• Neuroscience & Pharmacology Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Recent Journal Articles Chemistry Mega-Thread
    FREE Chemistry Databases! Self-Education Guide

  • N&PD Moderators: Skorpio

Chemicals, what would I see through a microscope?

Si Dread

Si Dread

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 29, 2002
Messages
3,226
Location
UK
Mods I have no idea where to post this question so if you feel I'm in the wrong place here, please shift it as needed!

I was poking about the webs as you do, & I came across some USB 1000x Microscopes! I had a proper microscope as a kid & loved farting around with it, but I have no idea how powerful it was & seeing these new USB based thingies got me thinking.

What would be visible through one of these pretty cheap USB jobs if I were to look at various chemicals through it? I'm obviously not expecting to be able to see molecular structure, but does anyone have any idea if I'd be able to see crystal structure or anything else of interest? Would, for instance, 5-apb look different to 6-apb? It's possible to take snap-shots with these USB things too, has anyone done this & might have pics to post?

Finally, how powerful a microscope would I need to actually view chemical molecular structure & is such a technique possible to use to ID chemicals?

Sorry, lots of questions here. I'm obviously just a layman, havent peered through a microscope since school decades ago, so if I express any obvious ignorance, please bear with me ;)

I've lost the link to the 1000x one but here's an 800x from Amazon :-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Industrial-...UTF8&colid=1FAZRVCHFR2QB&coliid=I43ES0DVH7PF7
 
Last edited:
Here you could see small examples of what you could see at different magnificence: http://www.microscopeworld.com/microscope_images.aspx
So basically, with a 1000x microscope you should be able to see cells.
But I am really not sure about the quality of this "USB microscope".


Si Ingwe said:
if I were to look at various chemicals through it? I'm obviously not expecting to be able to see molecular structure, but does anyone have any idea if I'd be able to see crystal structure or anything else of interest? Would, for instance, 5-apb look different to 6-apb? It's possible to take snap-shots with these USB things too, has anyone done this & might have pics to post?
Click to expand...

Could you solve the crystal structure with a light microscope? No, absolutely not.
Could you have useful information? I don't think so neither. I think, what you could see at this level would be more influenced by the crystallization conditions than by the product itself.

Si Ingwe said:
Finally, how powerful a microscope would I need to actually view chemical molecular structure & is such a technique possible to use to ID chemicals?
Click to expand...

It's not possible to see chemical molecular structure with a visible microscope because diffraction is too important: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system

You should use an electronic microscope or X-ray diffraction

Electronic microscope are mainly used to study some biological system (proteins, membranes,...) or in material science to study some systems.
X-ray diffraction is mainly used to solve the crystal structure or confirm the conformation of a molecule.

These two technique are complicated and need to be performed by technicians.
 
Thanks for the response!

King Kong said:
But I am really not sure about the quality of this "USB microscope".
Click to expand...

Nor me! But a good Microscope is not cheap, these USB jobs are & they have the added advantage of photography, so I might get one in the near future just find out exactly what I can see with it. If it turns out to be a waste of money for viewing chemicals it might be handy to examine various other crystals etc or simply to take extremely close-up shots of interesting stuff.
 
Yah you'll see lots of little elves dancing around with feather on their heads waiting to tickle neurons.

Hah, you should be able to see some crystals! In fact its probally a really good simple analytical method. I am REALLY suprised more people don't use this to check out substances... Granted, the substance needs to be purified, but thats not too difficult.It is also important to note that the substance said chemical is bonded with (i.e amphetamine citrate vs amphetamine succinate) will create different crystals... Any impurities will affect crystalization and accuracy of determination... Imagine people posting baseline pictures of purified substances and using images taken with microscope to compare if said chemical is what it is, along with other properties , of course.

I have this big dorky red childrens microscope that projects the image on a big screen with mirrors, its somewhat impractical but nifty to play around with. Salt crystals are easy to practice with BTW and a good baseline to see what kind of resolution you get outta your scope. :)

My my, I covet a USB microscope. Those are badass.
 
Crystal shape, while a useful metric for confirming identities of compounds (certain pure salts will always have a certain crystal shape), is not enough to go on to produce an ID on its own. Don't expect to be able to tell purity with a microscope.
 
To be honest, I was half expecting to be able to see little more than an up close salt crystal, & that most chemicals might look very similar. I'm impressed that a cheap USB Microscope might be able to see ANY difference between substances & I still might get one in. However, even £40 is more than I can justify spending simply for fun & the vague off-chance of an interesting result, at the moment.

Might get one onto my Birthday list though! :) & if I get one & if anything appears that might be of interest to BL ADD, I shall return!

Thanks to the cleverer folks in this part of BL, you weren't all that condescending at all Lol ;) Seriouusly, cheers =D
 
The best picture we have of a molecule is this one of pentacene, using an electron tunnel scan microscope. So if we can put quotation-marks on 'see', here it is:

316av6x.png


Which comes pretty close to our models:

800px-Pentacene-3D-balls.png
 
The IBM atom movie is pretty cool if you want to check it out. To view a compound on the atomic level you would need a scanning tunneling microscope. Might not be feasible but they're pretty neat nonetheless.
 
Ah I thought perhaps folks were viewing drugs in liquid solutions. I looked at the schematics and went, "where do the chemicals go?" hah
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top