chemistry
Something far worse than freezer-burned sausages. Dynamite. Too old dynamite. Dynamite that the nitro is coming out of (sweating)… so… Very Unstable. And no, I did NOT take this photo.
Alright, this will be rather specific-to-me as everyone experiences flavors and sweeteners differently. Or within various sets of ranges. There are those who find any artificial sweetener to taste bad in one way or another. “Burnt/burning plastic” is common description. I do not get that. For most of the now commonly used/available sweeteners in the USA (the USA banned cyclamates, but they are still used elsewhere.) There was consideration of banning Saccharin as well, but that didn’t quite happen. Turns out that, with a few nasty exceptions, humans are not rats and thus react differently. Things that use Saccharin alone do have a nasty aftertaste. Those who recall the diet drink Tab know this well.
I do not know if it is the choice of sweetener or mix of sweeteners, or other ingredients that most affects perceived flavor quality. I thus present my list of “diet” drinks and my perceptions of them. You might very well have entirely different experiences of them.
Diet Coke – Tastes close enough to regular Coca-Cola as to be no issue. Yes, real sugar Mexican Coca-Cola has all versions beat.
Diet Dr Pepper – Tastes close enough to regular Dr Pepper as to be no issue. And, if you can find it, real sugar Dr Pepper beats all other versions.
Diet Mountain Dew – Admittedly, this is more about getting the slightly higher dose of caffeine than about flavor, but the flavor is “good enough” for that. The “throwback” version that was around some years ago, made with proper sugar, of course tasted the best of all versions.
Diet Pepsi – Did they really do this on purpose? It’s narsty stuff It tastes like someone cleaned the machinery but didn’t rinse things properly and the product tastes of solvents and detergents and who knows. Regular Pepsi is just cloyingly sweet, but not chemically narsty about it. There is a real sugar version of Pepsi (“Soda Shop” version, I think) still available that is perhaps slightly better than the regular Pepsi, but also isn’t chemically narsty in its flavor.
RC Zero Sugar – It’s a lot like Diet Coca-Cola with lighter carbonation. Not bad, but nothing special either.
Diet 7-Up, etc. (American Bottling products) are generally alright. Nothing special, but nothing truly nasty.
Store/off brands – Hit and miss. Generally tolerable. Somehow Diet Pepsi, despite being a big Name Brand, manages to be the nadir of taste (and yet others seem to love or at least tolerate it…) unless you go to truly specialized things. The goofy novelty holiday flavors (turkey, etc.) or things like Canfield’s Diet Chocolate Soda – supposedly an early run or an attempted copy was so amazingly bad that a food shelf/pantry demanded the manufacturer take it back.
I probably am, right now, as today is supposed to be Recovery from Surgery and such. And while I am writing well in advance, it’s more advance than well. So… go have a read of someone else. If nothing else, read the section on rust. The re-(re?)working of a power tool is interesting, certainly, but the chemical product mentioned is perhaps even moreso. So, go have a read of Enemies.
Also, a bit a of a linguistic/spelling rant. There is the concept of one who operates outside of established norms or law, the rogue. It is disturbing how often I have seen someone trying to claim such only to say that he (or she?) is an iron oxide. Iron oxide? Yes, rouge.
Human side stuff. Back in the late 1970’s I spent a Summer slowly working my way though a mid-1950’s copy of Modern Chemistry years before taking (or evening being allowed to take) a right, proper Chemistry class[1]. Even then, I recognized that the old text had a couple real corkers in it compared to, even then, more modern awareness of nasty downsides. As an example, it sang the praises of the herbicide 2,4,5-T. Problem is, there is no (yet) known way to make that without making dioxins as co-products. All the issues with Agent Orange and most other Rainbow Agents came from the dioxins that accompanied the 2,4,5-T that was in so many. Also, lead oxide was a wonderful white pigment for paint…
That said, it did point out that were nasty things that we used to use and then either realized the problem or finally thought them over. Such as using Paris Green (an arsenic and copper compound!) for coloring wallpaper and so on[2]. This, amongst other things, I recalled.
I remembered them, but kept quiet, when I was sitting on Grandpa’s neighbor’s back steps with said neighbor and Grandpa as they went on about the Old Days. I wish I could remember more of that conversation. I knew at the time I was hearing some Real History and not just the Approved History that was in the textbooks.
Said neighbor told of his time as a bootlegger during Prohibition and how the illegal booze was colored with Paris Green(!) to make it appear to be not-booze. I do not recall anything of filtering or processing to remove the Paris Green, but there should have been at least an attempt. I still recall what the neighbor said or claimed about the stuff, “It never hurt no-one. It was poison against poison!“
I carefully said nothing. After all, if anything had happened, it was too late by several decades for anything to be done.
[1] By my choice. Chemistry was cool. It let you Do Things!
[2] Paris Green is a rather specific thing. Just because something is both old and green does NOT automatically mean it is toxic. Play it safe, sure, but Don’t Panic. Also, Paris Green (at least some makes….) tends to eventually turn brown. It was originally seen as better then Scheele’s Green – which is also a compound with both arsenic and copper.
Yes, including that one. But I will not lead with it. Once upon a time, for who knows what reason, Pa and I were alone one day and somehow started pondering the ‘bang’ of various gasses. It was simple enough (then) to generate hydrogen and that was alright. Despite the Hindenburg incident, hydrogen is – with care, of course – fairly tame as boomy gasses go. A bit of butane was tried. Well, that was impressive. Ditto propane. And then a bit of acetylene from the welding rig. Now, acetylene has a carbon-carbon triple bond and thus a lot of energy ready to be released. Acetylene is also rather light, but not as light as hydrogen. And, just for added ‘fun’ has an incredibly wide explosive range, it can be almost not there, or almost no air and it will catch. This was a small balloon – we thought we were being careful. Well, to sum it up, we decided we would NOT do that again.
What we did not have was “natural gas”[1] (methane). There is a source everyone has – themselves, especially after eating beans. I mentioned this to a fellow who, at the time, proclaimed disbelief. But he had to verify things and he was persistent. A week or two later I was informed that after he “blew out a lot of matches” he had the gas catch… and singed his rear some. Oy.
Years and years after both of those, I heard about an incident. A place I worked at had a Great New Project going – and needed either room or isolation. Thus space was rented in a nearby building. And since Reality is weird, the name of the place (I am not making this up…) was, of all things, Henway.[2]
One day folks arrived at the ‘remote’ facility to find everything covered in a layer of dust. A layer of dust that had not been there the previous afternoon. Eventually it came out that some folks, not sure who, realized acetylene was lighter than air. They took to filling trash bags(!) with the gas, and then took them outside and were amused as the gas-bag(s) floated away. This was risky enough in the humid Summer. Summer became Fall and the humidity dropped… and then then a light plastic bag full of explosive gas rubbed just so and there was a static buildup and then discharge… which set off the gas either inside the building or just in the doorway. The resulting KA-BOOM sent at least one fellow to the hospital to see about what hearing he might have left or regain. It also shook the building. The whole building… and all the dust “in the rafters” was knocked loose and settled on whatever all was below.
The “we’re not doing that again” balloon was well under a single cubic foot of acetylene gas. The trash bag had several cubic feet of the gas. It’s amazing things weren’t a lot worse when that sucker went blooey. And, no, I was not involved.
[1] “Natural” as it comes from wells, and isn’t made by treating coal with steam or such, which is how “town gas” was made once upon a time. Town gas was dangerous. It was a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The bit about someone committing suicide by sticking their head in an (unlit!) oven? Carbon monoxide poisoning from town gas.
[2] Old joke: “Henway? What’s a Henway?” “Oh, about four or five pounds.”
It’s still a “lab curiosity” but it shows promise. What is it? It’s a potential antidote (not mere treatment) for carbon monoxide poisoning:
First antidote for carbon monoxide poisoning “cleans” blood in minutes
CO is a nasty poison: No color, no odor, no taste. Invisible in most every way. The early symptoms are headache and tiredness – the things one takes a nap to deal with, except if it’s a CO induced headache and tiredness you probably won’t wake up unless someone finds you and finds you EARLY. This antidote, even if works perfectly and even if it was approved RIGHT NOW can’t do a darn thing unless it’s used “in time” – and it’s too easy to NOT be found “in time.” CO detectors are worth the money.
Yes, I have many combustion devices. I also have many CO monitors/detectors. My sister once came home to find her then-housemate a bit “out of it” — and was fortunately ‘with it’ enough to realize what was happening, so they BOTH got outside. A radio op I once knew (KA9SRO) once just barely realized in time what was happening. In both cases, folks got EXTREMELY LUCKY. CO is a nasty, nasty poison. It affects the very same deep-level biochemistry as cyanide. I’ve read more than one bit that indicated that those who survived more than the very mildest CO exposure never truly fully recover.
So, this cure is potentially great news – but only if the problem is detected. It can, hopefully, treat in full. But it cannot resurrect. Even if you have NO combustion devices, things (dodgy electrical contacts, for example) can smolder and make CO. So, if you don’t have a CO monitor/detector, GET ONE NOW.
Yep, “Di-Hydrogen Mon-Oxide” aka water. This came up recently and was gone on about for a time. Someone described it as an acid, which is wrong and yet not totally wrong. Calling water a base would be wrong and yet not totally wrong in the very same way. Eventually someone pointed out the bonding for the atoms is H-O=H.
That would be hydrogen hydroxide. The H can be “donated” as an ion (H+ aka a proton) and that is the mark of an acid. So water is an acid? Not quite. Looking at the periodic table, the column which hydrogen sits atop is the “alkali” metals. Hydrogen, under what we consider normal conditions, is a gas, and even when simply frozen, is not a metal. Yet, under extreme pressures it does seem go metallic.
Metal plus hydroxide is a base. Bases can “donate” the hydroxide (OH). While acids can certainly be nasty and “eat” things, bases are really bad news for organic compounds. Drains get clogged by grease, and grease also builds up in ovens. The cleaners for drains and ovens are bases, since bases “eat” organic compounds. The oven bit is really neat, as that will involve heat – and when you have a base (such as lye) and grease (fat) and heat you end up with… soap. Neat trick, turn the “dirt” into soap!
So, H-O=H. Proton donor, acid. Hydroxide donor, base. So both… no, neither. The H+and OH– balance each other. And thus is water, pure water, a neutral a pH — neither acidic, nor basic.
Water has other tricks, of course, Like the weird thing where the solid form (ice) is lighter than the liquid form and thus ice floats in water. It’s like plutonium that way.
A while back I read Carbon Dioxide in Medicine which was an interesting look into 19th and very early 20th Century medicine and its limitations and reaches… and while I do wonder if a bit has been lost, it’s NO question so much has been GAINED. The original author seemed to be far too interested in putting CO2 in various orifices – though considering the (lack of) alternatives maybe it wasn’t as insane as it now sounds.
But once past that, there were the immersions. Simply, “Carbon dioxide baths” which sounds like something that shouldn’t work – yet seemed to have at least some beneficial effect in cases. Was it psychological? “At least Doc is trying something“? Was it placebo effect? Was it real? I cannot say.
What I can say is that one thing mentioned is true as I have now encountered it. The person in a CO2 bath felt the carbon dioxide as warming even if the gas was colder than anything else around. On the way back from LibertyCon, $HOUSEMATE made a point of acquiring Blue Bell “Homemade Vanilla” ice cream. And to preserve it for the trip, dry ice. There was enough dry ice to not only do the required job, but we had some “left over” upon arriving home. This is FAR better than running short!
Dry ice is, of course, Quite Cold. Any gas sublimating from it would therefore also be quite cold. Maybe not AS cold as the dry ice itself, but hardly what anyone would consider warm. Now, dry ice is about -78 F. Even with significant warming, the CO2 from dry ice would be Quite Cold. And yet, when I let it sublimate in the sink (drain blocked) and I put my hand/arm into the gas… my hand/arm felt, against all reason, warm. This is certainly a curious effect. Why would I feel warm when the gas is cold? And why would CO2 be different from regular air (mainly nitrogen and oxygen)? That lungs would be affected makes sense – too much CO2 is a PROBLEM. But skin? Why should skin CARE about any gas mix that isn’t caustic or toxic or such? Yet, cold carbon dioxide seems to feel warm.
And that observation and confirmation makes me wonder. How much of the text ISN’T wishful thinking or such, but was actually effective and of utility? Aerobic bacteria would not do well in a prolonged CO2 atmosphere, after all.
Somewhere, and I am not sure where, I happened across the Demi Song. It might have been on same cassette tape I was lent or maybe Dr Demento played it once upon a time. It’s about a chemistry student attempting to discover what all is in the mystery mixture he was given and… not being very good at it. The ‘Demi’ is the assistant dealing with such students. I got to looking for the tune by fragments of the lyrics I recalled and found… it was written(?) or at least covered by… Pete Seeger?![1] This seems strange to me. But here it is:
[1] One collection listed him as if he had written, rather than covered, Tom Lehrer’s The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be.
The Elegant Ungulate 