The Essential Equipment for your Chemistry Set

The Essential Equipment for your Chemistry Set What You Need in Your Chemistry Kit. ChaptersThe Basic Chemistry Equipment: Test Tubes â€" and Other ContainersSafety Equipment for Your Chemistry ExperimentsThe Necessary Extras: The Things you Need to Understand ChemistryGetting Serious: The Pro Kit for Kitchen ChemistryIf you are a budding scientist, you may want to invest in a chemistry lab at home â€" a place where you can experiment with chemical reactions to your heart’s content. Maybe a whole laboratory in your household is a little ambitious, but there are science kits available â€" for kids and for adults â€" which can turn anybody into an amateur chemist!But before you go and buy anything, have a look at this list of the essential lab equipment you will need to turn your kitchen into a place to cook up science experiments!Brush up with our Chemistry glossary here.There's a couple of rad facts about acids and alkalis, which we're ready to bet you didn't know, in our piece on cool facts about chemistry!The Periodic TableEvery classroom laboratory has one. And you’re not going to understand anything that is going on in your chemistry experiments without one. This is the periodic table, the table of the elements, the chart that tells you exactly what each element is, what it is like, and what it can react with â€" as long as you know how to read it!The periodic table is arranged by atomic number â€" or the number of protons in the nucleus of each atom â€" and by the reactivity of each element. This table will show you precisely why fluorine and caesium are so reactive and will help you understand what happens when two different elements react.Get a chemistry tutor now.Molecular ModelsWhilst the periodic table can show you in numerical terms what is going on in a given atom, molecular models offer a practical way to understand how molecules and compounds are formed. For an explanation of precisely this, see our pieces on basic chemistry concepts or the essential chemistry terminology!If you buy them, they are usually made of plastic, and come with balls (representing atoms) and sticks (representing chemical bonds). The joy of these models is that you can build any molecule you want and actually see what is going on at a chemical level in your test tube.You can even make your own. Just get some little different coloured balls and some string or straws â€" and make all the molecules you could possibly want!Getting Serious: The Pro Kit for Kitchen ChemistryBunsen burnerHonestly, this probably isn’t going to be something you will need at home â€" although we all can dream!The Bunsen burner is a tool that produces a very clean and clear flame from gas, and it is super useful in heating up solutions, burning elements for oxidisation, and seeing how substances react to heat.However, the problem is that they need to be connected to the gas mains â€" and if you are a kid, your parents might not really trust you to use that (although, if you are an adult, your neighbours might not trust you either)! They can be a little tr icky to have installed at home.If you are serious, however, and if you are a very ambitious scientist, then go for it! No science experiment is complete without a Bunsen!Any idea why it's called a Bunsen burner? Check out piece on the world's incredible chemists to find out.Tripod and gauzeIf you are using a Bunsen, you’ve got to remember one fairly obvious thing: stuff gets really hot when you put it over a flame! This is what a tripod and gauze are for: the tripod sits neatly over the Bunsen burner, and things â€" such as a conical flask â€" can be placed upon it in order to be heated up without you touching them; the gauze sits beneath the flask and spreads out the heat, so the whole thing warms up evenly!Anything more you want to know about chemistry? We're sure you'll find it in our guide to everything you need to study chemistry!