Lactic Acid

Lactic acid was isolated and refined for the first time by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1780 from sour milk. In 1856, Louis Pasteur discovered Lactobacillus and its role in the making of lactic acid. Lactic acid started to be produced commercially by the German pharmacy Boehringer Ingelheim in 1895. Lactic acid is found primarily in sour milk products, such as koumiss, laban, yogurt, kefir, and some cottage cheeses. The casein in fermented milk is coagulated (curdled) by lactic acid. Methane Converting methane to H2 In the chemical industry, methane is converted to synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, by steam reforming. This endergonic process (requiring energy) utilizes nickel catalysts and requires high temperatures, around 7001100 C: CH4 + H2O CO + 3 H2 Related chemistries are exploited in the Haber-Bosch Synthesis of ammonia from air, which is reduced with natural gas to a mixture of carbon dioxide, water, and ammonia. Industrial Hydrogen production Commercial bulk hydrogen is usually produced by the steam reforming of natural gas.[75] At high temperatures (10001400 K, 7001100 C or 13002000 F), steam (water vapor) reacts with methane to yield carbon monoxide and H2. CH4 + H2O CO + 3 H2

Posphorous Hening Brand experimented with urine, which contains considerable quantities of dissolved phosphates from normal metabolism. His process originally involved letting urine stand for days until it gave off a terrible smell. Then he boiled it down to a paste, heated this paste to a high temperature, and led the vapours through water, where he hoped they would condense to gold. Instead, he obtained a white, waxy substance that glowed in the dark. Brand had discovered phosphorus, the first element discovered since antiquity. We now know that Brand produced ammonium sodium hydrogen phosphate, (NH4)NaHPO4. While the quantities were essentially correct (it took about 1,100 L of urine to make about 60 g of phosphorus), it was unnecessary to allow the urine to rot. Later scientists would discover that fresh urine yielded the same amount of phosphorus and improved Brand's process by using sand in the reaction (still using urine as base material), 4 NaPO3 + 2 SiO2 + 10 C 2 Na2SiO3 + 10 CO + P4 methane Laboratory synthesis Methane can also be produced by the destructive distillation of acetic acid in the presence of soda lime or similar. Acetic acid is decarboxylated in this process. Methane can also be prepared by reaction of aluminium carbide with water or strong acids. cryogenics In physics, cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature (below 150 C, 238 F or 123 K) and the behavior of materials at those temperatures. Etymology The word cryogenics stems from Greek and means "the production of freezing cold"; however, the term is used today as a synonym for the low-temperature state. It is not welldefined at what point on the temperature scale refrigeration ends and cryogenics begins, but most scientists[2] assume it starts at or below -150 C or 123 K (about -240 F). The National Institute of Standards and Technology at Boulder, Colorado has chosen to consider the field of cryogenics as that involving temperatures below 180 C (-292 F or 93.15 K). This is a logical dividing line, since the normal boiling points of the so-called permanent gases (such as helium, hydrogen, neon, nitrogen, oxygen, and normal air) lie below 180 C while the Freon refrigerants, hydrogen sulfide, and other common refrigerants have boiling points above 180 C.