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Discussion of the WikiProject Chemistry
Please add your comment and discussion here. Older discussions are archived.

  • Archive 1: Discussion completed by the end of May 2005.
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This discussion page is about the Chemistry project itself, for detailed, in-depth discussions about specific topics, you'd be best served at the talk page of the specific subject, e.g., Chemicals, Chemical infoboxes, etc. There is also an image request page which might be of interest to you.

Chemical composition

This article is just two sentences and has been for four years! Clearly it should either be made more definitive or merged into something else. Ant ideas? --Bduke 09:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

We have Empirical formula, which is the same subject and more in-detail. Dr Zak 20:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Experts required

Hey folks. Just want to make sure you're aware of this page: Category:Pages needing expert attention from Chemistry experts. Cool? Cool. :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by BradBeattie (talk • contribs) 08:57, 25 November 2006.

Monthly Review

Perhaps it would be a good idea also, to have a few people or a group go over articles which are of interest, and mark them up on the assessment scale, changing the status each month. This would make it a lot easier to see the improvement of articles, right? James S 17:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, today I was surfing around and many articles are not rated at all in any way. I would gladly give a hand there Knights who say ni 17:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd love to do it. Anyone interested in setting up how we're going to do this? It'd be a great idea to be able to get some form of "Team" set up, and a date it's going to start each month? I wouldn't mind doing it. JCraw 13:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Chemistry

WikiProject Chemistry would like to see this portal attain featured status. If you have any tips, tricks or suggestions, please feel free to add them here! Thanks, riana_dzasta 06:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Special:Chemicalsources, template:ChemicalSources and external links

To address a larger group of chemists I will also post here, I have posted a mesage on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Chemicals#Special:chemicalsources.2C template:chemicalsources and external links on the given page. I would like to hear comments. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra 12:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Uncategorised biochemistry stubs?

I notice there's a lot of biochemistry stubs with no "permanent" categories at all. If there's anyone working on categorisation (or wishing to) would it be useful to have these placed in a "maintenance" category? Or likewise, chemistry-related stubs more generally? Alai 14:18, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Assessment on reaction rate and other physical chemistry articles

As you may have probably noticed I am editing a bit more nowadays and I feel I could compromise with the Wiki Project Chemistry. Right now my question is one of the proposed goals is having 10 worthy physical chemistry articles, i think reaction rate is one of them, at least from the importance point of view, and could take assessment (and constructive critic). chemical kinetics certainly is a major topic and needs a full rewrite but i don't feel ready to do that, maybe later when some more surrounding articles (methods, approximations...) are present. Knights who say ni 23:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I might jump on board in December. --HappyCamper 15:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Taking a look at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Chemistry/Worklist#Physical_chemistry_topics, I see we have reaction rate constant but not reaction rate. I see that the former (tagged as a stub) now redirects to a MUCH better article at the latter name, so I am changing this listing. Regarding an assessment, my comments (I'm an organic chemist who struggled with P-Chem!) are that (a) more references are needed and (b) there should be a bit more introductory explanation for a high school student. After the short opening paragraph, currently you only have to go four lines into the article before the differential equations start up - couldn't we explain a bit about why rate is important, and some conceptually simpler descriptions of the topic. Those equations definitely belong in there, but remember that the people reading this article may only have a minimal knowledge of things like calculus.
We expanded the P-Chem listings beyond just ten, as you can see; chemical kinetics is considered so fundamental we included it in the basic concepts on the proposed worklist. Good luck with your work, we really appreciate you fixing up these important topics. Walkerma 21:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
What do people think needs to be done about PChem articles (a lot, obviously, but where do we start?) I am willing to work on Pseudo first order conditions and Steady state approximation over Christmas, as these two seem essential to an experimental approach to the determination of rate constants. Other suggestions? Physchim62 (talk) 13:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Chemical element symbol templates

I noticed that there are over 100 (1 for each element!) chemical element symbol templates. Since these templates can't be substituted anyway (they contain ParserFunctions) I created a universal template, {{ce}}. To use this template with a link to the element, you can enter {{ce|element name|number of atoms|charge|atomic mass}}. To use this template without a link to the element, you can enter {{ce|element symbol|number of atoms|charge|atomic mass}}.. Thus, 

:{{ce|nitrogen|2|+|14}}
:{{ce|n|2|+|14}}

creates:

Template:Ce
Template:Ce

I hope that this is useful, figured I'd post about this here. Nihiltres 17:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Aldol reaction as FAC

Aldol reaction is up for featured article status here, the first attempt at a major organic reaction. My personal view is that it still needs work doing on it, but I would like to encourage other chemists (especially organic specialists) to get involved. Physchim62 (talk) 18:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Also see Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Chemistry#Aldol reaction on FAC further up. :-) Dr Zak 20:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Scientific citations

Would your WikiProject like to endorse Misplaced Pages:Scientific citation guidelines? If so, please let those editors at that guideline know. --ScienceApologist 19:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Stylesheet for reaction schemes

Is there any style sheet for reaction schemes around, i.e. preferred settings for bond lengths, fonts etcetera in Chemdraw, preferred colors for reaction partners, that sort of thing? What settings are others using? Dr Zak 20:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Take a look here: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Chemistry/Structure_drawing_workgroup. --Rifleman 82 23:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

In summary, we debated a lot of possibilities, and settled on using standard ACS settings as found in J. Org. Chem. See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines for all sorts of guidelines. If you need more specific help, please ask. Walkerma 02:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Phosphorene needs attention

Phosphorene recently survived an WP:AFD deletion attempt. The article needs help. 165.189.91.148 21:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Might take a look at the molecule HCCP...probably better to redirect. --HappyCamper 22:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

C6H

The DiacetyleneC4H2, Triacetylene C6H2 are realities in chemistry I can life with, but strange astro-chemists finding the negative charged C6H is hard to get, but still possible and the paper gives a good background to this findings.

But the neutral C6H starts to kill my mind. The sextet on two of the carbons or even better the charged mesomeric form are hard to get.

The reaction takes place in a DC glow charge at reduced pressure starting from acetylene which would make hydrogen available in the mixture. The only stable endpoint for the molecule would be Triacetylene C6H2 which would be fine with me. So has anybody a good suggestion what to do with the article and the cited source?--Stone 11:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you doubting the conclusions of the Astrophysical Journal article? It doesn't seem implausible to me that under harsh conditions (I'm not sure what a "DC glow charge" is, but I'm willing to bet it's very high energy) of the experiment, exotic things like C6H and C6H will be formed. No one is going to put C6H in a bottle, but it only needs to exist transiently to be observed using spectroscopy before being converted to triacetylene. My question is, can anyone come up with a proper name for C6H? --Ed (Edgar181) 12:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Hexatriynyl radical, perhaps. MikeParker 13:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

In previous article it is described a little bit better what they observe and what they have in their low pressure atmosphere. It is a radical. The radical can be dislocated over some of the π-bonds and is stabilized. This makes it more likely and a little bit better to understand. This chemical is unstable and will never be available in bulk for spectroskopy in gasphase the situation is different.--Stone 13:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hexatriynyl would indeed be the systematic name. We would accept diacetylene for C4H2 under our "virtually universally used names" rules, and triacetylene for the trimer as well I don't doubt. The Astrophys. J. article is not available without a subscription, which should be noted: the abstract is available here. Physchim62 (talk) 15:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
In case anyone's curious, what sparked me to write that article was a blog entry at . I read it and went "that's a weird molecule," so tried to find out more about it on Misplaced Pages. Since I couldn't find more about it in a quick search and didn't want to mess around with using a blog entry as a source (even though IMO Centauri Dreams is quite a good science blog as these things go), I figured the cited abstract was enough for a simple "this thing exists" stub. I'm already learning more now. :) Bryan 16:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
For a chemist working with real molecules it is always hard to step over the boarder into the undiscovered land of radical , low pressure and deep temperature chemistry. The molecules detected in the near vacuum enviroment are sometimes not stable under normal conditions and therfor hard to synthesis. These radicals have a high chance of polymerisation if concentration is high enough. What I especially like on the article in ApJ is that they tried to do the messurments also as an experiment and not like most of the time only by a simulated spectra.--Stone 17:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I saw this post and thought I'd add a structure to the page (totally out of character for me!). Considering the proposed name, are we talking about what I've drawn below?

The structure of the hexatriynyl radical

At the moment, the article name is a bit cryptic. Ben 17:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That's the radical. We can add that to the article. The anion is the analogue to ethyne without one of the H's. I've looked that the article from Astrophysics - it refers specifically to identification of the species C6H. Also, in JCP, it looks like two ab initio studies were done in the early 1990s. But that was for the radical species. Adding this stuff there. --HappyCamper 17:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Trioxin

This article is a clear state for deletion. I found nothing except some e-bay pages. This chemical seams to be a hoax. The living death and the others can play with it but for a chemistry page it lacks the information.--Stone 17:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I prodded it. JCP doesn't have anything on it either. --HappyCamper 18:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I just did a Chemical Abstracts search, which turned up no mention of "trioxin" in the chemical literature. Unless trioxin is a rarely-used synonym, it's probably not real. Maybe the author of trioxin meant trioxane, or more specifically 1,3,5-trioxane, which hydrolyzes in water to form formaldehyde, which is used for tissue preservation, and might therefore be used by moriticians. --Ed (Edgar181) 18:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
NIST names the compound (here), it is indeed, as Edgar181 is saying, a synonym for 1,3,5-trioxane. I'll create a redirect (thereby deleting the deletion template). --Dirk Beetstra 19:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Adding to this, the trioxin framework seems to come up in many pubchem compounds (then mainly the 1,2,4-isomer). Maybe my redirecting was to quick .. --Dirk Beetstra 19:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio - Coordination number

There's a copyvio at this article. The material is taken from the Organometallic Hypertextbook at http://www.ilpi.com/organomet/coordnum.html. I didn't tag it as {{copyvio}} because that will cause the article to be deleted in a week. However, it does need to be rewritten. Any takers? --Rifleman 82 02:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The edits with copyrighted edits need to be removed; I just did that. --HappyCamper 04:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I actually removed the edits from the page history instead of blanking them , so they are only visible to admins now. The cut and paste section was a paragraph from Rifleman's link entitled "Determining Coordination Number". --HappyCamper 22:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Phenols

In article Phenols it is stated that "phenols have unique properties and are not classified as alcohols", but whole Category:Phenols is located within Category:Alcohols. It shouldn't be like that, should it? 83.12.106.50 10:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I really don't think it should be like this. They both have -OH groups all right, but they behave very very differently. --HappyCamper 13:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I snipped the relationships here. Well, maybe we need a category of "organic compounds with OH groups", but sounds sort of clumsy. --HappyCamper 13:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I don't agree that phenols are not classified as alcohols. Clearly they have some chemical properties different from other alcohols, but why aren't they alcohols? --Ed (Edgar181) 13:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe a bit of ignorance on my part, but I've never considered a phenol an alcohol because they behave so differently except that they have -OH groups. I restored it with a little comment :-) What is the definition of an alcohol in IUPAC anyway? Just anything that has an OH group? In that sense a phenol is an alcohol, but this ruffles me very much I must say!! :-) --HappyCamper 14:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, i think that IUPAC defines it similarly due to it's Hydroxyl group-- not much of a problem though, because IUPAC nomenclature doesnt really include anything which gives information about the properties of compounds, just their structure. Still, i don't think it's a just naming convention, they should expand it. J O R D A N  14:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The introduction to alcohol gives a definition that is consistent with your view, HappyCamper. It excludes phenols - it narrows the definition to -OH being bound to "an alkyl or substituted alkyl group". So I guess we should find a source (IUPAC or other) that we can refer to and then make whatever corrections necessary to make our articles and categories consistent with it (and with each other). --Ed (Edgar181) 14:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I've checked all the chemistry books I have and all of them threat alcohols and phenols as two separate groups of organic compounds. This exception is caused by significant difference in their chemical properties.
Alhough they both have hydroxyl group, in case of phenols it's NOT bound directly to "an alkyl or substituted alkyl group", and that changes the way their react with other compounds!
It's the same like with Aldehydes and Ketones - they both have -CO-, but they act differently, and thus they are classified as two different groups of compounds.
I think we should move Category:Phenols to Category:Organic compounds. Any objections? 83.12.106.50 16:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I would prefer to put it in Category:aromatic compounds. --Ed (Edgar181) 18:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The phenols are alcohols which are more acidic than expected, but still they are alcohols.--Stone 15:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
In my mind, that seems to imply that a carboxylic acid is also an alcohol too. It's a bit strange, but I can accept that. I guess, maybe it's best to say there isn't really a single definition that fits all. The definition that works for the task at hand is best. --HappyCamper 15:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree with HappyCamper here - phenols are different beasts. You also can't do simple substitutions (e.g. -> RX), eliminations or simple oxidations, but they do tend to react a lot in the aromatic ring, form quinones, and a lot of different stuff. That's why they are usually considered separately. The Wade textbook (Prentice Hall, 6th edition, 2006, ISBN 0-13-187151-X) I teach from is typical. It states the following after introducing alcohols: "Phenols have many properties similar to those of alcohols, while other properties derive from their aromatic character. In this chapter we consider the properties of phenols that are similar to those of alcohols and note some of the differences. In Chapter 16, we consider the aromatic nature of phenols and the reactions that result from that aromaticity." What is worth noting is that at no point do they refer to a phenol as an alcohol; for example, the next section is titled "Nomenclature of Alcohols and Phenols" (my emphasis). So I don't think we should refer to a phenol as an alcohol in text, though clearly they can be grouped together for some discussions. We should have a category of phenols that is separate from alcohols, IMHO, with a note at the top of each category page explaining about the other. Walkerma 16:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed it appears as if IUPAC considers alcohols and phenols separately as well: . --Ed (Edgar181) 18:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The "Category:Aromatic hydroxy compounds" is in my opinion an apt name. JoJan 19:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
So, what's the next step for us? --HappyCamper 03:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) I don't see the need to rename phenols as aromatic hydroxy compounds, as phenols is the usual term. IMHO it's down to three choices

  1. Status Quo: Phenols stay in BOTH Category:alcohols and Category:aromatic compounds. This suffers from the problem that phenols aren't really alcohols - see above.
  2. Ed's suggestion: Category:Organic compounds → Category:aromatic compounds → Category:Phenols. This is very simple, but it suffers from the problem that the OH part is not categorised (making it poss. harder to find).
  3. Hydroxy compounds: Add a new Category:Hydroxy compounds, and use it to include all the relevant categories - alcohols, phenols, carboxylic acids. This suffers from the problem that it adds another layer to the hierarchy for some compounds like alcohols.

So which is best? I'm not really sure! Walkerma 04:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If we don't want to create Category:Hydroxy compounds we can place them in Category:Organic compounds and Category:aromatic compounds. This should solve the problem :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JRS.pl (talk • contribs) 09:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC).
The IUPAC Gold book says
"Alcohols: Compounds in which a hydroxy group, –OH, is attached to a saturated carbon atom R3COH. The term 'hydroxyl' refers to the radical species, HO. See also: enols, phenols"
So there: phenols are no alcohols, although they are related closely enough to merit "see also" links. That could be added as regular text to the category page, although I admit that in common usage it's not unreasonable to think of an phenol loosely as an "aryl alcohol", so even the existing category link doesn't bother me. The demarcation of what is an alcohol and what is not can be a bit blurry. For example, are enols alcohols? (according to the IUPAC definition, no). But are gem-diols, halohydrins, and cyanohydrins alcohols? They too have some very different properties from alcohols, but they could be considered alcohols according to the definition. Again I would think of them loosely as "specialized" kinds of alcohols.Itub 20:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

RFC on 'gauge pressure' vs 'gauge pressure'

Debate over on Talk:Pressure as to whether that & related articles should refer to 'gauge pressure' or 'gage pressure', accompanied by reverting on the article. 03:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Jean-Baptiste Dumas

is in bad shape. there are several parts without connection and a Still to be merged: line in the middle. Anybody of the native speacker smight have a look!--Stone 22:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

What do you expect, he's been dead for 122 years :P The French version isn't much better, but I will se if a bit of bilingual cleanup can help. Physchim62 (talk) 12:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Quite a job. I have some contemporary papers which I shall add to Wikisource, but if anyone has a table of Dumas's equivalent wieghts I would be grateful... Physchim62 (talk) 15:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Adding specific reactions to the worklist

The worklist currently has a section for 15 major reaction classes. What do people think about adding a section for specific reactions (mainly "name reactions")? Here's a list of 20 important reactions off the top of my head, that could be used for inspiration:

  1. Hydrogenation
  2. Wittig reaction
  3. Aldol reaction
  4. Diels-Alder reaction
  5. Friedel-Crafts reaction
  6. Ozonolysis
  7. Michael reaction
  8. Birch reduction
  9. Claisen condensation
  10. Claisen rearrangement
  11. Sharpless epoxidation
  12. Williamson ether synthesis
  13. Mannich reaction
  14. Fischer esterification
  15. Saponification
  16. Grignard reaction
  17. Reductive amination
  18. Haloform reaction
  19. Fischer indole synthesis
  20. Knorr pyrrole synthesis

If this is too much detail for this project, we could also consider a Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Chemical_Reactions project... Itub 23:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

We have talked in the past about an Organic Chemistry WikiProject, but most of us organic chemists are already quite tied up with activities. I think that would probably be better than a project focusing just on reactions. I think your point is well taken, these are important topics that are not covered currently. I'm not sure I'd include Knorr pyrrole synthesis or haloform on my list, but otherwise I think it looks like a good set of articles to target. Walkerma 05:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • these are named reactions and very specific reactions: we already have the List of organic reactions and some of us are working hard to get the list complete. Like Martin already expressed chemists are few in Wiki, we probably do not need more lists. In terms of organic reactions types: amply covered in Organic reaction and its satellite pages. The qualifications given in the table for chemical reactions I find disrespectful of the the people who have contributed to these pages. We need more chemists willing to participate in articles and less managers running around with lists and qualification schemes V8rik 23:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I see your point, although I personally find the ratings helpful for getting a quick overview of the state of each article. For example, if I saw on the list that the Williamson synthesis was a stub, and I happen to like that reaction, I might be motivated to expand it. If I just see the big list of organic reactions, I might not notice (although it is already very helpful for noticing articles that don't exist yet). I won't insist, since I've never participated "officially" in this wikiproject (I just create and edit chemistry articles at random when I'm in that mood...) Itub 23:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Simple Introduction

Some science articles are starting to produce introductory versions of themselves to make them more accessible to the average encyclopedia reader. You can see what has been done so far at special relativity, general relativity and evolution, all of which now have special introduction articles. These are intermediate between the very simple articles on Simple Misplaced Pages and the regular encyclopedia articles. They serve a valuable function in producing something that is useful for getting someone up to speed so that they can then tackle the real article. Those who want even simpler explanations can drop down to Simple Misplaced Pages. What do you think?--Filll 22:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not agree. I think the main article should be accessible at all levels including, at least in its lead paragraph, to beginners. If there are parts that are very inaccessible, they should be hived off to more advanced article. It is the wrong way round and just allows what should be main articles that can develop to FA status to get more and more complex instead. --Bduke 22:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Articles needing attention: Metathesis (chemistry), HSAB theory, Base (chemistry)

I've tried to clean up these three articles. Could someone back me up by making sure I didn't make any mistakes? Also, I think these articles are pretty fundamental. Perhaps they could use some attention. --Rifleman 82 19:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the articles and did not notice any major errors. The one place where I felt some rewriting was very much needed was in the definition section of Base (chemistry). It's kind of a mess. Other than that the clean up seems to have made pretty decent articles. Yes, they could use more work, but generally good.--Nick Y. 22:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I semi-agree. The information on the metathesis article was accurate, but it didnt go into enough information when describing some parts. I've started working on it now, and moved it to Metathesis reaction (chemistry), generally because from what i've learnt, metathesis is the action brought about by a metathes..al(?) reaction, much as "redox" is an action caused by a "redox reaction". Still, the HSAB article is actually not that bad, but in terms of the accuracy of all three, they aren't referenced well enough to be completely accurate, but the information from a brief glance is actually quite well put.
On the whole, some nice work :-) J O R D A N  14:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Scientific citation guidelines

We do not appear to have fully discussed endorsing this, although there was a very positive discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Chemistry/archive06#Citation guidelines proposal. I see that Projects other than the Maths and Physics Projects, who initiated it, have done so. The Maths discussion is at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive18#Citation guidelines proposal (note it is archived, lots of the links to the debatre elsewhere are to the pre-archive section). The Physics discussion is at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive10. Note go to section "Citation guidelines proposal" at 42 in the TOC, not the one with the same name at 4 in the TOC. There is more discussion at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology/Proposals#Scientific citations.

I propose we "vote" whether we support it and if so, let the other prpjects know. --Bduke 22:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Support

Oppose

Neutral

Comments

HappyCamper asked me on my talk page to be our ambassador on this matter so I have put a note on Misplaced Pages talk:Scientific citation guidelines to say we support the proposals. Our support 'vote' was higher than that on the Mathematics and Physics Projects (OK by 1!) but please add to it if you want to. --Bduke 01:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Assessment tags

(copied from Talk:Hexol, also on Transition metal carbene complex) I am inclined to remove this silly assessment tag: please specify in detail what it is that you find lacking in this article. V8rik 23:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Commons

Should we have a presence over at the Wikimedia Commons? There are a handful of WikiProjects who have a Commons page and guidelines for categorising media and organising categories. See Category:Commons projects for a list. May I propose we start Commons:Wikiproject Chemistry? Yesterday I found myself in a stupid argument with an editor at the Commons, who decided that nonmetals don't include halogens. Since we are all encouraged to contribute our images to the Commons, not just to WP, I think it'd be good if we had some expert chemists running things, so that cranks don't ruin the fun.

What are your thoughts?

Ben 16:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I think that's a great idea. Another thing on my wishlist is to consolidate all the molecular structure images and remove the poorer duplicated images on en and on commons. It seems dumb that there are so many images of tetrahydrofuran floating around. On my part, I try to search for existing images before I upload those I create. Unfortunately, the built in search is not that great. --Rifleman 82 18:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, I've created it here. Dig in!
Ben 17:25, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Please, if anyone cares about having images in Commons categorized correctly, please comment at http://commons.wikimedia.org/Commons_talk:WikiProject_Chemistry/Categories#Proposals or http://commons.wikimedia.org/Category_talk:Halogen_oxides . We still have this user insisting that halogens are not nonmetals, so could be useful to show that there is consensus that he is in fact wrong. Itub 16:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd advocate being very careful going over to Commons to sort this out though. intrawiki disputes are difficult enough, let alone transwiki ones. I don't want to see stressed/burned out WikiChemists over this. --HappyCamper 17:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe you are right, and screw the categorization in the Commons. It's just sad to see so patent nonsense, but it might be better to spend my efforts writing actual content on Misplaced Pages. However, the fact that this guy has used the Misplaced Pages article chemical series as "evidence" that the halogens are not nonmetals tells me that the Misplaced Pages article about chemical series needs to be clarified. Any contributions there are welcome. Itub 18:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Yea because the chemical series is not well written somebody wrote Periodic trends, a even better one!--Stone 18:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Expert needed

Progestagen, Propofol, Zinc oxide, Lithium hypochlorite, Thiocarbanilide, Membrane reactor, Orgonite, Metalorganics, Nimesulide might also need some cats--Stone 22:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there an off wiki tool that helps us do the categorization? --HappyCamper 00:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletion page

Does WikiProject Chemistry not have a deletion page? I recently nominated this page for deletion. Please check. frummer 04:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Added Ref. Rest is OK!--Stone 08:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Naphthenase

Really fisch article with no real google hits! Biochemistry and enzyme people should have a look and than add a credible citation or flush it down to the other deleting canidates.--Stone 23:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Health and Saftey on Nitrogen - also RfC

Have added an WP:RFC for the Nitrogen article, requested to cross post here -

Hydrides - what are they?

Dirk and I were discussing the definition of a hydride, after I called H2S a hydride. We noticed that the WP article hydride seems to contradict itself, in that it defines hydrides as compounds of hydrogen and a more electropositive element, yet lists NH3 as a hydride, despite N being more electronegative than H.

In my experience, the term hydride is used to refer generally to all binary hydrogen compounds of the form AxHy. Dirk's gut instinct was to reserve the term for those compounds where hydrogen is the more electronegative element. I consider Dirk-type compounds to be a subset of the hydrides.

We thought it would be productive to poll WikiChemists on this issue, and then improve the hydride article as necessary.

Ben 21:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You are right. Dirk's subset may be the ones that commonly have the word "hydride" in the name (as in sodium hydride), but all the others are considered hydrides as well. IUPAC's nomenclature of inorganic chemistry is based on the concept of "parent hydride", and that includes molecules such as water, even if they are not considered "Dirk-type" hydrides. See http://www.iupac.org/reports/provisional/abstract04/RB-prs310804/Table6.1-3.04.pdf . Itub 21:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I go by this definition, which I like: (an excerpt from 4th ed. Inorg. Chem. by J.E. Huheey et al, p. 643) "...Complexes with a coordinated hydrogen atom are called hydrides whether or not they exhibit the chemical properties of a hydride ." - square brackets my wording. So, this includes all sorts of transition metal hydrides (even though some act more like acids and others more like bases) and excludes NH3 and H2S... --HappyCamper 22:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
HappyCamper makes the important point that not all hydrides, even by Dirk's definition, react as if they contain H, and that some metal hydrides (e.g. ) are acidic (in this case, strongly acidic). I have no problems with using hydride as a general term to cover all binary compounds of hydrogen, where appropriate (e.g., in discussion periodicity). I am wary of a definition based purely on electronegativity, as χ is not a fixed atomic quantity (varies with oxidation state) and some of the most interesting hydrides are those where the two electronegativities are close (e.g., boranes, alkanes). Physchim62 (talk) 22:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I concur fully that the term hydride is depending on where it is bound to, there are many factors in play, and some systems are ambivalent. The thing is, it is counterintuitive to call an acidic compound a hydride, and secondly, the IUPAC naming is hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen fluoride (hence, hydrogen compounds?), as opposite to lithium hydride and calcium hydride (hence, hydrides?). I think Ben and I fully agree that practically, the acidity or hydricity (?) of a compound has to be examined individually, but is it correct to compare hydrogen sulfide to the other hydrides hydrogen oxide and hydrogen telluride? In my feeling that does not only go against my feeling that hydrogen sulfide is an acid, but also the naming seems to be contradictory here. But I am ready to follow the IUPAC rules on this, does someone have a linky to correct chapter in IUPAC redbook handy? --Dirk Beetstra 22:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
http://www.iupac.org/reports/provisional/abstract04/RB-prs310804/Chap6-3.04.pdf Itub 22:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
That definition from Huheey might be too specific, because it is in the context of coordination compounds. I'm sure it also has a definition of "carbonyl compounds" that is very specific for organometallic chemistry, but I wouldn't use it in more general contexts. Itub 22:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I saw that linky already, but that seems to deal with the more complex systems, and does not clarify when something is a hydride and when something is a hydrogen compound, I was looking for the part where they define 'carbon hydride/hydrogen carbide', 'nitrogen hydride/hydrogen nitride', 'hydrogen oxide/oxygen hydride', 'hydrogen fluoride/fluor hydride' --Dirk Beetstra 22:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
What if the hydride article could be modified to say that there are different operational definitions of "hydride"? In Dirk's example, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to refer to H2S as a hydride if the purpose is to make a comparison with H2Se and H2Te. --HappyCamper 22:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
That might certainly be a good plan! --Dirk Beetstra 22:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
What's in a name? That which we call H2S by any other name would smell as foul. ;-) In other words, we can say something like: "H2S is called hydrogen sulfide under the binary nomenclature; under the 'parent hydride' nomenclature it is called sulfane". The whole matter of it "being" a hydride is largely irrelevant and could be avoided. That said, it would be a really good idea to mention the concept of parent hydride in the hydride article. Itub 23:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

We could use the general term hydrogen chalogenides for the compounds H2O, H2S, H2Se, H2Te and H2Po, avoiding chalcogen hydrides as it has the potential to confuse readers, and that's exactly the opposite of what we try to achieve here. Ben 22:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't use "chalcogen hydrides" in that case, but I would talk of the "hydrides of the third period" to describe the changes in properties from NaH to HCl. I agree with Itub that "parent hydride" should be mentioned under hydride, as we don't have sufficient coverage at the moment to justify an article in its own right. 'Parent hydride nomenclature' is technically known as "substitutive nomenclature". Physchim62 (talk) 01:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Suggested new lead paragraph for hydride
"Hydride is the name give to the negative ion of hydrogen, H. It is also used as a more general term to describe compounds of hydrogen with other elements, particularly those of groups 1–16, whether or not they actually contain hydride ions. Protide, deuteride and tritide are used in the same way to describe ions or compounds which contain enriched hydrogen-1, deuterium or tritium respectively.
Physchim62 (talk) 02:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

My old copy of Cotton and Wikinson "Advanced Inorganic Chemistry" (4th Ed., 1980) has an interesting diagram on page 247 of the periodic table headed "A classification of the hydrides". It divides the periodic table into 5 zones, with 4 of them labelled "Saline hydrides" (Li-Fr, Ca-Ra), "Transition metal hydrides" (Sc-Pt, but interestingly also Be and Mg), "Borderline hydrides" (Cu-Au, Zn-Hg, In-Tl) and "Covalent hydrides" (B-Ga, C-Pb, N-Bi, O-Po, F-At). The 5th group is He-Rn. It also stars the transition metals for which molecules or ions containing M-H bonds are known. Maybe we should follow this scheme. --Bduke 03:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Participants list

Hi. I tried adding myself to the list, but didn't save my changes because I couldn't figure out how to keep the bottom of the table in place, so I canceled my edits. Also, I couldn't figure out where to add my name, because it didn't seem alphabetical. AstroHurricane001 21:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi there! Which list are you thinking of? I think there's a list at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Chemistry/Participants, but I haven't looked at it in ages. Generally, this WikiProject is quite relaxed and informal, so don't worry about doing things in an "official" way. WikiChemists are a friendly bunch - we generally drop by every now and then and follow up on discussions similar to the thread above. --HappyCamper 22:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, see the note at the top of the list of participants. It says that if you do not know how to add your name to the table, just add your details at the end and one of us will add it. There are some additions to the list that are not in alphabatical order. I'll try to fix that soon. Happy Christmas. --Bduke 23:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Seasons greetings

Hollyberryine

Hi WikiChemists! You guys are great, I love contributing here. To wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, I present this space-filling diagram of a (fictional!) molecule I call hollyberryine. Enjoy!

Ben 22:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

IUPAC retained names

I've noticed a recent flurry of chemical activity by Spoon!. See Special:Contributions/Spoon! for details. He/she is making subtle changes to the way trivial retained names and fully systematic names are described. I wonder if we should invite Spoon! here to discuss it? I reverted a couple of Spoon!'s edits to acetylene but in retrospect I think I should have let them stay.

Thoughts?

Ben 11:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Spoon! seems to know what he/she is doing, judging from the edits I've seen go past on my watchlist. Edits are correct, and referenced. Physchim62 (talk) 11:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely, I wasn't suggesting Spoon! was wrong. I just thought we could help out, making similar changes to other articles. It's a lot of work for one person!

Ben 11:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Peer review of DNA

One of the most famous molecules of all time! This article needs a little more rigorous chemistry that I can manage, some feedback from an expert would be appreciated. Thank you. TimVickers 14:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

B(OH)4

copied from Talk:Boric acid

What is the name of the anion B(OH)4? I can't find a definitive answer anywhere! The only name I've seen is borate, but that is also used to refer to BO3. The only reason I want to know is because I've made an image of the structure of this anion and before I can upload it, I need to give it a filename!

Cheers

Ben 22:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

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