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11 articles

Water & EnvironmentalSep 25, 2026 16 min

The Gas Mask Made of Photo Fixer: How Sodium Thiosulfate Met Chlorine in 1915

The Hypo helmet was the first gas mask issued in bulk to British and Canadian troops in the First World War. It was a flannel hood soaked in a solution of sodium...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 22, 2026 20 min

The Army Made a Man Fly on Hydrogen Peroxide, Then Walked Away: The Bell Rocket Belt, the X-15 and the Machine That Trained Neil Armstrong

The Bell Rocket Belt was a one-man flying pack built by Bell Aerosystems for the U.S. Army, flown untethered for the first time by engineer Harold Graham on April 20, 1961. It...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 18, 2026 19 min

What Fuel Launched Freedom 7? The Alcohol, Water and Hydrogen Peroxide Behind America’s First Astronaut

Freedom 7, the flight that made Alan Shepard the first American in space on May 5, 1961, was launched by a Mercury-Redstone rocket burning ethyl alcohol (ethanol, CAS 64-17-5) diluted with roughly...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 16, 2026 18 min

Banana Oil: Isoamyl Acetate, the Banana That Vanished, and the Isomer Most Buyers Order by Mistake

Banana oil is the common name for isoamyl acetate (CAS 123-92-2, 3-methylbutyl acetate, C7H14O2, MW 130.18) - the ester that carries most of the smell of a ripe banana. It is not...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 14, 2026 19 min

How Is Citric Acid Made? The 1917 Mold Discovery That Replaced Lemons

Citric acid (C6H8O7, CAS 77-92-9) is made commercially by fermentation, not by squeezing lemons. About 99% of world supply comes from microbial fermentation, mostly with the mold Aspergillus niger, which converts sugar...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 10, 2026 21 min

What Is Denatured Alcohol? Why the Government Poisons Perfectly Good Ethanol on Purpose

Denatured alcohol is ethanol (C₂H₆O, CAS 64-17-5) to which a small amount of a toxic or foul-tasting additive has been blended, under a federally published recipe, so that it cannot be sold...

Chemical & Product GuidesAug 31, 2026 19 min

Elixir Sulfanilamide: The 1937 Poisoning That Created the FDA — and the Glycol Mix-Up That Still Kills

Elixir Sulfanilamide was a raspberry-flavored liquid antibiotic sold by the S.E. Massengill Company of Bristol, Tennessee, in September 1937. Its solvent was diethylene glycol (DEG, CAS 111-46-6) — sweet, syrupy and lethal,...

Chemical & Product GuidesAug 20, 2026 16 min

Potash: The Chemical Behind America’s First Patent — and What It Became

Potash is the family name for water-soluble potassium salts, originally potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃) leached from wood ash in iron pots — the origin of both the word and the element name potassium....

Water & EnvironmentalAug 19, 2026 14 min

Ignaz Semmelweis: The Doctor Who Discovered Handwashing — and the Chlorine That Proved Him Right

Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865) was the Hungarian obstetrician who introduced antiseptic handwashing in 1847 at the Vienna General Hospital, requiring doctors to scrub in chlorinated lime solution between autopsies and deliveries. Average monthly...

Chemical & Product GuidesAug 17, 2026 16 min

Who Discovered Ammonia? The Salt of Ammon and a 1,900-Year-Old Naming Mistake

Ammonia is a nitrogen-hydrogen compound with the formula NH3 and CAS number 7664-41-7. It was first isolated as a gas by Joseph Priestley in 1774, named “ammonia” by Torbern Bergman in 1782,...

Water & EnvironmentalAug 14, 2026 16 min

Who Discovered Chlorine? The 1774 Green Gas That Became Sodium Hypochlorite

Sodium hypochlorite is the sodium salt of hypochlorous acid, with the chemical formula NaOCl and CAS number 7681-52-9. It was first produced in 1820 by Antoine Germain Labarraque, who dissolved chlorine in...

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