Reactions to Reactions: Glow Sticks

Why should anyone be aware of chemical reactions? In chemistry one can see how molecules interact with each other and understand how things work. Chemical reactions can help in your daily life, for example when digesting food. By knowing how food is digested one can know what nutrition is needed  in order to stay healthy. Here is a link to explain more about why we should be aware of chemical reactions. http://www.helium.com/items/2037177-importance-of-learning-chemistry


 Another common reaction used in everyday life is glow sticks. Glow sticks are used by scuba divers and campers in order to see in the dark. The chemical reaction of the glow stick is hydrogen peroxide solution, phenyl oxalate ester and fluorescent dye solution nixed together  This reaction releases energy just like an incandescent light bulb.  The electrons then become excited and race to a higher energy level then returns to the normal energy level releasing the energy as light. This is called chemiluminesence. There are more steps involed for this chemical reaction. Here is a link explaining more on how the glow stick works and the process of it.   http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/light-stick1.htm. Here is the final chemical equation for the glow sticks ;cyalume + H₂O₂ + dye → trichlorophenol + 2CO₂ + dye[♦]Here is also a link to a video that will show how to make a home made glow sticks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH19EIf5GtE

The Poisoner's Handbook

From my reading, I have been able to learn that the chief of medical examiner, Charles Norris, and the toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, have led forensic chemistry in New York. This book gets more interesting every time I read it. I was expecting this book to be boring, but I have been fasinated by what medical examiners and toxicologist must do in order to identify a poison in a human body. I didn't realize what the toxicologist must do in order to find a poison. For example to find cynaide in the body the author states " Any cyanide would be concentrated in the clear fluid contained by that last well-chilled flask." pg 60, explaining what Gettler had just finished doing in order to find the cyanide. In my reading I have also realized how important it was to have a forensic hall in big cities that way the medical examiners and toxicologist can help solve murders involved with wood alcohol, cyanides and other poisons. I can't wait to continue reading this book.  Here is a link for the book review. http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/The-Criminalist/The-Poisoner-s-Handbook/ba-p/2175

Baby Bottle Lab

   

In chemistry class we did a lab with baby bottles. Weird yes, but interesting.  We needed to come up with the perfect formula with sodium bicarbonate and vinegar that would let the baby bottle travel in a 600cm gutter filled with water. My formula that I came up with was 9 grams of sodium bicarbonate and  125 mL of vinegar. It took me 9 trials in order to get my formula . What confounded me in this lab was that someone would try a certain amount of sodium bicarbonate and vinegar and the baby bottle would travel the 600cm. I would then try the same formula but I was not able to make the full 600cm. In this lab I was also able to learn about limiting reactants. Limiting reactant is the smallest stoichiometric amount in the reactant. In other words the limiting reactant is the reactant that you'll run out of first. In this lab the limiting reactant was the sodium bicarbonate. What I would do differently in this lab would be to start off  with large amounts of sodium bicarbonate and vinegar instead of small amounts that way if I need to I can decrease my amounts. I will continue my trial and errors until I get the prefect formula.

Oceans in Danger

 I have just finished reading an article called Science: Ocean Acidifying So Fast It Threatens Humanity's Ability To Feed Itself from a paper.li called Future of the Earth. What interested me in reading this article was how the acid was effecting the oceans. The ocean gets the acid from the carbon in the air. When there is carbon in the air, temperature rises and carbon goes into the water faster. This process has being going on since the oceans were form. Why is there so much acid in the oceans now? Well with most people having cars, factories and what not, there is more carbon that is put in the air everyday. The temperature rises and the carbon going into the oceans increase faster then ever before.  According to the article, 300 millions ago the acids in the ocean increased just as fast as it is today. So why does it matter if it already happened once? Scientists have found some sediments from that time period. The results were that the amount of carbon in the fossils was doubled compared to other fossils in different time periods. Also scientists found a single - celled organisms that used to live on the bottom of the ocean had gone extinct because of the carbon in the water. By finding this organism the scientists suggested that the organisms that were on top of the food chain had also gone extinct. Why does this effect us? We can learn from the past so that it may not effect the future. We must pay more attention to how much carbon goes into the air and into the water that way no more marine animals can become extinct  like coral reefs and clams.