Chemistry at Home - How to make your own shit

[ChefBourgeoisie]

If you want that, you just buy a bottle of Everclear. If you want 100% you have to go to some effort.

I do not know what use ethanol at this purity would be good for. You can get drunk on percentages down to Pabst Blue Ribbon. Trans-esterification for biodiesel... eh, I read some things claiming 100%, but I also read some other things where they're not exactly careful about getting a bit of water in it. And even if you did need 100%, it's not clear to me that ethanol's the ideal alcohol anyway. Most recipes are asking for methanol, but some also suggest butanol could be decent enough.

If there's some other use I'm too dense to see, do me a favor and let me know. I don't mind abuse as long as there's some information in the middle of all the slurs.

I don't want to accidentally make chlorine gas.

My understanding is that this will react relatively gently and well with calcium carbonate to make calcium chloride. The results are safe, you won't be polluting your home or anyone else. And the calcium chloride has some uses too. You would need to use chlorine safe materials to pipe it away from whatever else you're doing. PVC pipe is safe, so is teflon (for making sure there are no leaks in joints. Viton and PVDF also tend to round things out, you can find check valves on Aliexpress made out of those two, wouldn't have trouble with those either. Occasionally, you'd want to pipe the chlorine gas away to make hydrochloric acid (just add water and hydrogen!). Or you'd shunt it back off to the lye to make bleach with. Lots of uses, but sometimes you just have more than you want and venting it into the air you breath with everyone else seems nasty... scout out where you can find limestone and/or caliche.

IMO home chemistry is cool but very limited in terms of prepper-relevance.

I agree that it's not very prepper relevant, but I thought I was in the self-sufficiency forum. So much about the lives we want to live for comfort or entertainment or just outright necessity require some level of chemistry. And we either need to learn to do it ourselves or pay someone else to do it for us. I might chalk chemistry up as just one of those things I can't hope to do myself, but it irritates me. Now I have to come up with cash to buy it, the tax man wants another cut of that cash I'm earning for it, and I have to acquire even more cash. Suddenly it looks like a business to assholes who judge me for that, who think I'm just trying to rake it in and/or scam them...

I dunno. The more I look into this, it seems like if I have overbuilt my electrical enough that I can devote some significant power to it, then with just that (and air) I can make useful quantities of nitric acid. I might have to spend $10,000 on the machine (and spare parts), but my family will have all I need for sausages (prague salt) and even some artificial fertilizers (tens to low hundreds of gallons per year).

If I have electrical power, and access to significant salt or salt water (hundreds of pounds per year), now I can make bleach, lye, hydrochloric acid, calcium chloride, and bottled hydrogen gas. Other more interesting substances and processes become possible with these (chloroform, natural rubber extraction, biodiesel, soap, you name it).

That's two of the three basic acids. A dozen or more basic household supplies. Hell, I still think there might be a decent way to do (food-safe) tin recovery without poisoning my whole family with lead. There's a hell of alot of reward, if only I were clever enough to be able to figure this stuff out.

 

[AnOminous]

I do not know what use ethanol at this purity would be good for. You can get drunk on percentages down to Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I assume there are some syntheses that require it since they make it (and I believe someone upthread posted a recipe), but anything I'd ever need alcohol for, an alcohol of nearly any sort would be fine and almost any kind is cheaper than ethanol. But it's not like I'm doing any autistic Walter White shit that I'd ever need to be obsessed with purity about.

My main use for alcohol is cleaning.

 

[John Badman]

What chemical can I use to break down pvc glue? I’m changing pool parts and don’t want to buy a saw and new pipe.

 

[Sebben Crudele II]

How can I make fabric softener that won't give me allergies? I don't care about the scent, it's just that my towels feel like sandpaper.

 

[Mitsubishi Toppo BJ]

How can I make fabric softener that won't give me allergies? I don't care about the scent, it's just that my towels feel like sandpaper.

It could be that you are sensitive to the active ingredient itself, which is usually quaternary ammonium salts. Try washing by hand with apple cider vinegar once in a while after machine wash.

What chemical can I use to break down pvc glue? I’m changing pool parts and don’t want to buy a saw and new pipe.

Acetone should work fine or the gel-style paint remover (butyl acetate based)

 

[Sperg_rancher]

Anyone know of any sourcing guides for home chemistry?
I only recently found out that Farm supply stores have loads of neat things (Nitrates, sulfates, acids)

I'm still looking for some other things, so if anyone has a guide they can link, lmk.

 

[AnOminous]

Anyone know of any sourcing guides for home chemistry?
I only recently found out that Farm supply stores have loads of neat things (Nitrates, sulfates, acids)

You may want to be careful with some things or only pay cash. If you buy a lot of ammonium nitrate, for instance, this can raise some red flags, especially depending on what you're buying it with. For instance buy a bunch of ammonium nitrate and sulfuric acid and now you have two major meth precursors (and not just that but multiple possible explosives).

If you show up in a rented windowless panel van and then fill it with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil someone is going to be showing up and asking you what the fuck you think you're doing.

 

[Mitsubishi Toppo BJ]

Anyone know of any sourcing guides for home chemistry?
I only recently found out that Farm supply stores have loads of neat things (Nitrates, sulfates, acids)

I'm still looking for some other things, so if anyone has a guide they can link, lmk.

What are you trying to source? I might be able to help

 

[Sperg_rancher]

What are you trying to source? I might be able to help

I need Amonium Perchlorate for my hobby rockets. Preferably within the United States. ~1kg or so will last me a long time. if you can find < 30 micron, that's a huge bonus.

 

[Mitsubishi Toppo BJ]

I need Amonium Perchlorate for my hobby rockets. Preferably within the United States. ~1kg or so will last me a long time. if you can find < 30 micron, that's a huge bonus.

onyxmet has some perchlorates, should serve you at least partially as well as ammonium (which is missing).Small quantities for a pretty penny in stock right now but it looks like there is some magnesium perchlorate in 100g quantity that might restock, I would ask maybe.

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

Potential LOLCow behavior emerging from the Chemistry Youtuber sphere between Chemiolis and ThatChemist. Chemiolis just uploaded this bizarre video in which he claims ThatChemist fried his brain on LSD a few months ago and has been harassing him ever since,

Not sure if this is the right thread but interesting.

 

[Mitsubishi Toppo BJ]

Potential LOLCow behavior emerging from the Chemistry Youtuber sphere between Chemiolis and ThatChemist. Chemiolis just uploaded this bizarre video in which he claims ThatChemist fried his brain on LSD a few months ago and has been harassing him ever since,

Not sure if this is the right thread but interesting.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qrl25b2dGSE

videoplayback (1).mp4

I smelled his faggotry when he started doing ad reads as soon as he could, that already soured me and when he began spamming his community tab with temu links I drew the line.This unexploited niche of pop chemistry/buzzfeed chemistry fell into his lap and now he will milk the profits for years to come while getting fatter and more fried in the brain with his gook wife.
Anyways it's kinda cool that the first 10 comments are the cooles amateur chem guys on yt, big reunion

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Here's a very good one: WTF efficiently/quickly destroys trace DNA?

A big personal fear of mine is someone puts on latex gloves grabs a soda can I tossed in the recycle bin at work and then kills someone they dislike they know I have some random connection with. Whats to stop them from swabbing the top of the soda can and rubbing it all over a knife/gun/doorknob at the actual scene of the crime?

Sulfuric acid in spray bottle capable of handling the PH value? Brake cleaner? Plain old bleach?

 

[Mitsubishi Toppo BJ]

Here's a very good one: WTF efficiently/quickly destroys trace DNA?

A big personal fear of mine is someone puts on latex gloves grabs a soda can I tossed in the recycle bin at work and then kills someone they dislike they know I have some random connection with. Whats to stop them from swabbing the top of the soda can and rubbing it all over a knife/gun/doorknob at the actual scene of the crime?

Sulfuric acid in spray bottle capable of handling the PH value? Brake cleaner? Plain old bleach?

It would take way more than a swab in a random place to pinpoint you at the scene of the crime as the perp.Chances are the planter would leave more of his dna trying to plant a minuscule amount of yours.The tests done are generally comprehensive and don't test for JUST the presence of a particular person's DNA, but also amount, location, way of application(fibers) frequency etc. It would be immediatley obvious after a few standard tests that the DNA signature left was either deliberately planted or is irrelevant in a way if done the way you described it.

H2SO4 would eat at the metal spring in the spritzer mechanism.Bleach is generally standard in labs doing nucleic acid work, contact with hypochloride sol. for a numbger of minutes followed by an alcohol wipe down should take care of things.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

It would take way more than a swab in a random place to pinpoint you at the scene of the crime as the perp.Chances are the planter would leave more of his dna trying to plant a minuscule amount of yours.The tests done are generally comprehensive and don't test for JUST the presence of a particular person's DNA, but also amount, location, way of application(fibers) frequency etc. It would be immediatley obvious after a few standard tests that the DNA signature left was either deliberately planted or is irrelevant in a way if done the way you described it.

H2SO4 would eat at the metal spring in the spritzer mechanism.Bleach is generally standard in labs doing nucleic acid work, contact with hypochloride sol. for a numbger of minutes followed by an alcohol wipe down should take care of things.

First of all TY for answering and in such a timely manner.

It sounds like you are far more educated in this than myself. The "soda can swab" is a loose example of much more concerning hypothetical situations. If you don't mind I'll DM you something more specific.

In the meantime, you are telling me a murderer immediately pulls a soda can out of a trash can, bags it. Kills someone with say a knife, buys the exact same knife with the same serration pattern and such, tosses the actual murder weapon and then swabs my soda can all over where I'm enjoying slurping the soda then cross contaminates the handle of the same model of knife, conveniently leaves it at the scene of the crime and forensics can actually tell it was intentionally transferred?

Forgive me I'm going to off -topic for a minute here and. Most cops I know are good people, some I know are bad. I have had long conversations with a Detective, very very dumb. Both in dept procedural ethics and if I had to guess the IQ was around 80 85 or so IDK, this is years ago. IIRC the FBI forensics lab got into a huge fucking mess when it was discovered they claimed lead and copper recovered from projectiles in victims matched lead and copper in a box of ammo found in the suspects home. They claimed the lead content/copper content odds were 1 in a million they didn't come from the same brand. Ergo the suspect owned the ammo used in a very serious crime. This was later determined to be junk science used to assure convictions, some were retried. Have you heard of this specific story?

 

[Mitsubishi Toppo BJ]

You can dm me questions, sure, I will read the rest of your post later and answer to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

First of all TY for answering and in such a timely manner.

It sounds like you are far more educated in this than myself. The "soda can swab" is a loose example of much more concerning hypothetical situations. If you don't mind I'll DM you something more specific.

In the meantime, you are telling me a murderer immediately pulls a soda can out of a trash can, bags it. Kills someone with say a knife, buys the exact same knife with the same serration pattern and such, tosses the actual murder weapon and then swabs my soda can all over where I'm enjoying slurping the soda then cross contaminates the handle of the same model of knife, conveniently leaves it at the scene of the crime and forensics can actually tell it was intentionally transferred?

That sounds a little too contrived and a little too much like watching too much TV. As far as "falsely accused of a crime" stories are concerned, all the examples I'm coming up with are usually in the wrong place at the wrong time + overzealous prosecutor + cops/lawyers/detectives missed something obvious, stuff like Anthony Graves case.

I'd be curious if the usual "FBI frames people for horrific crimes" talk really does turn out to be true, but it's usually something wildly implausible with no real motivation at all and would be a major operation to pull off (for example, claiming that John Wayne Gacy did nothing wrong and the bodies in the crawl space were just cadavers on hand).

 

[Troon_Patrol]

That sounds a little too contrived and a little too much like watching too much TV. As far as "falsely accused of a crime" stories are concerned, all the examples I'm coming up with are usually in the wrong place at the wrong time + overzealous prosecutor + cops/lawyers/detectives missed something obvious, stuff like Anthony Graves case.

I'd be curious if the usual "FBI frames people for horrific crimes" talk really does turn out to be true, but it's usually something wildly implausible with no real motivation at all and would be a major operation to pull off (for example, claiming that John Wayne Gacy did nothing wrong and the bodies in the crawl space were just cadavers on hand).

In my experience someone charged with a crime %99 of the time did in fact commit the crime. I don't have a strong legal background I'll just leave at friends in high places and low places simultaneously and extremely briefly worked as paralegal for crim defense, the vast majority were domestic violence crimes and DUI's, sad boring-boring stuff. I can only recall one case that was actually interesting. It gave me the strong feeling that there were genuinely some who worked in law enforcement that just wanted to see someone convicted of something.

Spoiler: The thing that scared me the most was the most dramatic and asinine "Sunk cost fallacy" legal system bureaucracy I witnessed someone go through

The thing that scared me the most was the most dramatic and asinine "Sunk cost fallacy" I witnessed someone go through. The alleged party had been accused of sexual assault and many other unrelated things of a high criminal nature conspiring to commit actual federal offenses and such. The person who filed the police report, making these allegations was a woman he was seeing, she lost her shit, stop taking her meds, spent in a mental facility, you get the idea. She had claimed some of the allegations were current, the things she had been a victim of took place 2-3 years prior IIRC. Normally I just did my job making sure e-mails were sent and the heavy lifting/actual decisions was done by someone who actually went to law school and passed the state Bar. This case I took a real interest in as I was sitting next to the boss taking notes during initial consultation. There were no charges just an investigation and apparently two search warrants had been executed, he was detained but never arrested. Once communication with the main IO aka lead detective, was established I forwarded e-mails about the reporting parties history of mental illness and documents provided to us by the client supporting the claim this police report was filed under bad faith and possibly motivated by mental illness. The detective was very dumb, things I was told to forward to him including documents he replied to and then CC'ed his fellow officers. No less than 4 times did he e-mail me accidentally regarding completely different cases this included evidence from these completely unrelated cases both documents and photos. I think the icing on the cake was when I complied the latest docs the boss said was exculpatory into a PDF and had to call this retard who somehow made Detective and walk him through how open a PDF file with a free copy of adobe. He wasn't even 30 if I had to guess, point being, a total fucking idiot.

Nothing happened for months, client was really uptight called us once every 2 weeks asking for updates. I just parroted what the boss said "you haven't been charged with anything, the longer this goes the better it looks" had to be like 9 months later out of nowhere they charged him with something completely unrelated to any crimes he was accused of. If you have never heard the term "wobbler" it's something that is either to be charged as a misdemeanor or felony, they charged him with the felony version usually reserved for only the severe version of the crime and I'm then a second charge for the same offense also felony. I still don't understand how it was legal to do that but, I asked the boss a real attorney why are they doing this? I thought they forgot all about this guy when we sent them all the exculpatory stuff and they never found what they were looking for? I don't recall his exact words but it was something like "between the man hours, court costs, search warrant petitions, forensics they might have spent 30K on this investigation, they gotta charge him with something"

Detective donuts who was still the lead I/O on this didn't even show up for pre-trial hearing he was required to attend, didn't bother to show up the second date either. It all had to be rescheduled twice no notice to the council on either side or even the court as far as I know. Detective donuts literally pulled a "no call/no show" on the job. I'm sure he took his daily salary for those days. I figured he thought who the fuck was ever gonna complain? The defendant didn't want him there to testify and we were getting paid by the hour. If the prosecution fails to appear 3 times in a row the case is automatically dismissed, so he managed to make it there the 3rd court date. Pre trial is like "mini trial" is there enough evidence to hold up these charges to go to a real trial? The actual procedure lasted maybe 20 mins. Every question asked of him by defense council was answered either "dunno/don't recall". Judge was visibly annoyed dismissed it all before it ever made it to actual trial.

I always took this as the worst case of "sunk cost fallacy" I'd ever seen. They spent tens of thousands of dollars all on the word of some clinically insane ex of his, when they didn't find any of it to be credible or possibly true they found the equivalent of a jaywalking ticket and turned it into vehicular manslaughter charge. Costing even more in court costs and to this day I'll always wonder what the detective was doing on the days he was payed to be witness for the prosecution and never showed.

So in closing we had a case of no evidence of the allegations ever found, the witness was revealed to be motivated by spite and mental illness and when they realized they didn't have a chance in hell they used evidence of a minor misdemeanor crime discovered during a warrant obtained in bad faith lying to go double felony. Every fucking time I pay the IRS/local taxes I think how much money was spent on that shit show and probably more going on some where as I send the payment. Oddly enough years later something extremely similar but not as bad happened to me when I cut some loony cunt out of my life, wild accusations.

 

[Lurkmastergarbo]

I really like Richard Nakka's website, it has great pages on rocket propellants. It's peak classic web, too.

 

[888Flux]

Nickel-iron or "Edison" batteries are on my project list one day. They have the lowest energy density of all batteries, but are very simple to make and last practically forever. They are also much more stable when compared to lithium phosphate and there's even a few people who have built arrays of them for storing solar energy as they have tremendous benefits for the discharge / charge cycle.

You just need nickel and iron plates and potassium hydroxide as the electrolyte.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93iron_battery

https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/february2012_Noon (https://archive.ph/D3N69)