r/chemistry

I had an old oral mercury thermometer break in my bathroom sink today and from what I saw happen, likely 75-80% of the mercury rolled down into the drain. From what I found online, the thermometer had around 0.5 g of liquid mercury. I removed the smaller beads that spread around my bathroom with some notecards and tape and put it into a plastic bag. Is there any health risk associated with this spill and should I try to remove the mercury from my drain?

Is it an effect to do with the interaction with the protein of our skin or something more general?

We acknowledge the date of this paper might not land ideally to some of our colleagues, but it is just an unfortunate coincidence.

Authors, abstract and link to full paper below:

Paula Berman, Janka Höfer, Herschel Mehlman, Efrat Almekias-Siegl, Olga Khersonsky, Younghui Dong, Uwe Heinig, Liron Sulimani, Let Kho Hao, Shahar Cohen, Yoav Peleg, Sagit Meir, Ilana Rogachev, David Meiri, Sarel J. Fleishman, Asaph Aharoni

Abstract

Psychedelic indolethylamines with therapeutic potential are naturally produced in plants, fungi, and animals. Here, we elucidated the complete N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) biosynthetic pathway in hallucinogenic plant species traditionally used in shamanic rituals for spiritual healing. Leveraging the similarities in their chemical structures, we reconstructed in one plant assay the full biosynthetic pathways of five renowned natural psychedelics; psilocin and psilocybin found in mushrooms, DMT from plants, and bufotenin and 5-methoxy-DMT secreted by the Sonoran Desert toad. We further engineered halogenated analogs of these molecules, which do not naturally occur in plants and exhibit prospective therapeutic potential for psychiatric conditions. Blending catalytic functions across the tree of life, coupled with metabolic engineering guided by rational protein design of mutant enzymes, enabled substantially more efficient in planta production of the indolethylamine components.

This work establishes a versatile platform for concurrent biosynthesis and diversification of psychoactive indolethylamines, paving the way for their production in plants.

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.aeb3034

I have a chemical reaction (taken from a patent) that involves stirring together two crystalline solids, without solvent, for about 24 hrs, to eventually obtain a thick slurry. (One of the reactants is a hydrate that provides enough water to suspend the product.)

I'm using a paddle mixer and an overhead stirrer. The problem is that in intermediate stages, the mixture has the consistency of wet sand, and I end up with the paddle spinning uselessly in air while the mixture sits glommed onto the sides of the flask. I have to spend hours (and hours) poking at it with a bent spatula, scraping chunks of it back into the center of the flask, until the contents become fluid enough to flow under gravity. Adding water, unfortunately, reduces the yield dramatically.

If I scaled this up sufficiently, a cement mixer would be quite effective, but I'm working with a 1-L flask and a few hundred grams of material. The patent is silent about how the inventors dealt with the problem. (Hours of scraping with bent spatulas might have been their experience as well.) I'm sure there must be some design of stirrer blade that wipes material from the sides of a flask, but I haven't been able to find it. Any kilo-lab chemists out there with suggestions?

Hey everyone,

For healthy and safety reasons the lab I currently work in doesn’t allow us to use silica gel to run hand columns so for every purification we have to use the preloaded combi flash columns and the automatic machine as well. In the prior labs I worked in we really only used these for easily purified/large scale reactions everything else was by hand so I’m not super familiar with these machines plus the other ones I used were biotage (not sure if it matters).

Anyways I’ve been working with a lot of pyrazole containing compounds and for some reason whenever I try to purify my products I am getting such low yields from the columns.

For context my products are moderately polar usually the rf is around 0.2-0.3 in 65% ethyl acetate/hexanes. When I check the crude LCMS all my SM is consumed and I see no other major peaks so I would expect around 80 or more percent yield. The crude mass usually aligns with the theoretical so I am not sure why I am only getting 10-20% from the columns sometimes even less.

I have tried loading with different solvents and running more polar gradients but still can’t seem to get it all off the column. I also tried using columns that were wayyy too large for my scale and that didn’t work either.

Just wondering if anyone else had the same problem with combiflash columns and what I can do to get better recovery from them.

Hi !

i just got back into chemistry as a hobby and I have a question regarding glassware. Is it safe to store erlenmeyers in a drawer ? It occasionally spins but it's only light shocks. Is there a risk of internal micro cracks ? Should I dispose of fine looking erlenmeyers stored like that ?

Thanks to anyone who replies !

Hi guys,

Is there a software out there that shows the chemical bonds and atoms in 3d and shows how they are bonded or loosely bonded to other chemcials/elements?

What i'm looking for is a tool that provides the following:

- bonds (possible/impossible)

- combinations of chemicals and substitutes that can be used in those combinations

- a rough estimate of how much is availablle on the planet (i.e. for cost estimates)

- a playground for what ifs

e.g. what If i wanted to make a new type of rubber tire compound but not use actual rubber, so figure out what the chemical composition of rubber would be and then use other elements that potentially could combine to form the same structure etc.

my only interests are "For All Mankind"

Thanks,
mjs

Hi, I am curious how the job market is for chemistry related jobs in the Boston suburbs (around I95). How would someone with a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a year of experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing and 8 months of experience working in a wet lab fare? Thank you!

This happened few years ago but came back to mind for some reason. We needed 1 kg weight to calibrate one of our measurements. I said I'll get something. Put bolts in bag or just water bottle or something. I went to drink coffee. Guy comes little later and shows piece of lead hammers head he had cut with angle grinder few times to get 1kg. I freak out and say all kind of nasty things about his stupidity.

From that day on I stayed away from welding/cutting station. Our main workplace is luckily not in same space. How bad is this incident really. To guy who did it, without any respirator. And others who use same space days and weeks following this deed. And space nearby that is only separetad by plastic curtains about 2m high.