Alchemy Lesson 2 (All Years)

Guest

Sadly, not many people had turned up to the previous lesson, but Scarlett had hopes for this one. More chemistry than magic, though this time. However, she always found chemistry to be rather intriguing to watch, she could only hope that more students turned up this time.

'Salt Volatilisation' was written on the board behind her as she took a seat at her desk, waiting for students to turn up. To fill in the time, she decided that she had better get some paperwork done for her other job. Did it sometimes get a tad stressful, doing two jobs that required so much time? In all truth, it did. Thankfully, Scarlett had always been a very organised person, and that meant that she used all her time wisely. All her work completed on time, class planned thoroughly, she enjoyed keeping busy, keeping her mind at work and always having some sort of project to work on, otherwise she didn't know what to do with herself.

Guest

Sophie made her way to class, thinking about all the things she would do during the Christmas holidays. She'd just received word that her registration had been accepted for the Winter Showjumping Series. She'd been beyond ecstatic. Of course, this wasn't her first competition but it was going to be her first where if she won it, she could go on to compete against other states and eventually other countries. It was the junior division since she was only twelve but that wouldn't deter her from doing her best.

"Hi, Professor Waters," Sophie greeted as she stepped into the classroom and made her way to one of the front seats. Alchemy for Sophie was an interesting subject. She didn't hate it but it also didn't inspire any passion in her for it as well. It was just one of the classes she had to attend.

Settling down, Sophie got out her notebook and stationery just in case she had to take notes, but hoping that it would be a practical class.

Guest

The thought of Christmas holidays filled Stephanie with dread. She would, of course, be going back and seeing her family, and they were the last people on earth she wanted to be with right now. It wasn't that she hated them - after all, they too had no choice in what family they were born to - but with her trying to figure everything out about herself and how she viewed the world, their influence was the last thing she needed. They'd already noticed that something was up during the summer holidays, but hopefully, they wouldn't question it or confront her about it.

Then there were the endless parties she had to attend. She didn't mind that so much since she did love a good dance, but it was all set in the Pureblood world. She didn't yet know how she would respond to that. Would she love it as always, strutting her outfit and showing off her wealth? Or would she second guess all the attention she received?

This is all to confusing Stephanie thought to herself as she entered the Alchemy classroom and nodded to Professor Waters. She took a seat near the back of the room and glanced up at the board. Salt Volatilisation? What in Merlin's name was that?

Guest

Arthur had never tried Alchemy, so he'd decided to give it a shot. It was, in truth, a step out of his comfort zone, but... if you didn't try new things, you'd never know if you were very good at them, would you? However, the thought of the unknown was not one that settled well with the Slytherin.

He powered on, though, pushing open the door and nodding towards the professor before hurrying to an empty seat so not to draw attention to himself. Setting out his things in a neat and precise manner, Arthur looked to the board, wondering if there would be a clue for him. Something, perhaps, to settle his mind.

Salt Volatilisation. Arthur sat frowning to himself, he had absolutely no idea what that meant. But, it was a puzzle. The salt part was easy, they were working with salt. But volatilisation. Was that how volatile salt was? Was salt volatile? Huh... Arthur wasn't sure, but he was quite sure this was going to make for an interesting lesson.

Guest

Clara entered the classroom with great interest. As a young scientist, she had always scoffed at the concept of alchemy--but that was before she had learned about magic. Now, as a young witch, she realized that alchemy was the perfect blend of magic and science--exactly what she had spent the last two years studying independently. She had high hopes for this class. Would she learn how to merge chemistry and potions, two of her favourite subjects? She'd studied up a little in preparation, reading a book or two from the Hogwarts library. She had been quite relieved to find that it was much more legitimate than muggle "alchemy", which was still a cheap pseudoscience in her opinion, since it was like trying to do magic without actual magic.

She saw "salt volatisation" on the board and frowned. She'd read something about calcining certain salts, which seemed to entail a long and arduous process that required lots of dissolving and evaporating and straining. But from what she'd read, that was supposed to take weeks, or even months to do it properly. Maybe it means something else. Anyway, the real question is what sort of salts, and what are they used for? This seemed more like chemistry than magic, so she was quite looking forward to it--she hadn't been able to do real chemistry since summer break.

Guest

It was a small class, yet again. Though honestly, she knew the students tended to slack off this time of the term. Only the really devoted ones ever made it to class, the rest would be too concerned with Christmas, she'd imagine.

Looking up at the time, she decided that it'd be best to start, so they'd have enough time to complete the practical. She stood up from her desk, smiling at the three students that had arrived.

"Well, thank you for coming today," she started "So, fairly self explanatory, we're going to be doing Salt Volatilisation." She decided it might be better to explain the concept a bit, considering the subject was rather obscure. And considering it was such a long process, she'd decided to prepare the samples so it wouldn't take as long as it usually would.

"Essentially, it's a way of getting the precipitates of a solutions through a series of evaporations. This class, it'll be the salts of a Rosemary Herb." she walked around the class, waving her wand, samples floated in front of the students, being placed gently in front of them "These samples have already been partially done, to save on time, and it'll be your job to complete the process." The samples were a beaker of clouded water, with solids that had sunk to the bottom.

Waving her wand again, the chalk behind her began to write up the procedure.

1.The insoluble salts precipitate to the bottom of the beakers, leaving a milky water ladened with the soluble white salts. Filter off this salty milky water and preserve it by pouring it into a second beaker, over a filter. Dissolve and evaporate the solids as many times as necessary to get a pure substance.

2. Remove these salts once pure and crush them using a mortar.

3.These soluble salts are once again dissolved in hot distilled water to ensure that all the darkness has been removed from our salts. The dark ashes have separated and precipitated to the bottom of the bottle. The whole process of the evaporation is again repeated as before. You should aim for bright white salts.

4. 150 mil of pure Rosemary oil was distilled with 30 grams of our purified salts. Gradually add the salts to the oil in a cauldron. Heat gradually, if it spits that you've heated it too much. The mixture of our oil and salt produces a dark coffee colour.

5. Approximately half way though the distillation our salts start to volatilize and begin to be seen as they deposit in the beak and the upper part of the retort. Nearing the end of the distillation the volatilization greatly increases so that a white vapour can be seen to fly upwards in the retort. The distilled oil is cooled (simply diminish the heat) and distilled
again to wash the volatilized salts from the beak into the receptor. Repeat three times. We can see the salts as ice formed, deposited and collected in the inner upper surface of the beak of the retort as a beautiful, bright, clear and crystalline substance.

Posts : 1364 Join date : 2015-12-20

Admin Closure of Class.

Thank you to those who have posted in this class - unfortunately the professor cannot finish up the class, so an admin will close it. Points will be given as follows:

10 points for attendance
5 points for any question being answered
Up to 15 points for participation

Thank you for your participation - this will still count as one of your three classes.

If you have any questions in regards to the points being handed out (either as a student or professor) please contact myself or another admin via PM to discuss them.

House Points
Sophie Heart = 10 points for attendance
Clara Goldstein = 10 points for attendance
Arthur Peadarsan = 10 points for attendance
Stephanie Richardson = 10 points for attendance

TOTAL:
Gryffindor: 10
Hufflepuff: 0
Ravenclaw: 10
Slytherin: 20

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