This is for chemists and chemistry teachers out there!

This comes from when I used to teach in Baku, Azerbaijan, at The International School of Azerbaijan.

The winter of 2007-8, I noticed that we didn’t have a number of the chemicals I enjoyed having in my chemistry lab. It turned out that, for one reason or another, the school just hadn’t been able to restock them.

I asked my department head to see if he could find out what the problem was. What followed were the emails reproduced below.

Enjoy!

(I have removed all but my own name to safeguard their privacy and identities, except in one case where I changed it to something else.)

From: [Head of Department]
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 11:47 AM
To: [Administrative Personnel]
Cc: [Another Office Personnel]
Subject: chemical order from UK

Morning [Administrative Personnel],

Is it possible to contact Jane, who I understand is the main contact in the UK for our orders, and ask her why we cannot get our chemical requests from any of our suppliers. We are getting desperate up in secondary science and are having little success with locating a local supplier (other than labservis who has a limited stock of chemicals).

Thanks

[Head of Department]

And the response from Administrative Personnel to us.

From: [Administrative Personnel]
Sent: 01 February 2008 09:07
To: [Lab Technician]
Cc: [Head of Department]; Dorje Gurung; [Another Administrative Personnel]
Subject: FW: chemical order from UK

[Lab Technician],

Please provide us with a list re problematic delivery stuff and I will contact Jane for reasonable explanations.

Please be aware that we will ask local supplier (bp vendor) to submit updated chemicals list and it will be sent to your science department for overview.

In addition submitted by you list with needed chemicals will be sent to bp PSCM and they will start search too.

Thanks,

[Administrative Personnel]

Out lab technician wasn’t in on the 2nd of February (Friday) and so the email wasn’t responded to. When the Aministrative Personnel re-sent the request Monday morning, my head of department as me to respond. I fired off the following email.

From: Dorje Gurung
Sent: 04 February 2008 10:22
To: [Administrative Personnel]; [Lab Technician]
Cc: [Head of Department]; [Another Administrative Personnel]
Subject: RE: chemical order from UK

[Administrative Personnel],

Working from memory, we don’t have the following chemicals and [Lab Technician] tells me that the reason is, for one reason or another, they haven’t been delivered, and the local supplier doesn’t stock them either:

• Ammonium nitrate
• Ammonium dichromate(VI)
• Bromine (NOT bromine water)
• Lithium
• Potassium
• Sodium peroxide/barium peroxide
• Sodium fluoride/potassium fluoride
• Sodium nitrite/potassium nitrite
• Sodium sulfite/potassium sulfite

And the following chemicals [Lab Technician] tells me have not been restocked since she came here, again for one reason or another they haven’t been delivered:

• Potassium permanganate (potassium manganate(VII))
• Potassium nitrate
• Magnesium ribbon
• Potassium chlorate(V)

If we don’t have a means of restocking these chemicals it will be pretty difficult to run a chemistry program at the school.

Hope that helps.

Dorje

In the course of the day, that email got forwarded to at least two other people. Late afternoon, I received the following email from another administrative personnel, who had been forwarded the exchanges. Highlights are my own.

From: [Third Administrative Personnel]
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 4:43 PM
To: [Administrative Personnel]; Dorje Gurung; [Lab Technician]
Cc: [Head of Department]
Subject: RE: chemical order from UK

[Administrative Personnel],

chemicals in red are available at Lab service, the rest of them they do not require as they relate to explosive.

Regards,

[Third Administrative Personnel]

• Ammonium nitrate 500gr(pure)
• Ammonium dichromate(VI)
• Bromine (NOT bromine water)
• Lithium
• Potassium
• Sodium peroxide/barium peroxide
• Sodium fluoride/potassium fluoride
• Sodium nitrite/potassium nitrite
• Sodium sulfite/potassium sulfite
• Potassium permanganate (potassium manganate(VII))
• Potassium nitrate 500gr(pure)
• Magnesium ribbon
• Potassium chlorate(V)

For the benefit of non-chemists, I might point out that THE chemical you would want if you are making explosives is none other than…ammonium nitrate!

Regardless, I did get a number of those chemicals and went on to have a blast with my chemistry students at TISA!

If you are a teacher, I am sure you have interesting and funny exchanges and experiences such as this. Please share!

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