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Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.

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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by rbhawk   » Fri Dec 19, 2014 7:29 am

rbhawk
Midshipman

Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 6:39 am

I do not know much about the history of chemistry but would it be possible for someone in the circle to "discover" the periodic table?
I think it would make the job of chemists not in the circle a lot easier.
Not to mention that it would advance the scientific method a lot.

Does someone with a chemistry background know if this is possible and which discoveries are still needed before we can have our mendeljev discover it?
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by Draken   » Fri Dec 19, 2014 9:42 am

Draken
Commander

Posts: 199
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2014 12:58 pm

rbhawk wrote:I do not know much about the history of chemistry but would it be possible for someone in the circle to "discover" the periodic table?
I think it would make the job of chemists not in the circle a lot easier.
Not to mention that it would advance the scientific method a lot.

Does someone with a chemistry background know if this is possible and which discoveries are still needed before we can have our mendeljev discover it?

We only know very few elements, in time of Mendelejev periodic table, they knew something around 70% of them. Also they had equations needed for calculating mass of elements. First we need a lot of equations to be discovered before we can push further.
We nim Paoloni and Bohr to appear, before we can create that thing, also we need Descartes so we could push mathematic and equations much further. Without him we can't solve more complicated equations.
Something similar to this:
{5x-2=y^2-3
{2y-6=xy-1
^I don't know if that equation is correct but I wanted only example. We could easily solve it, cus we have knowledge how to do it, on Safehold they don't have that knowledge.
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by Captain Igloo   » Fri Dec 19, 2014 12:19 pm

Captain Igloo
Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 269
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 4:02 pm

Draken wrote:
rbhawk wrote:I do not know much about the history of chemistry but would it be possible for someone in the circle to "discover" the periodic table?
I think it would make the job of chemists not in the circle a lot easier.
Not to mention that it would advance the scientific method a lot.

Does someone with a chemistry background know if this is possible and which discoveries are still needed before we can have our mendeljev discover it?

We only know very few elements, in time of Mendelejev periodic table, they knew something around 70% of them. Also they had equations needed for calculating mass of elements. First we need a lot of equations to be discovered before we can push further.
We nim Paoloni and Bohr to appear, before we can create that thing, also we need Descartes so we could push mathematic and equations much further. Without him we can't solve more complicated equations.
Something similar to this:
{5x-2=y^2-3
{2y-6=xy-1
^I don't know if that equation is correct but I wanted only example. We could easily solve it, cus we have knowledge how to do it, on Safehold they don't have that knowledge.


Hmmmm, John Daltons atomic theory, maybe?
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by Randomiser   » Fri Dec 19, 2014 3:44 pm

Randomiser
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1452
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2012 2:41 pm
Location: Scotland

Draken wrote:
rbhawk wrote:I do not know much about the history of chemistry but would it be possible for someone in the circle to "discover" the periodic table?
I think it would make the job of chemists not in the circle a lot easier.
Not to mention that it would advance the scientific method a lot.

Does someone with a chemistry background know if this is possible and which discoveries are still needed before we can have our mendeljev discover it?

We only know very few elements, in time of Mendelejev periodic table, they knew something around 70% of them. Also they had equations needed for calculating mass of elements. First we need a lot of equations to be discovered before we can push further.
We nim Paoloni and Bohr to appear, before we can create that thing, also we need Descartes so we could push mathematic and equations much further. Without him we can't solve more complicated equations.
Something similar to this:
{5x-2=y^2-3
{2y-6=xy-1
^I don't know if that equation is correct but I wanted only example. We could easily solve it, cus we have knowledge how to do it, on Safehold they don't have that knowledge.


I'm not so sure, the head of the royal college is studying Newton's Principia Mathematica and may have published it by now.
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by jgnfld   » Fri Dec 19, 2014 7:22 pm

jgnfld
Captain of the List

Posts: 468
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2013 9:55 am

Draken wrote:
rbhawk wrote:... Without him we can't solve more complicated equations.
Something similar to this:
{5x-2=y^2-3
{2y-6=xy-1
^I don't know if that equation is correct but I wanted only example. We could easily solve it, cus we have knowledge how to do it, on Safehold they don't have that knowledge.


One real solution:
> x <- 3.21076
> y <- -4.12963
> 5*x-2
[1] 14.0538
> y^2-3
[1] 14.0538
> 2*y-6
[1] -14.25926
> x*y-1
[1] -14.25925

2 complex solutions exist as well.
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by AirTech   » Fri Dec 19, 2014 8:21 pm

AirTech
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Posts: 476
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 4:37 am
Location: Deeeep South (Australia) (most of the time...)

Captain Igloo wrote:
fleadermouse wrote:SNIP
Finally back to the Acids, yes they can be made in other ways like mixing halogens and nonmetal oxides with water but you have to make the chlorine etc. first. All industrial acids can be made from concentrated sulfuric which is most commonly manufactured as a byproduct from electrolytic separation of metals in areas that have lots of cheap electricity like the Tennessee Vally River Authority.

Without electricity Large Scale production of acids is very expensive and dangerous.

Sulfuric acid production is the backbone of the chemicals industry it is used in countless processes and without it the entire industry grinds to a halt.


In the 19th century the Lead Chamber process was a well known and understood process for producing sulfuric acid. The process starts with hot sulfur dioxide gas entering the bottom of a reactor called a Glover tower where it is washed with nitrous vitriol (sulfuric acid with nitric oxide, NO, and nitrogen dioxide, NO2, dissolved in it) and mixed with nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide gases. The Glover tower serves two functions; concentration of the chamber acid and stripping of nitrogen oxides from the liquid to the gas or denitration. Concentration of the chamber acid (62% to 68% H2SO4) is achieved by the hot gases entering the tower which evaporate water from the acid. Some of the sulfur dioxide is oxidized to sulfur trioxide and dissolved in the acid wash to form tower acid or Glover acid (about 78% H2SO4). The dissolved nitrogen oxides are stripped from the acid and carried with the gas out of the Glover tower into the lead chambers.

From the Glover tower a mixture of gases (including sulfur dioxide and trioxide, nitrogen oxides, nitrogen, oxygen, and steam) is transferred to a lead-lined chamber where it is reacted with more water. The chamber may be a large, boxlike room or an enclosure in the form of a truncated cone. Sulfuric acid is formed by a complex series of reactions; it condenses on the walls and collects on the floor of the chamber. There may be from three to twelve chambers in a series; the gases pass through each in succession. The acid produced in the chambers, often called chamber acid or fertilizer acid, contains 62% to 68% H2SO4. Both types of acids could be concentrated by heating to 93% H2SO4.

And if catalytic chemistry is available (and accepted) there is also the contact process. The process
was first patented in 1831, but in spite of the obvious advantages of the contact process over chamber plants for the production of high strength sulfuric acid and oleum used for dyes and nitrocellulose (smokeless powder), the commercial development of the process was extremely slow. Chemical technology of the time, especially involving catalytic reactions, was limited.


Elemental sulfur occurs naturally and as it is a component of gunpowder, a significant supply would be to hand...
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by Captain Igloo   » Fri Dec 19, 2014 8:45 pm

Captain Igloo
Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 269
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 4:02 pm

AirTech wrote: BIG SNIPPPPPP

Elemental sulfur occurs naturally and as it is a component of gunpowder, a significant supply would be to hand...


Miles (see below) provided an example of the catalyst type of plant built in the US during that early period with a description of a plant built in 1918 for the Government at Nitro, West Virginia. It was a wartime rush job and did not include regenerative converters but it did include more combustion gas scrubbing apparatus than would normally be included to permit possible operation with pyrite instead of sulfur. Platinum (platinized asbestos) was the catalyst. The acid was required for the production of 300 tons per day of smokeless powder. The plant consisted of seven units of four trains each, or a total of 28 individual trains. Each train had a capacity of 16 tons per day of sulfur trioxide, or about 20 tons of acid per day. The total building floor space required was about 300,000 sq. ft., or nearly seven acres, for a total acid production of about 550 tons per day. The trains were laid out in almost straight lines and one group of four trains required a plot area about 190 ft. wide by about 425 ft. long.

This plant installation, although larger than most, was generally typical of the type of equipment and size of the individual trains which made up the plant. It was, however, a wartime emergency installation and was dismantled some time prior to 1925. A sulfuric acid plant installation list of about 1920 showed there were acid plans at 228 locations in the United States and that contact type plants were at 53 of these locations, the balance were chamber type.

Source: "Manufacture of Sulfuric Acid (Contact Process)" by F. D. Miles, 1925 by Gurney and Jackson, Great Britain
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Sat Dec 20, 2014 12:04 am

fallsfromtrees
Vice Admiral

Posts: 1960
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:51 am
Location: Mesa, Arizona

Draken wrote:
rbhawk wrote:I do not know much about the history of chemistry but would it be possible for someone in the circle to "discover" the periodic table?
I think it would make the job of chemists not in the circle a lot easier.
Not to mention that it would advance the scientific method a lot.

Does someone with a chemistry background know if this is possible and which discoveries are still needed before we can have our mendeljev discover it?

We only know very few elements, in time of Mendelejev periodic table, they knew something around 70% of them. Also they had equations needed for calculating mass of elements. First we need a lot of equations to be discovered before we can push further.
We nim Paoloni and Bohr to appear, before we can create that thing, also we need Descartes so we could push mathematic and equations much further. Without him we can't solve more complicated equations.
Something similar to this:
{5x-2=y^2-3
{2y-6=xy-1
^I don't know if that equation is correct but I wanted only example. We could easily solve it, cus we have knowledge how to do it, on Safehold they don't have that knowledge.

Neils Bohr lived long after Mendeleev, so we don't need him. We actually don't know how many elements are actually known to SafeHold. They do know about many of the elements, we have textev for gold, silver, iron, tin, copper, zinc, nickel, antimony, mercury, phosphorous, lead, sulphur. We don't know if they have identified coke or charcoal as carbon, nor do we know if they have realized that air is a mixture of gases. Given the advanced nature of Pascal's laws, I suspect that iodine is known. If Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Florine have not been identified as separate elements, it is going to be difficult to even start a periodic table as those are the elements in the first row.

This may well be too few to create the periodic table, particularly if Hydrogen is no known as a separate element.
========================

The only problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't authenticate them -- Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by fleadermouse   » Mon Dec 22, 2014 1:38 am

fleadermouse
Lieutenant Commander

Posts: 136
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:45 pm

Chlorine is very easy to make if you have HCl. If you want to try it sometime just goto lowes and by a gallon of muratic acid which about 11.5 M HCl and mix it with any type of chlorine bleach liquid or solid. Just be careful it makes chlorine oxides as well which can become unstable and blow up and of course all the gasses will kill you most painfully. That's why all the pool products say do not mix.

I am not saying that any of ideas presented in this thread are impossible but most of you are overlooking the details that cause plants to blow up. In most ways safehold is not at late 19th early 20th century tech.

I have been lucky enough that my errors have never gotten anyone seriously injured. But I am telling you from personal experience that tiny tiny variations in many variables have huge consequences in the petrochem industry.

Also the idea that if it's not forbidden then it is ok is exactly the opposite of safehold's culture the archangels did there best to instill the concept of if it is not expressly accepted then it is forbidden.
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Re: Chemistry and misc. stuff concerning it.
Post by fleadermouse   » Mon Dec 22, 2014 1:46 am

fleadermouse
Lieutenant Commander

Posts: 136
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:45 pm

Safehold in general does not understand the concept of the element they see gold, silver, iron, etc as substances, but I see no indication of any understanding of what an element is from a chemistry point of view. Certainly not from a repeating cyclic point of view with respect to atomic mass.

You also need to be able to measure and discuss electric charges to develop this concept.
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