John Rumm wrote:
On 17/08/2012 18:36, Peter Crosland wrote:
On 17/08/2012 16:30, John Rumm wrote:
On 15/08/2012 21:40, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article m,
newshound writes:
Scary. Anyone who did A level chemistry forty or fifty years ago would
have been very well aware of the risks. Now you have to have safety
screens when the teacher is using dilute acids. Somewhere along the
way
we lost the science.

I'm told practicals are a thing of the past in most schools,
not due to H&S, but due to no time left after covering everything
that's centrally mandated nowadays.

However, it reminds me of a lecture at university, Materials Science
topic. Lecturer started with a balloon (blown up) in one hand, and
a pin in the other, and jokingly said
"I should really have a safety screen for this!"
When he stuck the pin in the balloon and it burst, the knot shot off
and got me in the eye, which was quite painful.

;-)

I am sure we did plenty of things at school that were dodgy then - let
alone now...

Making Nitrogen Triiodide was fun (we were allowed to make it on the
understanding none of it left the lab... not sure is there were any of
us that did not spirit at least some out!)

I think you mean ammonium tri-iodide made by dissolving iodine in 880
ammonia solution.

Indeed another name for the same thing... NI3

(IIRC we made it with crystallized iodine, which then allows you to pour
off the amonia once "activated" - its then stable so long as its kept wet)

aka Nitrogen iodide, Ammonia triiodide, Triiodine nitride, and others...

This forms a brown precipitate that is incredibly
unstable particularly when dried.

Yes and nice puff of purple smoke... and a yellow stain on anything that
it detonates on.


Put a small quantity in a lock wait to dry and watch someone insert a
key ( we did stupid things when young)