Chemical/alchemical processes

edit
  • A short history of chemistry, Partington, 3e, Courier Dover, 1989, ISBN 0486659771, [21], p. 23: "The Greek chemical treatises contain some interesting practical chemical information, which appears in them for the first time, and also many diagrams of chemical apparatus (Fig. 19). The operations are fusion, calcination, solution, filtration, crystallization, sublimation, and especially distillation (not previously described); and methods of heating include the open fire, lamps, and the sand and water baths. Nearly all this practical knowledge has been ascribed by older writers on the history of chemistry to the Arabs, who really derived it from the very source we are now considering."

Chemical/alchemical devices

edit

Substances

edit
  • Acetic acid
  • Aqua regia
  • Cheese glue (= casein glue)
  • Citric acid
  • Copper(II) acetate
    • Cupric acetate, Cu(CH3COO)2.
    • The anhydrous form is blue-green and hygroscopic. The monohydrate (Cu(CH3COO)2·H2O) also exists and forms dark green crystals. ([22], Handbook of inorganic compounds, ISBN 0849386713, p. 137, compounds #948, #950)
    • Also called verdigris, an ambiguous name.
    • Also other hydrates?
    • The obvious synthesis from copper and acetic acid is found in a 3rd c. papyrus, thought to have been copied from an earlier original. See Creations of fire: chemistry's lively history from alchemy to the atomic age, Cobb & Goldwhite, pp. 31–32, ISBN 073820594X.
  • Distilled alcohol
  • Hydrochloric acid
  • Nitric acid
  • Petrol
  • Sulfuric acid
  • Tartaric acid
  • Uric acid
  • Zinc oxide
    • ZnO. White powder. An impure form is called tutty (also tutia, tutie; Arabic tūtiyā; see OED 2nd ed. entries on "tutty", "tutia", "tutie".)
    • According to R. J. Forbes, the terms tūtiyā, and Greek cadmeia, were used indiscriminately for zinc oxide (artificial) and zinc carbonate and silicate (naturally occurring ores of zinc.) (pp. 273–274, Metallurgy in Antiquity, R. J. Forbes, Brill Archive, 1950, [23].)
    • Dioscorides (1st c.) discusses the production of zinc oxide, called by him pompholyx (pp. 45–46, Story of Alchemy and Early Chemistry, John Maxson Stillman, [24], ISBN 0766132307.)
    • [Is this book PD? It was first published 1924.]