Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/Archive 9

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Whither categories?

The relatively benign species acetamide was recently placed in Category:Hazardous air pollutants. because, apparently, the United States's Environmental Protection Agency lists it. Extrapolating, will we have Germany's list of air pollutants as a category? And, eventually Roumania's list of bio-hazards? And Ghana's list of whatever...Smokefoot 00:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Those lists of hazardous compounds can be pretty long, especially when they include broad categories such as "cobalt compounds". Does that mean that we would have to add every single cobalt compound, including vitamin B12 to this category? I suppose that if we had trucks fuming thousands of tonnes of B12 per year we would be concerned, which highlights the old adage that the dose (and the context) makes the poison.

I think that it is only worth categorizing a molecule as a polutant if its "poluting ability" is notable enough to be mentioned in the text of the article. Also, using a specific country's list for a general category looks a bit biased, but on the other hand we can't include every country's list as a category, as Smokefoot already pointed out. The best solution to this problem is using lists rather than categories. Itub 14:19, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

To Do

• Semi-rigid molecule is from theoretical chemistry or something similar but I have no clue which category fits best?
• Water soluble can be replaced by a redirect to solubility if all agree.

--Stone 18:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree with redirecting water soluble. Semi-rigid molecule seems to be a concept used mostly in microwave spectroscopy; maybe it could be placed in Category:Molecular physics and/or Category:Spectroscopy, for lack of a more specific category (as far as I could find). Itub 18:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Molecular mass, molar mass, molecular weight

Anybody care to take a look at these two articles and contribute/give comments? I'm rather peeved that certain people wish that we be prescriptive than descriptive. While MW is not quite accurate in that weight measures force rather than mass, the fact is, it is most commonly used. Seems like the IUPAC nomenclature vs. systematic nomenclature issues. --Rifleman 82 17:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

New Pages

Tetracoordinate looks similar to Tetrahedral molecular geometry, but for Hexacoordinate I have found nothing. Exansion or mergeing would be good.--Stone 12:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Tetracoordinate is more general than tetrahedral, because it can be square or pyramidal as the article says. I think it could stand as an independent article if it had some examples of tetracoordinate compounds with each geometry and an explanation of why each one adopts its particular geometry. This is also related with VSEPR and crystal field theory. Itub 15:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• better merge with tetravalent V8rik 18:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Walter Reppe

I've created Walter Reppe, of Reppe synthesis fame with the my basic german and the help of Babelfish, but there are some bits which I simply don't understand, and are mangled when automatically translated. I know there are quite a few german-speakers, maybe some help? Thanks! --Rifleman 82 14:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is good! A little bit more text about the reppe reactions and than new images, because the ones from the german page are not the best and this article is OK. Put up some references onto the talk page.--Stone 15:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

This article on the pioneer Reppe by Rifleman and Stone was excellent. Another missing great is Otto Roelen [1], who apparently invented hydroformylation but like Reppe, was somewhat cloistered inside of industry.--Smokefoot 13:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

New chemist stub created --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I created a ref to the full biography of Roelen, long and a lot to read and a lot to put into the article!--Stone 13:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[Reset tabs] Roelen certainly invented hydroformylation, another one on my worklist.... Physchim62 (talk) 14:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bentiromide (data page)

Please take a look at this deletion debate. It raises some general points. Should it be kept or, as I suggest in the discussion there, partly merged into Bentiromide? I am not familiar with this kind of data. Is it too much information as suggested, or OK? --Bduke 22:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a debate on data pages in general. My opinion is that water (data page) is a great data page (it has a lot of data!), but most data pages I see have more empty template table cells and question marks than anything else. Unfortunately, most substances are not exciting enough so that enough data about them is available to actually fill a data page, so I would reserve the use of data pages only for the instances where there is a lot of data that can't be reasonably be included in the article. What irritates me the most is the data pages that have lots of empty cells that are completely irrelevant for the substance in question, or that will probably never be available. Itub 23:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the answer is that we need to fill out data in a lot more of the pages where it is appropriate, and merge the data in with compounds that are more obscure. There was a very good reason why we created these pages - too many articles were ending up looking like the CRC handbook, with lists of data that most readers wouldn't be interested in. In fact, many articles had massive chemboxes with most spaces empty, and people kept adding their favourite parameters into the template. With the data pages, the casual reader can read a nice article, but the professional chemist can (hopefully) track down that standard entropy of vaporization they wanted on the data page. Maybe we should have a collaboration of the month to fill out data pages!? Walkerma 02:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• • my suggestion would be to limit chemboxes and datatables to the information actually present: no open spaces V8rik 21:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

categorization?

The Category:Chemistry is rather large and unwieldy. Are there others working on the category and appropriate subcategories? For starters, I'll propose Category:Types of chemistry to gather up subfields of chemistry; Category:Molecules (which will obviously need significant work) to put various molecule articles into, and to have appropriate subcats for types of molecules; and, possibly, Category:Chemical agents, since there seem to be a number of things described as "chemical agents". It's a purpose-based category rather than an essence-based category but maybe it's okay. Thoughts? --lquilter 22:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Well, Category:Molecules already exists, but isn't subcatted under Category:Chemistry; and there are lots of molecules listed under Category:Chemistry. I'll start trying to subcat them and in the meantime have listed Molecules under Chemistry so that perhaps other people will know it exists. --lquilter 22:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I just recategorized a bunch of pages that don't belong in the general Chemistry category, but please, there are plenty for everyone! :) I would suggest a category called Category:Fields of chemistry instead of Category:Types of chemistry. Regarding molecules, we might have to think about the relationship between Category:Molecules, Category:Chemical substances, and Category:Chemical compounds. I have the impression that Category:Molecules is used only for articles about molecules in general, while specific molecules are classified in subcategories of Category:Chemical compounds. Regarding Category:Chemical agents, I'm a bit skeptical because I have never seen a precise definition of the term. Itub 00:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Fields of chemistry - check. Biology also suggested "Disciplines of x" or "X disciplines", but I think "fields of x" is probably a little better than either disciplines or "types" (which is worse & worse the more I think of it).

On molecules, I see what happened; there's a reasonable cat structure already : Chemistry - Chemical substances - Molecules. I think that's right; I just missed it because of the 200+ wrapping. Once we get the cat diffused a bit the structure will become clearer and it may be okay. ... As for molecules versus chemical compounds, I think they've come out of two different cat trees, so figuring out how they work together might be in order. --lquilter 00:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

To get an idea of the problem, people should really try categorizing the articles in Category:Chemistry stubs: this is how many of the current categories came about. Physchim62 (talk) 15:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I've never done stub categorization & was under the impression there was some sort of special procedure for it, or that the stub people (? a project, maybe?) were particular about stub categorization processes ... is this all in my head? or are there any relevant guidelines/projects ? --lquilter 16:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

There are about a thousand pages in Category:Chemistry stubs, most of which could do with being moved to one of the more specific stub-categories which are listed on that page. I used to do this, but I rarely have a long enough spell of free internet acccess these days to do it. When (and if) you move stubs, please feel free to add them into another category as well: For example, I have just moved Thallium azide into {{inorganic-compound-stub}}, Category:Thallium compounds and Category:Azides. As for Category:Chemistry, it really should be on one page, but this is not always easy: the best move is to shove things into existing categories as a first move, and then let's see what categories we can (semi-automatically) merge. Physchim62 (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I've managed to fire a couple of subcategories (out of nearly 40), but it seems difficult to cut the number down greatly; suggestions welcome. Physchim62 (talk) 16:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the number of categories that are shown on the first page of Category:Chemistry is mostly determined indirectly by the number of articles (note that they go until the same letter). I'm focusing on cleaning up the list of articles, now they are shown up to "R" (it used to be up to "L", I think). Itub 17:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, now I understand. It shows 200 "items" per page total, whether categories or articles. Itub 17:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yay! Now everything fits in one page, with about 50 categories and 100 articles! There's still some work to be done, though, and I haven't even looked at the contents of the subcategories yet. Itub 20:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Beautiful work. --lquilter 21:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Itub, that is great maintenance. For the moment (and since I've been interested in Category:Chemistry), I can't find a better solution. Physchim62 (talk) 15:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Ladder-up reaction

Has anyone heard this term before? I think someone just made it up. I couldn't find anything on google, other than wikipedia mirrors. Itub 20:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

importance template

Hi all, forgot to post here as well. I'd like to invite you all to take part in a discussion about importance templates @ Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals#Importance. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

STING

Article has been prod'ed for deletion (reason - not notable). It starts "STING (Sequence To and withIN Graphics) is a free Web-based suite of programs for a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between protein sequence, structure, function, and stability." Can anyone help me to determine whether this is notable. The original author has not been here for nearly a year. Should we let it go, or should we remove the prod and let it go to AfD? --Bduke 04:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Lately, there's a user making new accounts to make vacuous PROD requests so I think we can keep this one. --HappyCamper 10:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this should go to AfD (not PROD): do we have editors who know something about this suite? Physchim62 (talk) 15:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The guys over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology say it is very notable with several peer reviewed journal articles. They have added them and removed the prod notice. Problem fixed I think. --Bduke 22:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Nawalic acid?

I received this request on my talk page today:

Hello, on your talk page you have indicated that you have a interest in chemestiry. Could you help me answer the following question?

Is the following proposed article on a real or made up subject?

Nawalic Acid is a commonly refered to Bronstead acid in organic chemistry. Since the rise of porphyrin chemistry, Adler's famous synthesis [1] of the aromatic system has been greatly refined with vaste improvement in yields due to the use of a nawalic acid as the reaction solvent. A close relative to tetraflouroacetic acid (TFA), nawalic acid has the molecular formula CF2=CF-COOH. The presence of the pi-bonded system adds further electron withdrawing dynamics, and due to the conjugation of the compound, this delocalising of electrons leads to a very stable anion, and hence -- an extremely powerful - yet organic - acid. [2]

Sources

[1] Adler, A. D., J. Org. Chem., 1967, 32, 476 [2] Balzani, V., Credi, A., Raymo, F. M., Stoddart, J. F., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2000, 39, 3348 – 3391 129.96.142.21 03:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Contact me at User talk:Natl1.--Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 22:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone heard of it? I looked on ChemFinder and ChemIndustry, but nothing turned up. I searched ChemFinder by structure, too. Still nothing.

Cheers

Ben 22:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a joke. Trifluoroacrylic acid (or perfluoroacrylic acid, CAS 433-68-1) has no trivial name and has never been used as a solvent (as per SciFinder Scholar and Beilstein databases). The second reference has nothing to do with this topic. Cacycle 00:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I have removed it from Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-10-20. Cacycle 00:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at it, Cacycle! --HappyCamper 01:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Salt → salts?

It was requested to rename the article. Discussion at Talk:Salt#Move to salts. Any opinions? Femto 12:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Analytical Chemistry

I have made major improvements to analytical chemistry I would like to encourage others to contribute and check my work too.--Nick Y. 21:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Bohr model intro image debate help needed

Please comment here: Talk:Bohr model#Intro image debate to help reach consensus as to what “Bohr’s atom model” actually looked like. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 07:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Some new pages

Antagonism (chemistry) LeanCP Donald E. Pearson, PhD Melvin A. Cook Jerry March will need a chemist to have a look.--Stone 09:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, let's teach morons how to make explosives!

Wiki-books provides a detailed prep of acetone peroxides. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chemical_synthesis/Acetone_peroxide. I am curious to know if the WE-chem community supports disseminating practical preps of extremely dangerous chemicals that have no conceivable benefits? What I am missing?--Smokefoot 01:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Wikipedia is not: Instruction manuals. Cacycle 01:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

An article or a passage about it should be beneficial to the community, but probably not a manual. --Deryck C. 11:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I am removing anything that looks like a manual (including preps), and seriously cut down anything that looks too much like a safety guard on sight, both per wp:not. For the first, when we allow a description of how to brew beer, then we should also allow the synthesis of acetone peroxide, hence both go. For the second, if we say that a certain chemical is 'reasonably' save, and someone dies because wikipedia sayd it was save, I don't know how Wikipedia's lyability goes there, hence, I'd rather point to an MSDS .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Dictionary of chemical formulas

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_chemical_formulas , and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CAS_numbers_by_chemical_compound

I've noticed that a few of these sort of list are knocking about. It seems from my initial inspection that these pages are updated manually. I'm not too hot on bots, but couldn’t a bot update these pages, simply by looking in the correct infobox box.

Also could you not get the bot to also create a redirect page for each compound formula to the wiki page concerned with this compound e.g. C₆H₆ diverts to benzene. A person might want to find the name of a compound that they only have the formula for. Obviously in the case where more than one isomer exists for a certain formula, the bot would have to create a disambiguous page for these formula rather than a divert page. If this has already been raised in some way before (and dealt with) ... sorry to bring it up again! -- Quantockgoblin 14:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Confused

As a newcomer to Wikipedia I am a bit confused as to how the chemistry of an element is documented. Different styles have been adopted for different elements, for example there is a section Compounds in aluminium as well a section Chemistry which does not appear in any of the small sample of elements I have browsed. What should appear in the element entry and what should appear in the related chemical compound entries?

Axiosaurus 17:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Welcome! The format of the elements is guided by the Wikproject Elements, there is a description there (which is not too strict, anyway). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

You found the weak point of a encyclopedia compared with a text book of inorganic chemistry! The chemistry of certain elements would generate a article of its own and from most of the elements nobody started this kind of article yet. Most of the time there are single compounds without the overall conection between them. The comparing of chlorides and fluorides of P As Sb would be a article giving a good overview of the bonding in halogen compounds, but the info is deverted between all the compound pages. This will not chnage in short time. A section Chemistry in the element article should be the first aim, and if this is big enough make it a article of its own. As there are only a few contributors able two write a section like chemistry of aluminium in a way that it would help to understand chemistry of aluminium this will take some time.--Stone 18:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. I shall make a start on a chemistry section for each of the group 13 elements. If you don't mind I may bounce draft versions off you to see if I'm getting close to something useful.

Axiosaurus 19:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Surely, poke me when you have something. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• yep these pages are surely missed. Speaking only for organic chemistry C,N,O and the halogens are part of regular chemistry and chemistry of carbon to other elements are covered in individual pages such as organosilicon chemistry, organosulfur chemistry, organophosphorus chemistry and organofluorine chemistry. There should also be pages on the inorganic chemistry of lets say sulfur and phosphorus but the problem is that our resident inorganic chemists do not find these topics very hip, see an interesting but lengthy discussion in Talk:Inorganic_chemistry#Some_thoughts_before_I_plunge_in V8rik 20:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• These pages would be a great addition to Wikipedia, IMHO. Another weakness is that many of our element articles were written principally by physicists (and a geologist or two), so the chemistry sections of these is very weak IMHO. I think every element should have a summary of its reactivity as an element (rxn with air, water, etc.), redox chemistry and oxidation states in its compounds, ionic/covalent issues, aqueous chem, complexes and organometallics - all within one section! That would be much more informative than simple lists of compounds, many of which are rather odd lists anyway! It's just that the thought of writing these 100 or so sections is a daunting task!

• Another thing, we have talked in the past about "family pages" - we have very few, of which phosphorus halides is an example. That is one style that is more general than, say, phosphorus trichloride, but less general than "compounds of phosphorus". Walkerma 22:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The Wide Periodic Table and colors

I'm no expert at chemistry, but I'm pretty sure that there is something wrong with the coloring of the wide periodic table. As far as I'm concerned I'd say that oxygen and carbon are not considered metalloids, nor is flour a lanthanide. I won't try to change it as I'm no expert, but isn't there something wrong?? Snailwalker | talk 18:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems fixed now --Quantockgoblin 10:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)