Main Page

{{#description2:Naturally Occurring Widely Available Chemical Library}}

Goals

1. Produce a broad library of chemical materials which can be produced from naturally occurring and widely available materials.
2. Demonstrate the production of the chemicals in the library using only basic lab equipment
3. Produce documentation of the processes demonstrated, primarily Videos and this wiki

Upcoming Targets

Water

Pure (ish) water is an essential for life, not just chemistry. Preparing it at scale is important.

Distilling impure water gives a distillate with no dissolved solids or biological pathogens. There are compounds which form azeotropes with water, so the distillate may not be completely pure, but it will be adequate for most purposes.

Sodium Hydroxide

An important industrial chemical, sodium hydroxide is an essential building block in chemistry. We will also produce calcium hydroxide as a side product.

Ammonia

While ammonia is a major industrial chemical in itself, looking ahead to sulfuric acid production, ammonia is a required precursor to two of its catalysts, so it should come first. While the Haber process can indeed create ammonia from gaseous nitrogen, At first we will produce it from naturally occurring fixed nitrogen sources: keratin and urea.

Sulfuric Acid

It can be argued that sulfuric acid is the primary industrial chemical. For the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, measuring a nation's sulfuric acid production was a good indicator of their degree of industrialization.

via catalysis

There are three catalytic ways to produce sulfuric acid from sulfur dioxide, They differ in the oxidation catalyst used, which can be chosen based on what materials are at hand.

1. Contact Process In 2020, most industrially produced sulfuric acid is produced by the contact process. Unfortunately this requires catalysts made of somewhat rare materials, usually platinum or vanadium pentoxide. It is also done at high temperatures. While this is not impossible on the benchtop, we will seek a more accessible way.
2. Copper Chloride Producing sulfuric acid via the copper chloride process requires copper chloride. Since copper chloride is not naturally occurring (except in very rare circumstances) we will first need to produce that, which will require ammonium chloride produced by the Solvay process.
3. Nitrogen oxides Producing sulfuric acid via the chamber process requires nitric oxide (or nitric acid). Since neither of those is naturally occurring, they must be produced from ammonia via the Ostwald process.

FAQ

1. What is NOWA-CL?

   NOWA stands for Naturally Occurring Widely Available. The CL stands for Chemical Library. This project is about documenting the technological steps involved in developing a library of chemical compounds that can be made with simple equipment from materials that are naturally occurring and widely available. There's no need to order chemicals from supply houses, or obtain them from over-the-counter products. Once a chemical has been produced in quantity from naturally occurring widely available sources, we add it to our "library". Then we can use that material to produce new materials. The important part is to demonstrate that they can be produced from these sources with minimal equipment: what the chemical industry refers to as "small-scale", "benchtop" or "laboratory" synthesis.
   The documentary part of this project will include two main products: the text on this wiki and the videos on YouTube.
   

2. So it's a recipe book where people can learn how to make chemicals?

   Definitely not. See the warning on our front page. Chemistry equipment can be dangerous by itself. Many materials (including the ones we work with here) are dangerous: toxic, flammable, corrosive, etc. These operations should not be repeated or reproduced except by people who are sufficiently qualified and equipped to do that work and handle the materials safely.
   

3. Isn't there a kind of chicken-and-egg problem? What is your equipment made of?

   That's a good point. We assume that the equipment itself (glassware, supports, heat sources, etc) are available at the beginning. The equipment itself may not be naturally occurring, but it's widely available, accessible, and relatively cheap. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate that the process is the important part, not the chemicals you start with. It's the knowledge, not the resources, that enable the science.
   

4. There are already too many wikis out there. Why start a new one? (aka Why not just put this information in Wikipedia?)
   1. Aggregating and disseminating this information was the purpose of this project, and wikis are an excellent way to do both of those things, so that part is straightforward.
   2. Wikipedia is specifically not a textbook, guidebook, or instruction manual. That means it isn't appropriate to build out those entries with much of the data in this wiki. To whatever degree it makes sense for both projects, sharing of data is welcomed and encouraged. NB: A lot of the numeric data in this wiki comes directly from either Wikipedia or its underlying sources.

WARNING

ANY pursuit can be dangerous to the unprepared, unequipped, or incautious. That is definitely the case with the reactions, extractions, and syntheses this project entails. Do not perform them unless you are sufficiently informed, prepared, equipped and cautious to handle these materials and safely do the work shown.

Find us online

---

Home Video index