Skip to main content

Unanswered Questions

851 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
10 votes
1 answer
328 views

Why are IUPAC's definitions of exo- and endothermic disconnected from the direction of heat flow?

I'm wondering if anyone can provide a rationale for IUPAC's definitions of exothermic and endothermic since they disconnect these terms from the direction of heat flow. Specifically, here are IUPAC's ...
9 votes
1 answer
116 views

Will the sulfur-iodine cycle and Haber Method work at lower pressures and temperatures?

I have a year-long research project next year in my senior year of high school, in which we have to make some product or prototype to solve some issue. My interest was in the Liquid Fluoride ...
8 votes
0 answers
266 views

Does water really have strong EM absorption at 3 kHz in solid and 2 GHz in liquid? Why the huge shift?

While writing this answer to the question Transmitter receiver coil separation for Electromagnetic Terrain Conductivity Measurement I ran across this large PDF file of a book Soil and Environmental ...
7 votes
0 answers
183 views

Why does entropy increase in reactions that make more molecules?

I used to understand this (more molecules ⇒ more degrees of freedom), but do no longer, because the total number of atoms is conserved, so translational d.o.f. should just be turned into internal d.o....
7 votes
0 answers
198 views

How does the accumulation of hydrogen bonds affect individual bond strength?

I saw the question, "Is the strength of hydrogen bonding greater in hydrogen peroxide or water?" and it made me think of a question on hydrogen bonding: If an oxygen on a water has a ...
7 votes
0 answers
667 views

Dry water using graphite

Dry water or "powdered water" is essentially a bunch of extremely small water droplets surrounded by $\ce{SiO2}$. Some time ago, I was messing around and mixed some powdered graphite with water. (The ...
6 votes
0 answers
82 views

Do "pseudo Van der Waals" gases exist?

In college, when deriving the Langmuir isotherm for gas-solid adsorption, the professor proposed a modified version of the Van der Waals state equation, what he called the "pseudo Van der Waals ...
6 votes
0 answers
164 views

Why is supersaturated sodium acetate so (meta)stable?

Sodium acetate is a common example used in general chemistry lectures to illustrate the idea of supersaturation, and that precipitation of a supersaturated solution can be initiated by a seed crystal. ...
6 votes
0 answers
428 views

Why is there preferential adsorption of a common ion during preparation of colloids by peptization?

There was a similar question asked here on Chem SE, but the answer was not very satisfactory to me, so I am asking a fresh question. Peptization is the process of creating a colloid from a precipitate ...
6 votes
0 answers
206 views

Why is the reverse aldol cleavage of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate highly endergonic under standard conditions?

I have another question similar to this one. I just don't have intuition for why reactions are thermodynamically favorable or unfavorable and I'd like to build it. This time I'd like to ask about ...
6 votes
1 answer
197 views

Understanding elementary rate laws from a probability stand point

I am learning about chemical kinetics and dynamics and as I understand for a general chemical reaction $$\ce{aA + bB -> cC + dD} $$ whose reaction rate, r, can be described by an elementary rate ...
6 votes
0 answers
614 views

Thermophysical properties of liquid Galden LS 230 between 25 °C and 230 °C

I'm looking for thermophysical properties of Galden LS 230, a liquid polymer (PFPE) produced by Solvay (https://www.solvay.com/en/markets-and-products/featured-products/Galden.html) at temperatures ...
6 votes
0 answers
322 views

Conductivity measurements of demineralized water - Unexpected results. Looking for explanation

I'm trying to measure the conductivity change of demineralized water over a few days. But I get results I can't explain. Setup This is the circuit and cell I'm using: Where $R_x$ is the ...
6 votes
0 answers
2k views

How to dissolve slime jelly?

Suppose I have a small kid that had two cans of slime jelly (a Jelly made of water, glycerin, thickeners, dispersant, flavorings and pigments). And that two cans were inside a backpack, and somehow ...
6 votes
0 answers
207 views

I found transition states (TS), but calculations aren't supported by experiment. Do I look for more TSs or somewhere else?

I'm using Gaussian to investigate a catalyst system. Experimental evidence showed that one of three analogues (R = phenyl, Ph), yielded a benzosultam when treated with 2,4,6-...

15 30 50 per page
1
2 3 4 5
57