Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments

Preface xiii

I set out to write this book after a conversation with our friend
and neighbor Jasmine Littlejohn. At age 14, Jasmine is a bright
kid who’s interested in science as a career. I asked her one day
how much science she was learning in school. “Hardly any,” she
replied. “On a typical day, we spend hours on math, social studies,
English, and other stuff, and about 15 minutes on science.”
Although Jasmine attends a good public school, like most schools
it devotes little time and few resources to science and has only
limited lab facilities. No doubt the school would list money and
safety concerns as reasons, but such excuses do nothing to
help Jasmine.

With her mom’s approval, I could give Jasmine access to my
basement chemistry lab, but that would solve only part of the
problem. If Jasmine was to do more than make pretty colors and
stinky smells, if Jasmine was to do real chemistry, she’d need
more than just access to a lab. She’d need detailed instructions
and some sort of structured plan to guide her through the
learning process. She’d need to learn how to use the equipment
and how to handle chemicals safely. She’d need well-designed
experiments that focused on specific aspects of laboratory work.
In other words, she’d need a home chemistry lab handbook, one
devoted to serious chemistry rather than just playing around.

My first thought was to get Jasmine one of the classic home
chemistry books published back in the ’30s, ’40s, or ’50s. Some
of those were excellent, but all of them required chemicals—such
as benzene, carbon tetrachloride, salts of mercury, lead, and
barium, concentrated nitric acid, and so on—that were once
readily available but are now very expensive or difficult to obtain.

In one sense, that wasn’t really a problem. I already had most of
that stuff in my lab. But even the best of those old books would
have required some serious red-lining before I’d have turned
Jasmine loose with it. One, for example, suggested tasting highly
toxic lead acetate (also known as “sugar of lead”) to detect its
sweetness. Others were a bit casual about handling soluble
mercury compounds or contained experiments that were
potentially extremely dangerous.

I concluded that the only good solution was to write a new book,
one devoted to learning real chemistry at home, and one that
would also be useful for the many thousands of other people out
there—young people and adults—who wanted to experience the
magic of chemistry just as I’d done on that long-ago Christmas
morning, and to do so on a reasonably small budget with readily
available equipment and chemicals. And so the Illustrated Guide
to Home Chemistry Experiments was born.

This book is for anyone, from responsible teenagers to adults,

who wants to learn about chemistry by doing real, hands-on

laboratory experiments.

DIY hobbyists and science enthusiasts can use this book to

master all of the essential practical skills and fundamental

knowledge needed to pursue chemistry as a lifelong hobby.

Home school students and public school students whose schools

offer only lecture-based chemistry courses can use this book to

gain practical experience in real laboratory chemistry. A student

who completes all of the laboratories in this book has done the

equivalent of two full years of high school chemistry lab work or a

first-year college general chemistry laboratory course.

And, finally, a word about who this book is not for. If you want to

make fireworks and explosives—or perhaps we should say if all

you want to make is fireworks and explosives—this book is not

for you. If your goal is to produce black powder or nitroglycerine

or TATP, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Neither will you find

instructions in this book for producing methamphetamine in your

home lab or synthesizing other illegal substances. In short, if you

plan to break the law, this book is not for you.

The first part of this book is made up of narrative chapters that

cover the essential “book learning” you need to equip your home

chemistry lab, master laboratory skills, and work safely in your lab:

1. Introduction

2 Laboratory Safety ..........................................................................................................................

3. Equipping a Home Chemistry Lab ..........................................................................................

4. Chemicals for the Home Chemistry Lab ..............................................................................

5 Mastering Laboratory Skills ...................................................................................................6

The bulk of the book is made up of seventeen hands-on

laboratory chapters, each devoted to a particular topic. Most of

the laboratory chapters include multiple laboratory sessions,

from introductory level sessions suitable for a middle school

or first-year high school chemistry laboratory course to more

advanced sessions suitable for students who intend to take the

College Board Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry exam:

6. Laboratory: Separating Mixtures

7. Laboratory: Solubility and Solutions ...................................................................................

8. Laboratory: Colligative Properties of Solutions .................................................................1

9 Laboratory: Introduction to Chemical Reactions and Stoichiometry ....................................

& Stoichiometry

Laboratory: Reduction-Oxidation (Redox) Reactions ........................................................

Laboratory: Acid-Base Chemistry ........................................................................................1

Laboratory: Chemical Kinetics .............................................................................................

13. Laboratory: Chemical Equilibrium
    and Le Chatelier’s Principle

WTISOH H BOOK IS FOR

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGAnIzED