Alliance Chemical Resource Library

Water & EnvironmentalSep 25, 202615 min read

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...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 22, 202618 min read

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...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 18, 202618 min read

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...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 16, 202616 min read

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...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 14, 202617 min read

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...

Chemical & Product GuidesSep 10, 202619 min read

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,...

Chemical & Product GuidesAug 31, 202618 min read

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...

Chemical & Product GuidesAug 20, 202615 min read

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...

Water & EnvironmentalAug 19, 202613 min read

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...

Chemical & Product GuidesAug 17, 202614 min read

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...

Water & EnvironmentalAug 14, 202615 min read

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...

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