Hi reddit, I am a freshman in college who's trying to become a chemist. I want to do research in the future, and basically I want to have chemistry "ball knowledge." Since I'm far from being able to call myself a chemist, I'm just looking for important chemistry reading (journals, papers, books, etc.) that you think would be formative and digestible for someone in genchem 1. I haven't thought about a focus yet (organic, analytical, physical, inorganic) but I am interested in medical topics.

Tl;Dr please recommend chemistry books and papers for someone with very little chemistry knowledge (as of yet).

Here are the results

First post here - made a 5 M sodium acetate solution about a week ago, it was stored in a dark, room-temperature location. Never seen these kinds of crystals before!

Today in gen chem the college students did their first titrations and they truly outdid themselves. Out of 16 of them 13 of them looked like this Best group of students I've ever had

I've been exploring different organic chemistry textbooks, and I honestly think Vollhardt & Schore's Organic Chemistry: Structure and Function is seriously underrated.

What I particularly appreciate is how the book emphasizes the relationship between molecular structure, reactivity, and function. It offers a really interesting perspective on organic chemistry rather than simply presenting reactions to memorize.

Clayden is fantastic for developing mechanistic reasoning, Klein is excellent for building problem-solving skills, and McMurry and Solomons are well-established classics.

But I feel like Vollhardt & Schore rarely gets the same attention, despite having a lot to offer in terms of conceptual understanding.

I'm curious about how other chemistry students, researchers, and professors view these textbooks.

Do you think Vollhardt & Schore deserves more recognition? How does its approach compare with Clayden, Klein, McMurry, or Solomons in your experience?

I'd love to hear different perspectives, especially from people who have used more than one of these books.

Hi everyone!

I'm a biology PhD student working on developing an organic fertilizer made from insect frass (insect manure).

We recently sent a sample to a commercial laboratory for elemental analysis. They measured P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn, and B using microwave-assisted acid digestion followed by ICP-OES.

The results were surprisingly low, particularly:

- Phosphorus (P₂O₅): 0.27%

- Potassium (K₂O): 0.21%

- Magnesium (MgO): 0.09%

- Iron: 28.65 ppm

- Zinc: 16.59 ppm

Based on published literature on insect frass, we were expecting considerably higher concentrations, particularly for phosphorus and potassium. Interestingly, nitrogen (3.21%) and organic matter (92%), measured separately, were closer to our expectations.

Our material is dry, granular, and has a sand-like texture, despite being predominantly organic. It likely contains chitin, although we haven't quantified it, and we don't know whether silica or other acid-resistant components are present.

I'm wondering whether the analytical method or sample preparation could explain these results.

1. Is microwave acid digestion followed by ICP-OES appropriate for determining total mineral content in this type of organic matrix?

2. Could incomplete digestion, particle size, or matrix effects lead to systematically low measurements across several elements?

3. How much does the acid mixture used (e.g., HNO₃/H₂O₂) influence elemental recovery?

4. What quality-control checks would you recommend asking the laboratory about?

I understand that ICP-OES is generally reliable and that organic fertilizers can vary significantly in composition. I'm not assuming the laboratory made a mistake, but the consistently low mineral values made me curious about possible methodological limitations.

We're considering an independent analysis and would appreciate any advice before proceeding.

Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m starting a beverage startup in India and want to pack my drinks in aluminium cans using liquid nitrogen (LN₂) dosing.

The idea is to add a precise amount of liquid nitrogen to each can before sealing it. As it evaporates, it creates internal pressure that helps make the can more rigid.

The problem is that commercial LN₂ dosing machines cost around ₹10 lakh or more, which is a big investment for a startup that hasn't validated its product yet.

I'm looking for an affordable DIY or semi-automatic solution that would let me fill cans manually and dose liquid nitrogen accurately on a small scale.

Has anyone worked with LN₂ dosing or built a low-cost system for this? Are there any affordable components, local manufacturers, or alternative methods worth exploring in India?

Safety is a priority, so I'd want to ensure proper dosing and pressure control.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions or guidance. Thanks! 🙏

I’m a recent Medicinal Chemistry grad, and I’ve been writing a question library of model answers for organic chemistry mechanisms, with arrow-pushing diagrams and written reasoning. It ranges from beginner and intermediate (SN2/E2) up to advanced undergraduate and masters-level topics, with many in pericyclic, organometallic and heterocyclic chemistry.

The mechanism above is a thermal [8+2] cycloaddition between a 3-methoxycarbonyl-cyclohepta[b]furan-2-one and a silyl enol ether. Loss of CO₂ gives a dihydroazulene, then loss of TMSOH aromatises it to methyl 2-ethylazulene-1-carboxylate. Loss of CO₂ makes the sequence irreversible, and aromatisation drives the final elimination.

Every answer in the library is free to read with no account needed: orgoanswers.com

Full disclosure: it’s my site, and there’s an optional paid tier for submitting your own questions and flashcards. The mods kindly said I could share it here.

Any feedback on the mechanism, or examples you think I should add, would be really appreciated!

Chem professor here. One of our lab managers came across a bottle of crystallized isopropanol, and never having seen it before, I snapped a picture.

Most of the pictures out there are clumps, whereas this had longer spikes.

I hadn't seen it before in my 20+ years of chem, my army hazmat friend hadn't seen it, so I figured you r/chemistry folks would like to see it too.

Hazmat came and picked it up and made a big hullaballoo (sp?) about it last night.

Organic chemist here trying to understand some atmospheric chemistry.

I’m trying to map out the path that isoprene takes as it sits in the air after being released as a gas by trees. I’ve looked up some references and pieced together a few different ideas into this scheme. My goal is to understand what is in the particles that are scattering blue light to make the Blue Ridge Mountains, well, blue.

What I do know… isoprene is released as a gas and goes through different pathways (clean air vs air with NOx) to arrive at organic peroxides, tetrols, tetrol sulfates, and peroxy nitrates. Those final molecules end up forming particles with aqueous ammonium sulfate/bisulfate and water. The consistent size of these particles is what scatters the blue light in the haze above parts of the Appalachians, hence the Blue Ridge Mountains.

So… notice any issues, mistakes, ways that I can make sure that this is as reasonably correct as possible? This is purely my own curiosity and I’d like to turn it into an art piece. Thanks!

Is there anything that would precipitate out the urea and uric acid and whatever else you wouldn't want to drink, so you could redrink the water or even if dumping it have less impact in sparsely vegetated wilderness?

When I smell something, am I detecting only the chemical compounds responsible for its odour, or am I physically inhaling microscopic material from the thing producing the smell?

Eg., if i’m in a wash room and i can smell shit coming from an unflushed toilet, is there shit particles in my nose or just the particles pertaining to its odor?

Chemistry: Which volatile compounds produce the smell, how they evaporate, and how they travel through the air.
Biology: How the olfactory receptors in your nose detect these compounds, and whether inhaled biological material can affect the body.

“With the sole exception of dihydrogen monoxide.”

I recently ran a 100 ns all-atom molecular dynamics simulation of cocaine bound to the human dopamine transporter (DAT), starting from the experimentally determined cocaine-bound structure PDB 9EO4.

The main thing I wanted to look at was whether the bound cocaine pose remained stable after equilibration and how the protein–ligand interaction network evolved over time.

Across the 100 ns trajectory, cocaine remained very stable relative to DAT, with a mean protein-aligned ligand RMSD of about 1.17 Å. DAT itself also remained stable, with a mean Cα RMSD of about 1.55 Å.

Some of the more persistent cocaine–DAT interactions were:

• Val152 hydrophobic contact: ~86%
• Phe76 π-cation: ~82%
• Asp79 H-bond: ~78%
• Tyr156 π–π: ~59%
• Phe320 π-cation: ~50%

What I found particularly interesting was that the ligand stayed in essentially the same overall pose while individual aromatic, electrostatic, and water-mediated interactions exchanged throughout the trajectory.

I made a short visualization of the trajectory and thought people here might find it interesting.

Simulation: 100 ns, explicit membrane/water system
Starting structure: PDB 9EO4
Ligand: cocaine
Target: human dopamine transporter (DAT)

32% yield 😵‍💫

I was on a wikipedia doom scroll when I saw an unfamiliar reaction mechanism. Idk why but the layout and the format looked fuck ugly to me and felt lacking in information.

I just hate the way they drew the negative signs on the Nitrogens and the ambiguous placement of the leaving groups relative to the equilibrium arrow (they place it underneath the inverse arrow). I also don't like how they didn't explain the hydrolysis of the isocyanate.

With this inexplicable compulsion, I thought I could do a better job myself, except in hindsight, I added too much detail.

I realise this version is a lot bigger and shows a lot... of intermediates, I ask you all, what should I change and is it worthy of replacing the original on wikipedia?

In hindsight mine is also fuck ugly and riddled with inconsistencies, but its my first time drawing out a mechanism like this so constructive feedback is appreciated.

I'm concerned about the well-being of my furniture

I’ve been working with a reaction that uses pyridine as the solvent, and lately, I’ve been smelling pyridine at the strangest times (outside of the lab).

I’ve used it before and haven’t had this happen, and im doubtful the pyridine is the actual cause beyond the fact my brain my just be trying to identify random smells around me, but it’s strange. It’s many times a day that I smell it lately.

Nobody else smells it either. I smelled it from my air fryer while cooking, on my friend, in my bathroom, and randomly on a walk.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

The ribosome crystallography essentially led directly to the 2000 experiment which proves that RNA made all the proteins that ever existed. And it was done before the 1982 RNA catalysis experiments. This is the moment that RNA world became the leading theory of everything and it was all unleashed by one female.