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Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: Nature’s first green is gold

by Craig Bettenhausen
December 5, 2023

 

A green and gold disc around a whitish center circle.
Credit: Submitted by Catalina Larson

Challenged by her professor to make art using double replacement reactions, chemistry student Catalina Larson delivered. To Larson, the reaction of FeSO4 (iron sulfate) and NaOH (sodium hydroxide) to make Fe(OH)2 (iron(II) hydroxide) stood out, reminding her of the Robert Frost poem “Nothing gold can stay.”

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Submitted by Catalina Larson

Robert Frost, “Nothing gold can stay” from New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1923. Public Domain.

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