Jason Liu

Home lab

Home Chemistry Lab

A self-funded chemistry lab in a storage room, running since Grade 6.

In the lab

Tap a photo to see it full size.

A distillation setup on a balcony table: a heating mantle with a foil-covered flask, a long glass condenser fed by a small pump in a steel bowl, and a collection flask, with city lights behind.
Distilling sulfuric acid, from 60% up to 98%.
A gloved hand holds a gas torch under a round flask of dark residue clamped to a stand; a bent glass adapter leads into a beaker of water.
Extracting white phosphorus from red phosphorus.
Glassware on a fume hood bench: a separating funnel on a stand, a funnel holding a yellow solid above a flask of orange liquid, bottles, a test tube rack and a bag of small discs.
My fume hood.
A narrow room with a lab bench and sink on the left and metal shelves of reagent bottles with hazard labels on the right.
My storage-room lab.
A metal cylinder taped at one end lies on a panel of gold-coloured connectors; black soot is spread across the panel beside its open end.
A metal cylinder on a panel of connectors, with black soot spread across the panel.
A round flask of brown liquid in a white heating mantle, connected to a condenser that drips into a brown bottle on a lab bench.
Distillation at the lab bench, with a heating mantle, a condenser and a collection bottle.
Reagent bottles of different sizes, some wrapped in plastic bags or pink foam, lined up along a wall, with a gloved thumbs up in front.
An aluminium extrusion frame on a tiled floor, with two chrome guide rails, a sliding crossbar, a metal block with a cable and a small circuit board with green terminals beside it.
An aluminium extrusion frame on a concrete floor, with sliding rods, bearings, wires and a clamped metal tube.
The rocket thrust test stand I built.
Two bowls, a large green one and a small white one, filled with gold-coloured metal pins, with a small scale beside them.
Scrap pins I bought to extract gold from.
A white lab bench holding reagent bottles, a conical flask, a small balance, an infrared thermometer and an electric grinder.
A wooden table set with a black full-face helmet, mechanic gloves, two syringes, a measuring cylinder, a conical flask, bottles of reagents, a steel bowl of ice and a blank sheet of paper.
A hand holds up a short pink plastic tube whose end is filled with a reddish-brown solid with a hole through the middle; lab items sit blurred on the bench behind.
Rocket motor propellant, with a hole through the centre for a better burn.
A gloved hand holds a pale block over a white tub that holds more cut pieces, with a white towel behind.
Sodium metal.

Videos

Short clips that play right here on the page.

A rocket motor burn test on my test stand.
Smoke and flame rising from a metal can on the terrace.
A propellant burn test at home that went wrong.
Another burn test.
Nitrocellulose I made.
Sulfuric acid distillation.
The white phosphorus extraction in action.