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Chemical Reactions General Chemistry

A short guide to different arrows in chemistry

What do the various different arrows used by chemists all mean? That’s the question this short summary graphic aims to answer, by highlighting the most common arrows encountered in chemistry lessons and textbooks and giving a brief explanation of their use with examples.

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Chemical Reactions

Making silver mirrors using chemistry

This week I was lucky enough to be sent a silvered bottle, shown in the graphic, by Andres Tretiakov. If you’re a chemist you’ll already be familiar with the chemical reaction used to produce this effect, but if you’re not you might be wondering how it’s accomplished. Though sadly it’s not one that can be […]

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Chemical Reactions

The Tin Hedgehog Experiment

Here’s the start of a new series of collaborations with MEL Science, looking at a number of fun chemistry experiments and the explanations behind them. Today’s initial offering looks at how zinc pellets can be transformed into tin hedgehogs with some simple chemistry. Click through to the MEL Science site to see the experiment and […]

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Chemical Reactions

Chemical Reactions: Lead Iodide & ‘Golden Rain’

Kicking off an occasional new series of graphics with today’s post, which’ll be looking at common chemical reactions encountered in schools. Today kicks off with one of my favourite reactions, the ‘Golden Rain’ demonstration, which involves the synthesis and recrystallisation of lead (II) iodide, and is commonly used to illustrate the recrystallisation process, as well […]

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Chemical Reactions

Chemical Reactions Posters – Part II

Here’s the second part of the Chemical Reactions posters, this time featuring condensation, hydrolysis, displacement, oxidation, and reduction reactions. Click the image above to enlarge and read the text, or, as previously, I’ve included the text separately in the post below. Print-friendly versions are again available to download at the foot of the page.

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Chemical Reactions

Chemical Reactions Posters – Part I

Recently, some of my classes have been revising types of chemical reactions, which inevitably set me thinking about how to represent them visually in an easy to understand way. These are the first few posters I’ve come up with – each has a large icon representative of the reaction type, as well as a short […]