I Follow Dmitri Mendeleev’s Recipe for Chromyl Chloride Preparation
[caption id="attachment_17682" align="alignright" width="380"] Chromyl chloride. - Image by W. Oelen CCA-SA3.0 Unported[/caption] When I was young, I’d sign out chemistry books from three libraries. One of these was the local public library. Another was my high school library. Yet another favorite library was the one at Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. A special favorite book was a thin, early volume featuring the writings of Russian chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907). That volume was published in the late 1800s. Its pages were old—its recipes enticing. One of those recipes was for the making of a compound of the element chromium, a red-brown volatile liquid. A chromyl chloride preparation! I would learn first hand what it was like. But I needed some specialized laboratory equipment and supplies. I needed a retort, a burner,…