Chemistry at Home - How to make your own shit

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What will you be creating?

  • Drugs

  • Explosives

  • Medicine

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Ok so, equipment question.

I wanna make some nitric acid using the Bissulfate + Nitrate method (Like this) however I have run into a big problem that I own neither a stirring plate nor a distillation setup. The stirring I could do without by just manually shaking the bottle since I am not gonna be making big quantities anyway but the distilation isn't solvable. The only glassware I have been able to find has rubber plugs and I am not confident on it being able to handle the vapors.

Would doing this reaction on a retort, alchemy style, work?
The glass with rubber plugs is like that because it dosen't have ground glass joints but it will do much better than any improvisation.You can buy teflon plumbing tape to wrap the rubber bits in, this should protect it enough for you to do at least a few runs (hopefully?).


Thats a really confusing post.

I know about the epsom salt thing and I am planning on doing it but I also wanna do the nitric acid from that method because I already have the reagents. Your point about stirring is ok but the rest of it I can't really tell. You telling me to heat and mold some plastic and said plastic is gonna be able to deal with Nitric Acid vapor?

The distillation apparatus I found is this one, and those rubber plugs and joints look sus to me for dealing with such corrosive acids.

View attachment 6261450
You can safely ignore everything to the right of where the condenser ends, you can just collect in an open flask that is sitting on ice
 
Would it be safe to run an electroplating current through a solution containing HCl and NaCl? I don't want to accidentally make chlorine gas...

As far as concentrating acids go, would a molecular sieve be useful? They can be used to concentrate alcohol.
I don't know what youre trying to do but you will smell chlorine gas way before there's a dangerous amount in the air. it's not like youre instantly going to die.
Sieves are used to remove trace amounts of water from stuff so not really. plus they're expensive and take a long time to act
 
Are you sure about that? It's used to dry ethanol in the following video; granted I suppose it's only 5% water:
No it isn't. 190 proof is what you get by normal vapor distillation. If you want that, you just buy a bottle of Everclear. If you want 100% you have to go to some effort.
 
No it isn't. 190 proof is what you get by normal vapor distillation. If you want that, you just buy a bottle of Everclear. If you want 100% you have to go to some effort.
Is that not what is happening in the video? The concentration went from about 95% to about 100%. Did I just phrase it poorly?
 
The glass with rubber plugs is like that because it dosen't have ground glass joints but it will do much better than any improvisation.You can buy teflon plumbing tape to wrap the rubber bits in, this should protect it enough for you to do at least a few runs (hopefully?).

Sounds good. I can try.

I had this stupid idea however on a way to possibly make the connections more secure against corrosion. What if I used gold?

I mean, not making joints and tubes out of gold. As in buying some gold leaf and gluing it to the rubber so it has a gold skin to protect it. Gold leaf is pretty cheap and even if I need to apply a few layers it's less than 10 USD for over a square meter of it (which would be enough to do over a dozen runs even assuming it had to be replaced every time)

Is that not what is happening in the video? The concentration went from about 95% to about 100%. Did I just phrase it poorly?

It is what is happening in the video, but I am not sure those sieves would work for acids. If you tried to use them to concentrate sulfuric or nitric I am willing to be they would probably dissolve.

If you could there wouldn't be so many tutorials about distillation of acids around, people would just use sieves and not risk boiling stuff.
 
It is what is happening in the video, but I am not sure those sieves would work for acids. If you tried to use them to concentrate sulfuric or nitric I am willing to be they would probably dissolve.

If you could there wouldn't be so many tutorials about distillation of acids around, people would just use sieves and not risk boiling stuff.
That is a strong possibility, and looking a little closer, it looks like sulfuric acid dealuminates zeolite, although I've really just taken a glance, but it seems likely it would not work with sulfuric acid. There might be other acids it works with though.

Come to think of it, you might be able to create pretty concentrated sulfuric acid with the right chemical and an ion exchange resin.
 
Sounds good. I can try.

I had this stupid idea however on a way to possibly make the connections more secure against corrosion. What if I used gold?

I mean, not making joints and tubes out of gold. As in buying some gold leaf and gluing it to the rubber so it has a gold skin to protect it. Gold leaf is pretty cheap and even if I need to apply a few layers it's less than 10 USD for over a square meter of it (which would be enough to do over a dozen runs even assuming it had to be replaced every time)



It is what is happening in the video, but I am not sure those sieves would work for acids. If you tried to use them to concentrate sulfuric or nitric I am willing to be they would probably dissolve.

If you could there wouldn't be so many tutorials about distillation of acids around, people would just use sieves and not risk boiling stuff.
No on the foil, the only option is teflon tape for what youre trying to do.Check link below, it deals with some issues you raised.



That is a strong possibility, and looking a little closer, it looks like sulfuric acid dealuminates zeolite, although I've really just taken a glance, but it seems likely it would not work with sulfuric acid. There might be other acids it works with though.

Come to think of it, you might be able to create pretty concentrated sulfuric acid with the right chemical and an ion exchange resin.
Just boil it, man.Use even heat - something like oil bath or sand bath, use a big plastic tub to contain the whole apparatus, wear googles and a coat if you must, it’s really not that hard.Use borosylicate glass and give yourself a lot of headroom - fill up container to 25% at most.

Not that I would recommend it to anyone but i’ve done it directly on a hot plate, nothing bad happened and I got azeotropic sulphuric acid, no big deal.
Are you sure about that? It's used to dry ethanol in the following video; granted I suppose it's only 5% water:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ratR1ngcWss
Also, you can buy two pounds of it on Amazon for about $18.
Yes, I am sure, they work by trapping water molecules within their microstructure so picture a small percentage of a ball’s total volume being taken up by water, you would need many repeat additions, it’s just not viable.That is IF they don’t get ruined by the acid.
5% is in the range of trace amounts I would say, for an organic-aqueous mixture/azeotrope, but the term has no clear definition.
It’s great you found cheap ones, I only ever bought them from Sigma, not sure I would trust amazon ones to be particulate free, free of organics and such but you can try.
 
I know how to make Green Dragon at home, which is good if you need to get your enemies high out of their minds for the next 24-48h and they're willing to drink beverages laced with greenish-black mystery oil.

You need Everclear, an electric coffee grinder, an oven, an ounce of weed, and a double boiler though.
 
Is that not what is happening in the video? The concentration went from about 95% to about 100%. Did I just phrase it poorly?
Oh, apparently yes. I thought you had said it only got to 190, careless reading on my part. So you could probably get this result by starting with Everclear. Possibly that's exactly what he did. He says he got 95% ethanol at the local pharmacy and some pharmacies sell liquor (like Everclear). Or possibly they actually sell it, although I've never seen 95% ethanol on sale that isn't denatured somehow.

(Actually near the end of the video he mentions it started with denaturing agents so he got that and distilled out the denaturing agents.)
 
Anybody know of a way to get concentrated fatty acids or some other non aqueous acid? I want to add it to an ionic compound without dissolving it, so it donates hydrogens. Also, would that even be feasible?
 
IMO home chemistry is cool but very limited in terms of prepper-relevance. It’s high risk low reward. Realistically, in a SHTF scenario you only need a way to obtain black powder and penicillin.

In most jurisdictions you’re liable to end up with a visit from the drug cops if you’re buying glassware as most chemicals suppliers will have KYC. Probably not the crap you wanna be dealing with.
 
Not sure if this is counts as chemistry (as no reaction is taking place, just dissolution,) but I regularly make glue by dissolving styrofoam in acetone. For porous materials (wood, cardboard, etc.) it is incredibly strong. Other solvents are likely able to be used in place of acetone, but I haven't tried any others.
 
Anybody know of a way to get concentrated fatty acids or some other non aqueous acid? I want to add it to an ionic compound without dissolving it, so it donates hydrogens. Also, would that even be feasible?
Get hydrogen gas and chlorine gas, put them under UV light for a while, and you will have hydrogen chloride gas. Not aqueous, but not solid either lol
 
Get hydrogen gas and chlorine gas, put them under UV light for a while, and you will have hydrogen chloride gas. Not aqueous, but not solid either lol
Actually, I've been thinking about dissolving citric acid in isopropanol. It looks like citric acid is soluble but the target is not. I might want some molecular sieves, since I think 100% alcohol tends to absorb water from the atmosphere, not to mention the reaction would produce water as well.
 
I'm going to share my explosives story. I started off young and with all ten fingers. About age 14 I forget what exact explosive I was trying to to synthesis but I got 80% of the way there. One of the last steps was to heat it to around 250f. I used an oil bath and lowered the container into the oil. The temperature difference caused the glassware to shatter shooting out hot oil whatever was in the container and glass while simultaneously starting an oil fire. It got out out by me and there wasn't any injuries.

It was nearly a decade before I tried making explosives again. This time in my own kitchen. I decided to go with HMTD as it seemed to be the easiest and if sand niggers could make it successfully so could I. This time there wasn't any trouble with the actual chemistry portion of it. A sample I let air dry matched all descriptions of the chemical and was highly explosive. I had a yield of 250g wet and decided to use it all in testing to play with. I had found several pages that recommended drying at 180f in your oven. I spread 50g on a baking sheet and put it in the oven. Closed the door and went to the bathroom 20' away as soon as I pulled my dick out the oven went off. Not a timer or an electrical failure. The HMTD detonated and blew the glass door into fragments.

The remaining solution was left to air dry and detonated in the yard. I kept all ten fingers and only play with highly stable explosives now.
 
It was nearly a decade before I tried making explosives again. This time in my own kitchen. I decided to go with HMTD as it seemed to be the easiest and if sand niggers could make it successfully so could I.
Probably because they're taught in person by someone who has successfully done it before.
This time there wasn't any trouble with the actual chemistry portion of it. A sample I let air dry matched all descriptions of the chemical and was highly explosive. I had a yield of 250g wet and decided to use it all in testing to play with. I had found several pages that recommended drying at 180f in your oven.
I'd never believe something like that online. Glowies can't really get rid of the legit instructions out there so they flood the market with bogus cooks that either don't work because they left something out or, in worse cases, will blow your ass up. Not sure whether the latter is glowies or some other malicious actors.
 
Probably because they're taught in person by someone who has successfully done it before.

I'd never believe something like that online. Glowies can't really get rid of the legit instructions out there so they flood the market with bogus cooks that either don't work because they left something out or, in worse cases, will blow your ass up. Not sure whether the latter is glowies or some other malicious actors.
I came to the conclusion it's mostly people who have only halfway made something or got lucky. Researching a lot of explosives that have been made for decades yields a lot of people claiming they made it successfully writing out their steps that don't seem to quite add up. I've also seen things that are obviously only going to end in an explosion while you're working that I'm sure is glowies.
 
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