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posted by hubie on Saturday April 23 2022, @01:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-living-through-chemistry dept.

https://crystalverse.com/copper-acetate-crystals/

When you wash copper pennies with vinegar, the pennies react with the vinegar to form a blue compound called copper (II) acetate. Now, if you let that vinegar dry, small, black crystals will be left behind in the dish. Those are copper acetate crystals.

It turns out you can grow much bigger copper acetate crystals. They are sleek, shiny, and look like pieces of polished obsidian.

[...] . In this guide, I'll share what I've learnt, and show you how you can grow your own perfect, black copper acetate crystal at home with scrap copper and vinegar.

Submitter Note: the site uses lazy-loading images, if you browse with Javascript off (and you should) then this incantation, in the browser console for the page, will convert the lazy-load images into normal image tags that are fetched and displayed as they should be:

var list = document.getElementsByTagName("img"); for (var i = 0; i<list.length; i++) { list[i].setAttribute("src",list[i].getAttribute("data-src")); }


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday April 23 2022, @06:24PM (1 child)

    by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Saturday April 23 2022, @06:24PM (#1239056) Journal

    Laser action in copper with copper acetate as a lasant (1977)

    https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1977ApPhL..31..832C/abstract [harvard.edu]

    ABSTRACT
    Laser action in copper at 5106 and 5782 Å is reported from double pulsed discharges with a new lasant, cupric acetate, at an optimum temperature of 230 °C. Several interesting laser characteristics observed as a function of temperature and delay between pulses are discussed for both transitions

    --
    Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by istartedi on Saturday April 23 2022, @08:33PM

      by istartedi (123) on Saturday April 23 2022, @08:33PM (#1239071) Journal

      I was going to ask what it could do, other than look pretty and that's usually the only answer for home-grown crystals. 230 C in some kind of home lab setup sounds a bit dicey, but just the potential of being able to build a laser with stuff you find in the kitchen is interesting. Warning: do not stare in to oven with remaining eye.

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      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @06:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @06:25PM (#1239058)

    Now, is this copper acetate the kind of crystal that gives the ethnics urban types drug users an illegal high? I can't believe they would do that. It's such a burden on the rest of us, living on the street, eating out of trash cans. Disgusting.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @09:40PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 23 2022, @09:40PM (#1239079)

    No point going to all that trouble if they don't make a good meal.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by acid andy on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:20PM (6 children)

      by acid andy (1683) on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:20PM (#1239185) Homepage Journal

      It's toxic and causes severe burns to skin and eyes.

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      error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 25 2022, @01:48PM (1 child)

        by Freeman (732) on Monday April 25 2022, @01:48PM (#1239323) Journal

        So, not much worse than Facebook, you say?

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday April 25 2022, @02:01PM

          by acid andy (1683) on Monday April 25 2022, @02:01PM (#1239330) Homepage Journal

          I'd choose most things over Farcebook, it has to be said.

          --
          error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 25 2022, @03:34PM (3 children)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday April 25 2022, @03:34PM (#1239368) Journal

        I was curious: Copper Acetate MSDS [fishersci.com]

        Acute oral toxicity Category 4
        Skin Corrosion/Irritation Category 1 B
        Serious Eye Damage/Eye Irritation Category 1
        Specific target organ toxicity (single exposure) Category 3
        Target Organs - Respiratory system.

        Fun stuff!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @05:41PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @05:41PM (#1239405)

          Ah, the chemicals they let us play with 35 years ago.
          I grew a huge, beautiful, blue cupric oxide crystal which looked to be about as toxic as the copper acetate.
          I grew also a roughly 0.5 cc reddish orange crystal of chromium trioxide. This is the nasty hexavalent chromium. The SDS for this chemical is much nastier than for the other two:

          From https://www.labchem.com/tools/msds/msds/75568.pdf [labchem.com]

          Appearance: Dark red to purple solid.
          Danger! Toxic if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Strong oxidizer. Contact with other material may cause a fire. Causes burns by all exposure routes. May cause allergic respiratory and skin reaction. Harmful if swallowed. Toxic to aquatic organisms, may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment. Cancer hazard. Possible risk of impaired fertility. May cause heritable genetic damage.
          Target Organs: Blood, kidneys, liver, lungs, respiratory system, gastrointestinal system, eyes, skin, mucous membranes.

          Nobody warned me that this chemical was particularly dangerous. Then again, this science teacher enjoyed just for the hell of it reacting magnesium strips in acid and catching the hydrogen gas that evolved into a rubber ballon, letting it rise to the ceiling, and then exploding it with a lit wooden splint taped to the end of a meter stick. That bang would get the other classes' attention. Principal's, too.

          Does it make a difference that this was in South America?

          • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 25 2022, @06:27PM (1 child)

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday April 25 2022, @06:27PM (#1239419) Journal

            Well they did it wrong then!

            It is possible to teach students how to use these chemicals, with these chemicals, while also teaching them how to read the SDS and protect themselves from the hazards.

            If they were letting you dump mercury down the drain then they were a bunch of assholes. We've know that shit's been toxic forever. (I suspect those stories are apocryphal, thankfully)

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @07:15PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @07:15PM (#1239425)

              I believe the approach to chemical disposal we used was: pour it down the drain. It's not enough to matter.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Veyrdite on Sunday April 24 2022, @01:43AM

    by Veyrdite (6386) on Sunday April 24 2022, @01:43AM (#1239128)

    Submitter Note: the site uses lazy-loading images, if you browse with Javascript off (and you should) then this incantation, in the browser console for the page, will convert the lazy-load images into normal image tags that are fetched and displayed as they should be:

    var list = document.getElementsByTagName("img"); for (var i = 0; i

    Ty. I need to write an addon that does this, so many news sites do the same.

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