Where exactly do you get the chemicals to do your own experiments?

[wScott]

A kid I've talked to on the internet's able to do his own chemistry experiments at his house, but where did he get the materials?

I've lost touch with him as I've only talked to him a few times, so could you guys help me out here a bit? And tell me some safety precautions if you decide to give me any info here, please :)

 

[Pengwuino]

Precaution 1: don't do experiments in your house

 

[chound]

"Google" for the chemical

 

[mrjeffy321]

A lot would depend on what type of "experiments" one is tying to do and what type of chemicals one would need for these experiments.

Some chemicals you can get at the grocery store in varrying degrees of purity, others you might need to be a bit more creative and synthesize yourself out of some common materials, and still others require a great deal of work to find/make/buy.

 

[Cesium]

I would like to quickly add that there are a lot of cool chemistry experiments out there that are relatively safe and can be done with commonly found materials. It just takes a little but of research and creativity. Some stores that have some useful chemicals include grocery, hardware, pool, pottery, photography, and wine-making stores. Other rarer chemicals can be bought from a chemical supplier.

In fact, you may want to check out this site http://www.hyperdeath.co.uk/chemicals/ for some ideas.

 

[wScott]

Well thanks guys for the info, and thanks for the link Cesium, and so you guys know I'm not going to be doing my own experiments for a long time, but I will do my own studies and learn as much as I can before I do any at all.

The reason why I was interested in this was because a textbook at the public library, I'll have to search it up again (I forgot what it was called), gave a list of safe experiments that you can do in your house hold to better understand the chemical reactions in the chapters.