far as toxicity is concerned if it's just a typical envelope, but it and that once episode of Seinfeld got me wondering, just how toxic is it, especially if a person has to lick a ton of them.

Also, it occurred to me how gross it is that people lick envelopes and open licked envelopes, especially considering people used to use a wax stamp, and especially considering some pathogens are transmitted via saliva. I don't know if the adhesive is antimicrobial (I would think that'd possibly be too expensive and that antimicrobial resistance would be a concern), but the whole thing has me wondering how unsanitary it is to lick envelopes or open licked envelopes.

As far as i know atoms/ions with one unpaired electron are a free radicals or radical anions/radical cations.

What if there are more unpaired electrons, like in Cl+ is it still free radical?

I get the concept of two variants of a molecule that are mirror images of each other. I don't get what allows us to look at a specific enantiomer and say "this is left handed" or "this is right handed" such that we can say all amino acids are left-handed and all metabolizable sugars are right handed.

I read that we trace the path from the "lowest" to the "highest" priority groups and then see whether this motion is clockwise or counterclockwise...but the same rotation will be either clockwise or counterclockwise depending on which side you view it from.

What am I missing?

I was wondering. Using xanthan gum with just plain water would allow the gum to completely hydrate and after you could make an emulsion with it. How about adding the xanthan gum after making the emulsion. Since there is less readily available water, would the hydration of the xanthan gum be incomplete? Wouldn't that make it also less viscous ? Now, if we were to use a different branch of xanthan gum that has stronger polymeric interaction. Would that difference in effect be even greater? Would using NaOH (and later neutralize it) be able to reduce the hydration/polymeric interaction to have it normalized between the 4 different scenarios (before/after emulsion, xanthan gum/alternative)? If you have any ressources that could guide me, I'm all ears.

I live surrounded by limestone left over from an ancient sea so the water is literally hard as a rock. I keep seeing advice to combine baking soda and vinegar for bathroom cleaning.

The vinegar I can understand. If calcium deposits are forming then an acid should be able to react with and remove them. The baking soda confuses me though. It will react with the acetic acid and weaken it. Would this not reduce the effectiveness? I understand the powder might make a good mild abrasive. It's not noticeably exothermic so heating probably isn't a thing. I can't imagine tiny bubbles are of any help at all if this stuff requires a chisel to remove.

Is combing them a wives tail or real?

Thanks Chemistry stars!

im 15 im interested cause it look cool plus i need it school and well i need books please

I work in coordination chemistry, catalysis