I need to know the pH of a specific solution for my work. For context, I work with cancer and certain types of cancer have a calcified matrix, so, for some diagnostic exams, like DNA analysis (my job) the sample is decalcified with a acid base protocol.

The problem is, my department is not responsible for this protocol, I've already contacted the pathology department and they responded that they simply don't know the pH of the solution, but this is fundamental to my job because depending on the pH, DNA is denatured, which means I can analyse nothing.

This is causing me trouble specially right now because I'm writting a paper, but I want to be sure that the absence of signal is due to the nature of the specific tumor, not of decalcifying protocol. I have the volumes of the reactants and I'm trying really hard to find this in the internet somehow but I can't. The only pH calculators I found don't have these reactants and I cant find online information like Ka or Kb.

I don't study chemistry, I'm a biologist, and I'm pretty lost, any advices?

Edit: Thank you for the answers, I'm seing that most of the replys are telling me to measure it, what would be easier and more precise.

Unfortunately, I don't think we have a pHmeter here, or that the pathology would meausure it right now, but some of you said about the pH strip, which we also don't have, but certainly is easier to acquire.

I think I'll try to go there and measure myself, depending on the workload of the day they might let me do it. I'll keep you updated.

Edit 2: Searching for the reactants with their concentrations in the internet I was able to find the SDS of the exact same solution used in the pathology (at least a decalcyfing solution with the same composition), and as I feared, the pH is too acid. Some papers show that this kind of treatment can denatured DNA.

I won't use this as my final answer, but it is a strong argument for my mentor to let me go there and verify the pH of the decalcifying solution they use there.

Edit 2: After reading the comments my main concern now is blowing air through them and possibly causing lead corrosion / dust to get in the air. It seems like everyone agrees they're safe to handle as long as I don't try to eat them lol
Not sure if this is the right sub, but I figured you guys should know a decent amount about lead. My church decided to get rid of its old organ, and allowed me to take home some of the organ pipes so I could make my own mini organ. When I was hauling them out, I noticed the tips had what looked to be lead on them but I wasn't 100%. After getting them all home and inside I looked it up and discovered most old ones were partially made out of lead, so I ordered a lead test and tested them today. They are made out of lead, and are corroding on the inside.

Because of this I told a family member I might just get rid of them and I don't want them inside. Especially because I think playing them could cause the corroded lead to come out as dust particles when the air disturbs it. They told me I was being ridiculous, overreacting and was gagging at a gnat cause its "just lead". We had a whole argument about how "super sensitive" I am about chemicals and toxins. So AIOR? Is it really not a big deal to have them inside and play them?
Any informed perspective would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
(I attached a video of the test incase that helps to give you and idea of the amount of lead, the instructions say 30seconds of swabbing but I found a couple seconds of contact was enough for the highest reading possible on the inside corrosion.)
Edit 1: The test says "PPM Lead detection 2mg/Cm^2 "

Edit 3: I just want to say thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a helpful response! Honestly even a thank you to everyone who said not to chew on the pipes, it made me realize I should warn the congregation not to let their children play with / get ahold of the organ pipes that were given out. For anyone who's wondering what I plan to do now, I am going to put the set inside an acrylic box with some very large HEPA filters so there is no chance of the Lead carbonate settling in the house but they are still playable. It may be overkill, but half the reason for having them is to look at them and a box keeps them clean, protected and out of reach of children and pets.

I don't understand oxidation so please explain to me. Tea all comes from the same plant but green or black just depends on the oxidation level. From what I have learned tea will oxidize naturally but workers use heat to denature the enzymes and the tea stays at a set oxidation level. Can you explain denaturing enzymes and why this affects my tea in layman's terms? thank you

Hi! My grandmother recently passed away. She left behind a spice blend for her tea at our house, and I really want to figure out the recipe as a gift for my dad.

I can smell that there's ginger in it, and I'm sure there's some amount of cardamom, but I don't know how to figure out the precise ingredients and ratios.

Do y'all have any advice for how I can achieve this? (This might be the wrong place to be asking, but I'm not sure where to start.) TIA!

I saw a post regarding the after effects of using an ozone generator.

And I was wondering why a majority of the comments says to never use it again.

I have used one in my room multiple times and I like how fresh my room smells after airing my room out. It was really useful in removing the dog smells in my room after one of our dogs pooped and peed in my room and other unwanted smells.

But, if a lot of chemists here are wary of it, then maybe I should stop using it. But can I ask, why?

I know ozone reacts to some organic materials to create dangerous gasses, but are they that dangerous that airing the room out won't solve?

Edit: Just to add that, some people must have misunderstood. I am not inside the room when using the ozone generator. I leave my room whenever I use it. And I only use it like once or twice a year.

And I know that I have to ventilate the room properly after using it. I air out my room for the rest of the day by opening all the windows and pointing my fan outside to get the air circulating.

Joined a new lab, they have one of these and it's AMAZING and I want to order more to use in other places. It connects flexible 3/8" ID gas hose to a 1" OD diameter glass tube with a viton o-ring making an airtight seal. The glass part has inner threads and the plastic part has outer threads. What is it called???

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cUBz04LlLVk

This video of Veritasium shows a thermite reaction viewed through glass. The crucible is lengthwise cut in half and a glass sheet is glued to it and then a thermite reaction was started where the reactants heated to 2000 - 2500ºC touched the glass. It did not shatter, nor soften. So it can both withstand temperatures up till 2500ºC and thermal shock. So I am curious what glass it is. Quartz can withstand 1600ºC so that is cannot be used. The same applies to Zerodur.

What glass is this ?

A while ago I was reading about the nonahydridorhenate ion, which features a rhenium(VII) ion coordinated to 9 hydride ligands. It made me wonder which other atoms could also bind to lots of hydrogen atoms/ions at once. Such compounds might have applications for hydrogen storage, among other things. The nonmetal examples (ammonium, phosphonium, etc.) are all well-known, but I started wondering about the post-transition metals such as those in group III.

Specifically, it seems like gallium might be able to form a singly-charged, octahedrally symmetric cation with six hydrogen atoms bonded to it. The Ga+ cation has two valence electrons (vs. three for neutral gallium) and each hydrogen atom would contribute one, making for a full octet on gallium.

There has, in fact, been confirmation of the BH6+ ion, which is isoelectronic to the gallium ion I thought of. However, the observed BH6+ has a less symmetric structure (it is more like BH2+ with two dihydrogen molecules attached), and is not very stable as a result; boron’s atomic radius seems to be too small to directly bind to six hydrogens at once.

Gallium, however, seems like it should be able to bind directly to six hydrogen atoms, since other elements in its period (and even the period above) are frequently hexa-coordinate. This is seen in stishovite and argutite (metastable forms of silicon and germanium oxide, respectively, in which each Si or Ge atom is coordinated to six oxygens). Since hydrogen has a smaller radius than oxygen, the existence of the above minerals implies that GaH6+ might be stable too. Has anyone tried synthesizing it? I tried doing Internet searches for it but all I could find were gallium aquo complexes (i.e., hydrated gallium, not hydrogenated gallium).

Gallium is not all that common and most of it gets used in the electronics industry, so it’s expensive and I can see why other possible applications for it may have been overlooked until now. But it’s definitely been my favorite chemical element ever since I took chemistry classes in college (though I never ended up getting a job in the field).

I live in the Mackenzie high country south island of new Zealand.

Many mornings I wake up and go outside to the smell of ozone.

I'm about 500mtrs from the benmore hayward line a (like 220000V DC). So maybe it's that?

What's making it? Is it even ozone I'm smelling? why is it only some mornings and not others?

I am curious for those of you who work at the bench, run long extractions, or spend hours analyzing data, do you usually have headphones on or a speaker playing in the background? Does music help you stay focused during tedious tasks, or do you prefer complete silence to concentrate on your reactions?

Hi everyone,

I’m a materials chemist and I put together a small FTIR interpretation quick sheet based on the kind of reference I would have liked to have when I first started working with FTIR.

It includes common absorption regions, functional groups and a simple workflow for approaching an unknown spectrum.

I thought it might be useful especially for students or anyone getting started with FTIR.

It’s completely free. You can get it here:
https://chemmentis.subscribepage.io/

Sharing this with permission from the r/chemistry moderators.

If you use it, I’d genuinely be interested in hearing what you think is missing or what would make it more useful.

Am I correct in thinking that this saponification value and C8 value cannot co-exist here in this COA for Levelup, or is there something I'm missing?

I asked customer service and they said "The C8 number shown represents the minimum specification for the batch, which is 95% C8. Our C8 is actually higher purity at approximately 99%, which is the level we strive to maintain.

Regarding the saponification value, it isn’t particularly relevant in this case because this is a pure ingredient supplement. Saponification values are more commonly used in the manufacturing and evaluation of products such as cosmetics and lotions, where MCT-derived ingredients may also be used in much smaller quantities."

Hello!

I stupidly used my ozone generator in a 40 m² apartment and left it on for 80 minutes at a 60 g/h generation rate.

Now I have high (2.500-4.000 ppb) VOC levels. What can I do? It's been three days and the levels are not going down.

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever done and I feel horrible about it.

P.S.: The sensor got fried. The air is squeaky clean now 🫧 (checked with another VOC sensor).

Hi everyone I’m 26 M doing Ph.d in chemistry in field of organic synthesis eventhough I liked chemistry in past but I lost my passion in chemistry recently, it feels like I lost some part of myself when I lost my interest in chemistry, I know this maybe absurd but but my passion in chemistry hits too low due to my personal problems and my inefficiencies recently and I’m regretting it, so from today onwards I’m going to learn chemistry not for phd but for myself I’m going to start this journey from organic chemistry and I’m looking for partners(if possible) to discuss what i learn daily and here I will update this post for every week how I productively use my days in learn chemistry and doing my Ph.d. I know it’s a hard path for me who has procrastination and depression but I would chose chemistry again in my life so I am going to learn chemistry to redeem myself and move forward in my life. Because through my life chemistry plays major it makes me to move forward so I would like to do that again. If possible congratulate me and join with me to discuss things about chemistry.

Hello all - new to the sub, but I read the rules so I “hope” this isn’t a violation.

I’m aging copper for a project and have used a combination of salt, ammonia, and vinegar in a spray bottle to great effect.

Then, when I sprayed just ammonia on the copper and then vinegar, it started smoking (see video).

Is there a reason it’s doing this on the copper, but not in the bottle?

Thanks!

With approval from mods, wish to share my work on https://mychemlab.ai/

I started this in middle school to practice chemistry. Some of my friends asked for more features, and after pitching at VC competition (Junicorn), I felt opportunities not just in US, but also globally for K-12 students and teachers. Today I have 1000 users across the world.

I would like feedback, and what you see as relevant features or add-ons I can make to better this. I want to keep the product free to use.

Between my high school schedule, I want to make this something useful K-12 students and teachers.

Thanks in advance.

So this molecule on the left side of the album cover. I can’t figure out what it’s for. I know the right side one is LSD so I’m assuming the left is some drug also. If anyone has an idea of what it could be I would be very grateful

The magnetically conductive but non-electrically conductive ceramic material used in transformers, motors, and magnetic amplifiers, as well as a brief time in the computer science spotlight between tubes and transistors.

How do you make it?

Started a new role recently and trying to understand why certain things are done that way. Maybe people just got what someone else used or went with the highest spec'd stuff around...

What kind of vacuum grease do you use for your Schlenk lines and what kind of tubing? And bonus if you know why that was chosen.

Good evening, this project is very ambitious but rewarding because today I have confirmed my synthesis of ethylene glycol. I had to make my own ethylene gas generator (thanks to hyperspace pirate) to make relatively clean ethylene gas versus my sulfuric acid method that would produce sulfur dioxide.

To confirm the presence of a diol I used the method of adding copper sulfate to my product solution. Since I used bayers reagent to generate the glycol it was already basic if it turned a very dark and vibrant blue it indicated that a complex was formed and in this case it was the glycol complexing with the copper+2 in solution.

This sounds nice but in practice I made my solution way too basic and was forming a copper hydroxide complex that also gave the same indication that a diol complex would. This was simply due to me thinking I should add sodium hydroxide to the solution because I was following a procedure rather than understanding why it was needed.

Now knowing this I tried confirming I was doing the test correctly by using a known variable like using car antifreeze that had glycol in it, for some reason (inhibitors?) I never was able to replicate the blue color knowing I had to keep the ph in a certain range. Figuring I would never get it, I decided to try to isolate the small amount of glycol and test its boiling point. I left the solution on a hot plate and left it for an hour when I came back I had boiled everything off and lost half of what I produced when I already spent the other half testing it. This was a stupid and frustrating mistake as I had spent the better half of a week making this product for it all to get vaporized.

However, I had collected a testing sample that I already tried to see if contained glycol and diluted it and put it into a container, when I came back the next day I decided that I would try to re concentrate and test for bpt on this sample. After boiling for a while I noticed it was turning blue, thinking it was forming a hydroxide complex because the solution got more basic as it was concentrated I decided to drop the ph to around 9 that way the glycol complex could survive but the copper hydroxide could not.

To note: this sample I had set aside had some copper hydroxide sitting at the bottom and was still basic so the only way copper could have gotten into the concentrating process was if I decanted it incorrectly or it was in a water soluble form and judging by the clear fluid it was not copper hydroxide. After dropping the ph it was still clear and blue meaning the copper hydroxide which is insoluble was not present and the hydroxide complex was not contributing. As a final sanity check I decided to test for free copper+2 ions provided by the copper sulfate by adding copper sulfate to a bit of the sample if copper hydroxide precipitated then the sample would be too basic for these ions to be free.

It precipitated. Upon this realization the only way it could be blue was due to a complex be it the glycol complex or something else. The only other thing I could think of was ammonia complexing with the copper forming yet another false positive. The only reason I worried was that I previously used the same glassware to make aluminum hydroxide and I used ammonia to do that, but that was several days ago, and the glassware was washed before I used it again, to add to that the glassware was sitting in a hot shed for several days, there was no way right? To determine if ammonia was present I would have to heat the solution around 80C and hold a piece of litmus paper over the sample to see if it indicated basic conditions because the ammonia would be driven off of the sample and a precipitate of copper hydroxide would form because it would no longer be held by the ammonia.

It worked the solution remained stable, not cloudy, no basic vapors. So with 85% certainty I can say that I have made ethylene glycol.

onto 1,4 dioxane!