Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals

See also: Chemistry talk page, {{Chembox}} (talk).

Requested move for Alpha hydroxy acid

An editor has requested for Alpha hydroxy acid to be moved to another page. Since you had some involvement with Alpha hydroxy acid, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so).

MOS:MAINISOTOPE

What's the status of the discussion on MOS:MAINISOTOPE? It got archived without any box closing it. In [1] I assumed the discussion was inconclusive. 184.147.229.55 (talk) 08:13, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking for something to do? Try PFAS

As many know, C6-C10 perfluorinated carboxylic acids and sulfonic acids are in the news. They are "everywhere chemicals". One can be sure that these articles are consulted often. Here is the hierarchy of that set of articles (people are welcome to edit this list).

• Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances 158 kbyte (241 refs)
  • Perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids 7.6
    • Perfluoropropionic acid 4.8
    • Perfluorobutanoic acid 5.6
    • Perfluorooctanoic acid 129
    • Perfluorononanoic acid 18
      • Ammonium perfluorononanoate 3.5
    • Perfluorodecanoic acid 25
    • FRD-903 5.7 (a branched PFAS)

• • Perfluorosulfonic acids 4.6
    • Perfluoropropanesulfonic acid 2
    • Perfluorobutanesulfonic acid 9
      • Nonaflate 1 (perfluorobutanesulfonate)
    • Perfluorohexanesulfonic acid 19
    • Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid 54
      • Perfluorooctanesulfonyl fluoride 16
    • Perfluoro(4-ethylcyclohexane)sulfonic acid 3

These articles cover semi-complicated chemistry plus extensive health claims plus regulatory issues (often too US-focused, it seems) plus a dash of scare talk. A core issue is that PFAS might be everywhere, but in very low concentrations, and toxicity vs concentration correlations are challenging.

One also can imagine that many of these articles are an accretion of years of editing with no chopping. Maybe somehow we should try to shunt readers to PFAS, the master and make the others just simple discussions of the basic chem of that compound (kinda straightforward). My point is that PFAS would benefit from some serious editing. To some extent the article is overwhelmed with references, which might detract. --Smokefoot (talk) 21:08, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Definitely a topic worthy of improvement, but it's a big job. Even the main PFAS article isn't in great shape (to my eyes at least) - for a page about chemicals there's little discussion of the chemistry: how it's made, or what it goes into, or why. The use of PFAS as a processing aid in blown film extrusion isn't mentioned at all, despite that often being a food contact material. Structure searching shows that we have 637 pages with a -CF₂- group, 532 with -CF₃. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Project Osprey (talk • contribs)

While I agree that some of these articles would merit improvements including shortening and better refs (e.g. Perfluorodecanoic acid), I strongly oppose the proposal. While PFASs share some common properties, such as the persistence of the perfluoroalkyl moiety, the universe of PFASs spans from gases to polymers, from surfactants to plant protection products and pharmaceuticals. They are also very different in terms of regulatory, health and environmental aspects. Would you also propose a similar strategy for alkanes, alcohols or PAHs?

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances can provide an overview also on regulatory, health or environmental aspects, but substance-specific information need to be kept in the individual articles.

BTW: Here and here you propose to "proposed to be stripped of most regulatory, health, environmental aspects". However, several of the listed chemicals (e.g. Perfluoropropanesulfonic acid, Perfluoropropionic acid, ) do contain no or little such information. --Leyo 23:18, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I was thinking of a process aimed at helping readers by unifying info into a reliable source. My impression is that the main public concerns for "everywhere chemicals" are not about gases or polymers. My impression also is that the persistence and regulatory issues mainly pertain to C8-ish carboxylic acids and sulfonic acids. But have it your way, dude. Status quo.--Smokefoot (talk) 02:40, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Dark mode

B/W structural formulas are hardly visible in the dark mode, e.g. in Propane. Is this issue only with me? 162.23.30.48 (talk) 08:35, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

No, it's everywhere. I can't see a simple site wide solution, other than switching back to light mode. --Project Osprey (talk) 09:26, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Standard view

Using "class=skin-invert-image"

"class=skin-invert-image" could help => test using dark mode 162.23.30.48 (talk) 10:05, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

It looks like some infobox images with transparent background get automatic white background but others do not. In propane, the skeletal is fine but the other three are not. In that infobox, it's a difference of SVG (handled reasonably: skeletal) vs PNG (bad result: explicit, ball&stick, vdW). But it seems neither specific to chembox nor generally differential for these file-formats. At glucose, some PNG with transparent-bg in other article sections look good and others bad. Caveat: I'm using ?withgadget=dark-mode to test based on the gadget using a non-darkmode browser, not the 'real' dark-mode. DMacks (talk) 10:57, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

The issue might be resolved by adding "class=skin-invert-image" to Template:Chembox. 162.23.30.48 (talk) 10:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I guess if your not a chemist...CDCl3 doesnt work

@Solomonfromfinland: We chemists call deuterated chloroform CDCl3. So do the journals we publish in German, British, US, Canadian. Just saying. --Smokefoot (talk) 18:07, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I reverted the edits. Even under a legalistic reading of the Red Book, it is clearly stated that D and T for deuterium and tritium "may be" used. Double sharp (talk) 05:59, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of the Alkaline Earth Compounds

Hi all; I've been looking into the possibility of writing an article for potassium hypobromite, in an attempt to develop the coverage of salts containing bromine oxyanions, (in this case hypobromite), as more of these seem to have been studied besides sodium. I came across this source, Encyclopedia of the Alkaline Earth Compounds, [2], which seemed as if it could possibly help in writing about other salts, namely for calcium hypobromite among possibly others in the future. This would not be the only source used, as there'd naturally be others, but I ask mainly: is this source reliable?

I ask because this source was brought up during deletion discussions at WP:Articles for deletion/Beryllium chlorate and WP:Articles for deletion/Beryllium sulfite. I have no interest in writing about beryllium compounds fwiw, and these deletions were sound. The Encyclopedia of Alkaline Earth Compounds correctly identifies that "No article on beryllium sulfite can be found in scientific literature". However, Graeme Bartlett identified an issue with its coverage of "beryllium chlorate", which it referred to as a chlorite, and discusses it as a hydroxy compound. So I wanted to seek clarification about how useful it would be as a source. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 03:07, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I consider "Encyclopedia of the Alkaline Earth Compounds" as unreliable. Over the years I have seen dubious content or completely incorrect statements from it used as references here. Since it claims to be a textbook, it should be based on other references, even if they are not stated within. So check if they exist, particularly in German (Hypobromit). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:16, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

de.wp seems to be lacking in the development of de:Hypobromit. For the set of compounds I've been looking at, I've been able to find sources beyond just Ropp's Encyclopedia: [3] and others for potassium, [4] and others for calcium. I was just seeing whether this encyclopedia should be used for any referencing purposes, which I believe your answer is to avoid this one, which I shall. Is there anything redeemable from it or is it all caput? Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 03:35, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I question whether many hypobromites (or in fact many other bromine oxyanions) would meet our notability criteria, meaning that you could find many quality first-world references, much less authoritative reviews. If you are looking for some project, I suspect that some topics could be suggested.--Smokefoot (talk) 03:59, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Most/nearly all are not practical for articles, as the set is highly unstable. There are some which have been the subject of quality sources, which is where my focus will be specifically. From the information I've found, 4 hypobromites and 2 bromites seem to be feasible for articles. (Non-exhaustive, but I only looked at potassium, calcium, strontium, and barium, de:Bariumbromit being one). My main query here was whether or not to make note of Ropp in the refs, and I'm now seeing that this ref should not be included anywhere. It seems to be scrubbed across all of Wikipedia: page history shows the ref deleted from articles to combat citogenesis such as [5], so I'll avoid as well. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 00:11, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It would still be useful to hear about notability. The example de:Bariumbromit is thin. Unstable and impractical compounds that are lightly cited = a theme that might not meet Wikipedia's notability standards, not to mention the efforts of someone capable of contributing to more compelling projects. Wikichemistry has a work list: Portal:Chemistry/Things you can do.--Smokefoot (talk) 17:54, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

On the note of other projects, I've also been interested in contributing towards some of the requested articles. Lithium ozonide looks particularly interesting, especially with Category:Ozonides having a light number of articles, so I may do that and tetramethylammonium ozonide while I'm on the topic, also from the requested list. On the chemicals-side of WP I've been doing a lot of wikilinking related compounds, filling a redlink if I see it often, or if its the only redlink on a page (barium bromite applies, on bromous acid's article).

@Smokefoot: The worklist is fairly open-ended and I don't think I'd be able to do much in the realm of needing an expert, merge/split proposals, etc. I can try some of the suggested copyediting, as that seems more my speed (raising the quality of articles from "poor" to "decent"). I enjoy writing and editing articles on binary & ternary compounds, in an attempt to have consistent coverage over a broad set of similar compound articles, so if there's anything in that realm I might also be interested in those types of tasks. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 19:20, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Musk ambrette

This redirect should be deleted, because there is no information about musk ambrette [6] in the redirect target. 162.23.30.19 (talk) 15:15, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

IP editor: As a Simple Google search shows, musk ambrette is a plant-based substitute for animal musk in fragrances. Thus it is a valid search term for the Wikipedia article about the musk odor, as distinct from all the other articles which mention musk and are listed at Musk (disambiguation). It would therefore be better, IMO, to add some comment (with sources) to the article than to delete the redirect. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:46, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The best option would be to write an article about musk ambrette. 162.23.30.19 (talk) 18:17, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

So go ahead. At first, it might just be a section within the existing target for the redirect, since the material is a plant-based substitute for the same odor. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Musk ambrette appears to be a synthetic nitro musk, so I've added a mention of musk ambrette to the article synthetic musk and changed the target of Musk ambrette to Synthetic musk#Nitro musks. Marbletan (talk) 17:23, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Participant lists

Not sure exactly why I am doing this chore, but I went through the participants list. I removed those users from the list who have been inactive for several years. I also set up an emeritus list to preserve the names of our fellow contributors. The two lists should be mutually exclusive, but there is some chaos especially in emeritus list. Other editors are welcome to dive it. Of course we have some users who are not on any list, even some notable ones like V8rik, Itub, and ProjectOsprey and others. I am unsure if we should add their names without their consent.--Smokefoot (talk) 23:15, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

For my part, even when I joined back in 2012 it was apparent that this list was unmaintained, with plenty of editors on it having been inactive for years. Consequently, I never bothered signing it. I've no objected to being included - hard to argue that I don't spend time here.

In this day and age you might expect such things to be automated. I'm sure that websites with similar page-ranking pay more attention to their content creators. Reports bot used to track our active editors, up until about 2 years ago. I do not know why it stopped. Such a tool would be useful for identifying new editors and/or trouble makers. Project Osprey (talk) 14:40, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Harej stated that‎ WikiProject Directory apparently defunct on 30 November 2022‎. You could ask Harej or The Earwig about it if that list is useful. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:40, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Mephedrone

Mephedrone has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:11, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Best Available Techniques Reference Document

I found this on my travels and thought it might be a good reference to share. It's an account of how a range of compounds with a production above 20 kt/yr are made. Open-access, looks authoritative. Project Osprey (talk) 23:14, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Some comments: great find by Project Osprey, thank ye gods for Europe (and damn UK for chickening out), and etc. Etc: a quick check shows that the document is pretty good at the chemistry, heavy, heavy emphasis on environmental & energy balance. Beautifully open access. Slight worries: authors of this doc are who? No PhD's, much less credentials. I guess the authors are aggregators of info in some sense. Some of the info provided is imperfect (e.g. Rh phosphines are not used for acetic acid by Monsanto process because MeI would gobble up PR3). I worry a little that safety-environmental-medical info might overwhelm our chem-info core mission. But again, open access source for info, hurrah!--Smokefoot (talk) 02:42, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

According to the document most of the information was provided by industry, although it's obviously passed through many sets of hands on the way. As a result, it doesn't have references in the normal way. It's a tertiary source, so we could cite it directly if desired? The document has DOI and ISBN numbers, but annoyingly they don't resolve automatically with our cite-tool. It was made for the European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Bureau (EIPPCB), hence the safety focus. Several compounds (i.e. styrene) have their own chapters, where all the commercial routes are explained in detail and compared with one another. You don't often see things presented in that depth. At 650 pages there is more detail here than we need, but that's not a bad starting point. --Project Osprey (talk) 09:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Zinc oxide

Zinc oxide has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Reconrabbit 00:00, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Appropriate amount of historical information

How detailed should historical sections be in articles about chemicals? Most chemical sources don't seem to care, but I assume that at least the discoverer(s), a date, a link to the original publication and a description of the way of its discovery are the bare minimum, am I right? What about historical names and historical synthesis routes? 5.178.188.143 (talk) 10:56, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

That all sounds good to include. But if it grows to over a page, then a separate history article would be due. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

IP editor: There is general guidance for chemicals at MOS:CHEM/Chemicals. My view is that we need reliable secondary sources but if we have them, we should use them. However, we certainly don't need to list all the possible names/code numbers for chemicals (ChemSpider and PubChem do these) nor every possible synthesis. History sections are worthwhile: I recently wrote an article about substructure search and found its history more interesting than the basic topic, mainly because I already knew about that! Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:13, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

IMHO, you need to exercise judgement. What is "interesting" is hardly universal. In terms of history, some areas are very "clubby", and some editors use history to engage in WP:BOOSTERISM (e.g., overemphasizing institutions). Older organic chemists, those members of the Cult of RB Woodward, favor name dropping (and name reactions). To some extent, history sections are best written by citing an article ON the history of the compound/synthesis/chemist. Otherwise, a semi-long excursion based on an editor's reading of the literature trail becomes close to WP:OR. My two cents. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:41, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

As of historical names, I don't indeed mean every single one in existence but only those relatively prominent, such as names coined by discoverers or major pre-Geneva names widely used in 18th-19th cc., e. g. trimethylene for cyclopropane.

As of sources, I struggle to understand you, could you please reword? 5.178.188.143 (talk) 11:28, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

You seem to understand the loose guidelines we follow. One specific thing that I was trying to say: one risks engaging in OR if one writes extensively (multiple sentences) on history without a source that discusses that history. So, if one were to discuss the history of cyclopropane, one would cite a source that analyzed that history. My other remark is snarky: organic chemists seem to focus on a pantheon (a collection of gods) of "pioneers", which is probably of little interest to most readers.--Smokefoot (talk) 15:03, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I was replying to Mike but let me respond to you as well: does a reference book from 1890s-1910s qualify as a suitable secondary source if it discusses the history? 5.178.188.143 (talk) 19:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

P. S. Let's say a history section goes like this: a certain compound was initially identified in a natural source by A in 18aa, who called it α; in 18bb, B reproduced A's research and extensively studied the compound, modifying the name to β, which is still occasionally used; it was first synthesized by C in 18cc, who also proposed a couple of possible structures for it; the discovery of certain type of reactions by D allowed his student E to determine which structure is correct in 18ee; the first industrial synthesis route, which was still used in China as of 2010, was developed by F and G in 19gg, and it was commercialized by Company H in 19hh. Assume that every claim is sourced but there's no single source describing all the history from the beginning to the end. Which combination of sources would suffice for such a compilation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.178.188.143 (talk) 07:51, 24 November 2024 (UTC)