Johnny was a chemist’s son, but now he is no more. What Johnny thought was H2O was H2SO4!
Just as important as any of the energetic materials, toxins, and pharmaceuticals presented on Rogue Science are the myriad laboratory reagents and precursor chemicals used to prepare those compounds. In professional circles it is casually assumed that if you want a common reagent you just call a chemical supplier and ask for it. For those with corporate or university accounts it is just this simple, but the amateur experimenter and citizen chemist has been effectively forbidden to purchase any but the most innocuous chemicals out of senseless, imbecilic, and shortsighted laws that grow more tyrannical each year.
The political morons have led their herds of brain dead sheep for constituents to ban and regulate every chemical such as to make research the exclusive domain of wealthy corporations and the government. No more can an entrepreneur or scientific pioneer conduct chemical experiments in their own laboratories. Certain overzealous jurisdictions have even criminalized the mere possession of flasks and test tubes, striking a death knell for scientific literacy.
While it may be nearly impossible to purchase needed chemicals, it is still possible to make your own. Chemistry textbooks before WWII were filled with actual examples of how to make laboratory chemicals in the lab. Before the advent of large scale chemical manufacturing researchers had to provide their own reagents. There are still many consumer chemicals and natural sources of chemical substances that are not (yet) banned that can be transformed into more useful chemicals.
When a chemical is used primarily to prepare another more useful chemical, it is called a precursor. The Laboratory Chemicals section provides information on where to obtain, or how to make many of the precursors mentioned in the other sections of Rogue Science. This information is surprisingly very difficult to find. With the advent of large scale manufacturing much of the knowledge on small scale laboratory chemical preparation has been lost. This knowledge is relegated to obscure 19th century journals and rare books.
Over the counter (OTC) sources of chemicals are also sporadic, regional, and tend to dry up with each passing year. What is legal today will be illegal tomorrow as all science is criminalized by ignorant zealots and Luddite primitives. Knowing how to make your own chemicals is a valuable skill that should be cultivated as soon as possible before the old books are burned and all science is prohibited by law.
No chemical is impossible to make in the safety and security of ones own laboratory. No despotic government, or corrupt police thug can prevent the progress of science if the land, air, and water become sources for chemicals. Just as industry starts with the matter of the Earth, so too must the dedicated citizen chemist.
Content for the laboratory chemicals section of the Chem Lab has not yet been imported into the redesigned site style. The old pages have been left online for the time being at the Precursors section of the Controversial Chem Lab.
