Making chloroform so I can sleep better at night [video]
Chloroform is great for extractions (if you don't care about the environment) because it sinks to the bottom of a sep funnel, but the thing about it being a knockout gas or sleep aid is complete BS.Based on an unpublished study of about 4 degenerate chemistry undergrads:    - It PROBABLY takes several minutes of inhalation through a saturated rag to induce full loss of consciousness, although shorter times do produce noticeable wooziness
    - However, full unconsciousness was not achieved in any subject because chloroform tasted too Totally Gross to continue past a minute or so (choking sickly-sweet) 
    - Subjective effects wore off within a few minutes, however the gross flavor persisted for several hours afterword much longer as residual chloroform washed out (along with mild headaches)
    - Ingestion was not investigated.

So, in order to incapacitate someone you would have to force them to do really unpleasant for a long time, in which case you might as well choke them out, and the victim would regain consciousness quickly. And as a sleep aid it would likely need to be ingested, would induce sleep but not maintain it (i.e. wake up shortly), and would leave the user reeking of gross chloroform for long after.Join us for our continued lecture series, covering topics such as:    - Why microwave assisted reactions in DMSO are a bad idea
    - Why attempting GHB synthesis via permanganate oxidation of THF is a bad idea
    - Harm reduction re: consumption of USP 99.9% ethanol
    - How peroxyacid syntheses of various things do not scale up well and how they absolutely should not be coerced into running more quickly
    - The poor efficacy of DMSO in assisting drug translocation through skin