What They Didn’t Teach You About Chemistry

The fundamental ideas of chemistry which they don’t teach you in school. Or more specifically about chemical processing.

If YOU LEARN chemistry from a standard textbook or in high school, it is easy to get really lost in details and missing the big picture.

I fell in love with chemistry as a teenager. It was back when you got chemistry kits and experiment with fun colored liquids. And of course all kids wanted to make something that exploded. Chemistry has a sort of natural appeal to kids because of booms, flashes, bubbles, colors and the cool intricate glassware used.

I also happen to be a lover of history, and when I read history of things like metal working or more modern stuff about atomic energy, solar cells or semiconductors it is hard to see the common thread, because school doesn’t really teach you what chemistry is about in practical terms.

That is what I hope to do here.

Mixing and Separation

In very simplified terms you could say that practical chemistry is all about mixing and separation. The world around us are full of different elements, but those elements are usually combined in ways we don’t want. E.g. rock is full of aluminum, silicon…