[P-man]

What cand I do with the following chemicals:

methylene chloride
pentaerythritol
asphaltum
boric acid
cobalt carbonate
iron oxide
manganese dioxide
zinc sulphate

Thanks I want to buy these off ebay but I want to know what I can do with them first. Remember that I have a couple of basic chemicals and sulphuric acid. Chemicals include sodium carbonate, copper sulphate, etc.

[green-goblin]

Just wondering, If you don't know what you can do with them at the moment, why pick those ones in particular to buy? or is that all the ones thay sell. You can clean your KBr plates wicked with the DCM.

[billnotgatez]

Looks many of these chemicals are used in paints and pigments.

[P-man]

They're the ones I can get on ebay within my price range.

[woelen]

Cobalt carbonate is an interesting one. Dissolving it in acid gives you cobalt (II) salts. With these many interesting experiments can be done. Cobalt is known for its extremely rich coordination chemistry. Have a look at "Werner's complexes" at google.

You can also make cobalt chloride, by dissolving in HCl and then carefully heating to dryness. What remains is a light blue powder of anhydrous cobalt chloride. Useful for many experiments (e.g. dissolves pink in water, deep blue in concentrated HCl and gives a temperature dependent and reversible color with 10% HCl).