Tag: chemistry

Coke & Diet Coke – Fact & Fiction

Coke & Diet Coke: The Facts and the Fiction

Coke & Diet Coke – Fact & Fiction
Click to enlarge

Over the past week, you may well have seen a couple of graphics purporting to explain the effect that drinking a can of Coke or Diet Coke has on your body. They’ve been picked up by a range of online news and media sites, and as a result circulated widely. Unfortunately, although some of the information contained in them is correct, a lot of it is sensationalised, hyperbolic, or just plain wrong. This graphic is an attempt to sort the fact from the fiction, and give a clearer picture of what’s going on when you drink a can of Coke.

Read more
The Elemental Compositions of Metal Alloys Aug 15

The Elemental Compositions of Metal Alloys

The Elemental Compositions of Metal Alloys Aug 15
Click to enlarge

Today’s post looks at an aspect of chemistry we come across every day: alloys. Alloys make up parts of buildings, transport, coins, and plenty of other objects in our daily lives. But what are the different alloys we use made up of, and why do we use them instead of elemental metals? The graphic answers the first of these questions, and in the post we’ll try and answer the second.

Read more
Aroma Chemistry – The Smell of Toilets and Human Waste

The Chemistry of the Smell of Toilets & Human Waste

Aroma Chemistry – The Smell of Toilets and Human Waste
Click to enlarge

Today’s post marks a slight detour for the aroma chemistry series. So far, we’ve look mainly at pleasant aromas, but today we turn to a major malodour: that of toilets, and, more specifically, human waste. It might seem like something of a childish subject, but there are some interesting chemical compounds present in the materials we expel from our bodies. There are are also reasons to examine these compounds, as we’ll discover.

Read more
A Guide to Chemical Hazard Symbols

A Guide to Chemical Hazard Symbols

A Guide to Chemical Hazard Symbols
Click to enlarge

Back to some chemistry basics for today’s post, with a look at the nine different hazard symbols commonly used to warn of chemical dangers. These symbols are frequently encountered in the lab – and also on some household products – and whilst some are self-explanatory, others can require a little more in the way of explanation, which is what this graphic aims to do.

Read more

Mass spectrometry and a guide to interpreting mass spectra

Infographic on interpreting mass spectra. A simple overview of how mass spectrometers work is provided, then a number of possible ion fragments, with their masses, are highlighted.
Click to enlarge

For the fourth in the analytical chemistry series, we turn to mass spectrometry. So far, we’ve looked at how chemists can determine the presence of particular bonds present in molecules with infrared spectroscopy, and how they can gain information about the structure of molecules using hydrogen and carbon nuclear magnetic resonance. Mass spectrometry allows us to measure the masses of atoms and molecules, and also obtain information about their chemical structure.

Read more