I. When SWIM was fourteen (14) years old, an age at which all sorts of mischeif seems to occur in the human male, SWIM was making murcury fulminate Hg(ONC)2 which is a common primary explosive many at that age try to make (generally successfully, as it is an easy synthesis for a young chemist). What can SWIM say, he was interested in chemistry, and explosives are a given for a boy that age.
Anyway, if SWIM's memory serves him well, and it might not since that was 12 to 14 years ago, the reaction looks something like this:
Hg + 2HNO3 ----->
Hg(NO3)2 + H2 + NO2 + HNO3 (excess)
Hg(NO3)2 + C2H5OH + HNO3 ----->
Hg(ONC)2 + 2CO2 + H2O
NOTICE: SWIM DIDN'T TAKE THE TIME TO BALENCE THIS EQUATION AND IS NOT EVEN SURE IF THOSE ARE THE CORRECT REACTION BYPRODUCTS. THAT PORTION OF THE POST IS NOT IMPORTANT TO THE STORY!!! BY THE WAY, SWIM's NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION ABOUT EXPLOSIVES THAT ARE NOT ALREADY KNOWN BY EVERY 12 YEAR OLD CHEM ENTHUSIAST.
Anyway, that experiment and the production of Cyclonite (CycloTrimethylenetrinitramine [sp?]), the secondary explosive in C-4 plastique explosives won him several felonies and caused him to lose interest in chemistry until just about a year ago.
Anyway, here's his big snafu. When the reaction was really moving along in a glass jar of about 2 gallons it overflowed. Oh course SWIM was smart. He scaled up for an exothermic reaction!!! He was doing whatever it is he did back then but diddn't notice. To make a long story short, when he tried to lift the jar with the mercury fulminate in it he hadn't noticed that a great deal of this very volitile, shock-sensitive explosive had dried beneath the heavy glass tea jar with indented grooves on the bottom. He tried to lift it and FLASH!!! Yep, an explosion occurred. He had glass everywhere. He's lucky only a small amount actually made it's way out of the jar and dried or he'd be dead. Anyway, thankfully the shock wasn't enough to set off the fulminate in the alcohol solution or half his garage would have had SWI-Moriarty splatterings all over it.
I don't know if this really fits in this forum but it was a definate lab mistake that cost him
!
II. SWIM aminated some ketone last year. He came out with nothing. He recalculated the amount of 5% NaOH solution he added to basify for his A/B extraction and realized that he didn't add enough to get the pH above 7, meaning he threw all his honey away. Save everything until your finished bees, that mistake hurt SWIM in amazing ways (he needed the money)!
Who wants to play cops and dope fiends?