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Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

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Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#71

Post by somebodynew »

joosters wrote: post #51
kortex wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Join us for our continued lecture series, covering topics such as Please share/blog these! I too have several degenerate chemistry undergrad stories. > The poor efficacy of DMSO in assisting drug translocation through skin Yep. During one particularly sleep-deprived finals week, and after recently learning about DMSO's transdermal transportation abilities, my friend and I tried making caffeine skin patches. It work…

But my lab manager did walk in at one point and immediately recoiled from the fumes (which we were nose-deaf to at that point). I don't know whether it's true or not, but I remember a chemistry lecturer telling me that you don't need to worry about terrible smells in the lab, our noses are sensitive to extremely miniscule levels of chemicals. It's when the levels are so high that they have overpowered our senses and…

Hydrogen sulfide is a severe example: it initially smells strongly of rotten eggs but quickly damages the nose until it is undetectable and further exposure can be lethal. For most other chemicals, smells only fade to the background during prolonged lab work through mundane desensitization.

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#72

Post by kortex »

joosters wrote: post #51
kortex wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Join us for our continued lecture series, covering topics such as Please share/blog these! I too have several degenerate chemistry undergrad stories. > The poor efficacy of DMSO in assisting drug translocation through skin Yep. During one particularly sleep-deprived finals week, and after recently learning about DMSO's transdermal transportation abilities, my friend and I tried making caffeine skin patches. It work…

But my lab manager did walk in at one point and immediately recoiled from the fumes (which we were nose-deaf to at that point). I don't know whether it's true or not, but I remember a chemistry lecturer telling me that you don't need to worry about terrible smells in the lab, our noses are sensitive to extremely miniscule levels of chemicals. It's when the levels are so high that they have overpowered our senses and…

More or less, but with caveats. It's true that many smells (eg H2S, HCN) are detectable before toxic levels, and then become un-smellable at higher levels (saturates and depletes olfactory receptors). But you should still worry about certain terrible smells, because that's often the first sign that something is going wrong. Containment failure, reaction runaway, maybe someone dumped the wrong thing in the wrong waste barrel and now it's reacting, etc.

There's also things which are toxic at the same levels as olfaction, and of course there toxins which are dangerous by the time you have smelled them, or you lack the gene to smell. Most really smelly things aren't acutely toxic like that though. Take DMS (dimethyl sulfide, byproduct of Swern oxidation. Smells like boiling cabbage at low concentration, and liquid ass at high concentration. If you are running a Swern in a fume hood, you are likely quite well-contained even if you've made the whole lab smell like a cesspit.

When we ran cyanation at the kilo scale, you better believe we had HCN detectors all over the place, wore full-face respirators, etc.

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#73

Post by kortex »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #43
kortex wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Join us for our continued lecture series, covering topics such as Please share/blog these! I too have several degenerate chemistry undergrad stories. > The poor efficacy of DMSO in assisting drug translocation through skin Yep. During one particularly sleep-deprived finals week, and after recently learning about DMSO's transdermal transportation abilities, my friend and I tried making caffeine skin patches. It work…

You have to really dilute DMSO if you're going to put it on your skin.

I mean, pure DMSO on the skin feels fine, albeit not the safest.

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#75

Post by siliconunit »

labrador wrote: post #17

I'm a recovering nitrous oxide addict so this is interesting, but people should proceed with caution. I didn't know laughing gas could be addictive for some people until it was too late. In the film Cider House Rules, Michael Caine plays a doctor addicted to ether for sleep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cider_House_Rules_(film) Google result: Is chloroform stronger than ether? Fluothane and chloroform produced si…

[flagged]

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#76

Post by JKCalhoun »

labrador wrote: post #48
hattmall wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So like how much nitrous did you do?

Let's see there's 50 whippets in a box, 12 boxes in a case. I did a couple hundred cases before I finally stopped. My last two binges 5 years apart were 15 cases over a 2 week period and 20 cases over a 10 day period. Once I start cracking whippets I can't stop. It felt almost like an OCD thing.

* whip-its

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#77

Post by scheme271 »

cwkoss wrote: post #44

Is there a youtube channel all about how chemical waste is neutralized for disposal? What happens to the tub of very basic water and maybe some bleach? Just pour down the drain? What pHs are safe to pour down the drain? How is more complex waste, like containing pharmacological products or heavy metals, neutralized and disposed?

It all really depends. For liquid wastes, you probably want to get it close to neutral so that it doesn't mess up your plumbing if you pour it down the drain. For any complex organic or any inorganic stuff, you probably want to capture it and then send it to a chemical disposal facility.

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#78

Post by saiya-jin »

karaterobot wrote: post #40
kyleblarson wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppressed subsonic 300 blackout is pretty darn close to the movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AUDVoGOCxw

It's quiet enough that those guys are not completely crazy for not having ear protection — but of course the microphone is not picking up the full volume of the shots either, any more than it does for unsuppressed, supersonic rounds.

Microphones generally are very bad at picking real volume of gunshots, silenced or not, subsonic or not, small, large and massive calibers alike

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#79

Post by kortex »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #18

Chloroform is great for extractions (if you don't care about the environment) because it sinks to the bottom of a sep funnel, but the thing about it being a knockout gas or sleep aid is complete BS. Based on an unpublished study of about 4 degenerate chemistry undergrads: - It PROBABLY takes several minutes of inhalation through a saturated rag to induce full loss of consciousness, although shorter times do produce n…

> The poor efficacy of DMSO in assisting drug translocation through skin

Oh yeah, for the observer gallery: The reason DMSO (and DMF, DMAc, HF, to an extent haloforms, and polar aprotic solvents in general) are dangerous is that they can dissolve and transport small molecules (under 1000 daltons, possibly more) through your skin and into the bloodstream. They go straight through nitrile, vinyl, and latex gloves. You need to match the glove to the solvent. For these strong solvents, you want aliphatic polymers (LDPE) or laminates (mylar aka aluminized polyester).

Actually one of the best protection schemes is the shoulder-length polyethylene gloves used for ...ahem... bovine obstetrics, with nitrile over that for grip and to keep the cow glove in place. Looks hilarious but great for pouring nasty solutions or weighing dusty powders.

https://www.amazon.com/livestocktool-com-Disposable-Artifici...

Re: Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]

#80

Post by fragmede »

Octokiddie wrote: post #13

It's worth noting that the general class of reaction described here ("Haloform reaction") was discovered in 1822, and rediscovered after that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haloform_reaction Organic chemistry is a very old field whose older literature can still be used and remains relevant today. Also, inhaling anything you produce in a lab, even if you did distill it, is idiotic.

Even if you're Albert Hofmann or Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin?
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