Kinetics Experiment

[austinap]

I have to do a 'novel' kinetics experiement for pchem, and I'm pulling a blank for ideas. I'd love to find something thats easy to measure (fluorescence, absorbance, etc..) and that hopefully involves some pretty common chemicals. Though I have access to everything they have here, I just dont want to end up needing something really obscure that I have to order. I was thinking maybe something with iodine or bromine, but thats about as far as I've gotten. If anybody's got any ideas, I'll probably love you forever.

[jesternl]

I'm thinking you can study the effects of H2O on Kalium?

[Dragon Phoenix]

Make that potassium. Better not though, this is potentially quite dangerous.

[groza528]

Pssh. "It's potentially quite dangerous." What do you take him for, an idiot? He's a chemist. He'll be wearing safety goggles.

[austinap*]

haha... if I was going to go that route, I think thermite would be more fun though. Really though, I was looking for something fairly slow, i.e. a halflife of a few minutes to an hour or two.

[jesternl]

I was hoping he'd go out and look upw what Kalium is

[austinap*]

Haha... I did anyways, just to be sure. I'm kind of ashamed I didnt know, but I guess it isn't as common a term as ferrous or plumbus or any of those.

[Bicho the Inhaler]

Old-school element names -

Natrium
Kallium
Ferrum
Cuprum
Stannum
Argentum
Plumbum
Aurum
Wolfram (unlike the others, not derived from Latin)
...and I just can't remember what Sb (antimony) stands for...
(more?)

Anyway, acids and bases are a good source of chemical reactions. The mixture 0.25 HNO ₃ + 0.75 HCl makes a pretty potent acid. My memory is a little hazy, but I think that's the one that dissolves gold. Also, hydrofluoric acid corrodes glass, which could make an interesting experiment. (I don't remember how quickly it acts.)

[Dread Pirate Westley]

Stibium

What did I do for Advanced Organic? It might be appropriate. I don't feel like going to find my labbook, though (if I even still have it). Some kind of subtitution reaction on aromatic rings. Activating and/or deactivating substituents or something.

[groza528]

You should do an oscillating clock reaction. Maybe see if you can alter the rate of oscillation with temperature, or something?

[MatthewV]

Do something with the Blue-and-Gold Reaction. It is safe and pretty. The rate of reaction changes depending on how hot things are.

Or look through some of these...
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/demos/Demosheet_index.html#Ch22

[Dragon Phoenix]

[worm]

if you're gonna play, play with sodium.

boring in terms of kinetics, but going with common chemicals, why not take the dianion of phenolphthalein and alkylate it (do an sn2)? it should react selectively and concentration should be easy to monitor by uv. you should be able to tune the speed of the rxn by choice of solvent, concentration and the alkyl halide you use.

lot of shoulds, but just an idea.

[Dragon Phoenix]

If you have thermal analysis, there are tons of safe and simple experiments you can do around decomposition, oxidation, reduction and so on.

[groza528]

I was kidding, DP But I was serious about the oscillating clock.

[Dragon Phoenix]

[austinap*]

Thanks, I'm liking this. I was thinking about some sort of a benzene substitution type thing, but I really like the oscillating clock reaction idea.

[austinap*]

[worm]

i'd think the kinetics of a clock reaction might be pretty challenging. i'll be interested in seeing what your plan is. good luck.

[jesternl]

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/a1db0b4511b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
has sopme interesting articles