ChemSolve

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Chamorro Research Group copy of ChemSolve by the McQueen Lab. Calculations run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.

Target Formula		The target formula you want to make
Starting Materials		The metals, oxides, carbonates, nitrates, etc. to start with.
Reaction Setup	Open to air (box furnace in air, flowing gas): oxygen can enter or leave the sample Sealed (evacuated quartz tube, arc melter, glovebox): every atom you weigh in ends up in the product
Lost on Heating	Gases that leave the starting materials. Tick what applies; extra ticks do no harm. CO₂ from carbonates (Li2CO3, BaCO3) NO_x from nitrates (Ba(NO3)2, LiNO3) NH₃ from ammonium salts (NH4H2PO4, (NH4)2HPO4, NH4Cl) H₂O from hydrates and hydroxides (Ni(NO3)2(H2O)6, Mg(OH)2, FeO(OH)) CO₂ and H₂O from organic precursors (acetates, oxalates, citrates, acetylacetonates, alkoxides)
Quantity / mg		The total quantity of , in milligrams.

Advanced: the do-not-balance list

The choices above write this list in the original ChemSolve syntax. You can edit it by hand; the next change to the choices above rewrites it.

Material	Quantity/mg

How to use it

What it does. It finds the ratio of starting materials that gives the target with every element balanced, then scales that to your total mass. Atoms that leave as gas (CO₂, NO_x, H₂O, NH₃, and O₂ when open to air) are left out of the balance.
Formulas. Capital letters matter: Co is cobalt, CO is carbon and oxygen. Decimals are fine: La1.85Sr0.15CuO4. Separate starting materials with commas.
Hydrates. Write Ni(NO3)2·6H2O, Ni(NO3)2*6H2O or Ni(NO3)2(H2O)6. Do not use a period (Ni(NO3)2.6H2O): a period is a decimal point, so that reads as 2.6 nitrate groups.
Groups. Parentheses can be nested, and square brackets work too: Ba3(Co(CN)6)2, K3[Fe(CN)6]. Nested groups are multiplied out, so the result may show Ba3(CoC6N6)2.
Nitrate or oxynitride. Ba(NO3)2 is read as a nitrate and ZrNbO3N as an oxynitride. Write BaN2O6 to force an oxynitride, or ZrNbNO3 to force a nitrate.
Carbon in the product. Carbides, borocarbides and similar targets need Sealed (or untick the organic box), otherwise the carbon is ignored and the calculation fails.
Additives. Leave out anything that ends up entirely as gas, such as citric acid, urea or ethylene glycol in a sol-gel. Weigh those separately.
Isotopes. Use an underscore: target Sm(B_11)5B_10 from Sm, B_11 and B_10.
Reading the result. "Li2CO3 as Li2" shows the part of each material that is balanced. A warning such as "YB could be Yb" tells you how an ambiguous formula was read; if the reading is right, ignore it.
Check it. Look at the balanced reaction at the top of the result. If it is not the reaction you meant, change the setup or the tick boxes.

Adapted from ChemSolve by Tyrel McQueen, Johns Hopkins University. GPL-2.0; source.

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