What are some chemical reagents?

Answer 1

Laboratory Supplies and Reagents :

Reagents are perhaps one of the most important components of any laboratory. Along with various laboratory supplies, reagents are required for almost every reaction that takes place in the laboratory. There are many different kinds of reagents in the laboratory. Some can be rather dangerous while others are quite harmless and common.

A reagent, also known as a reactant, is a substance or a compound that is consumed in a chemical reaction. It should be distinguished from solvents and catalysts, however, which are involved in a chemical reaction, but are not consumed in the process. Generally speaking, a reagent is a substance of some sort that is added to create a specific reaction or to test for a specific reaction. Additionally, reagents are used to see if another substance is present.

Reagents are the laboratory supplies without which a laboratory cannot function. Even mechanical methods, those reactions that are carried out by machines, require reagents to perform their tests. A list of all possible reagents would seem to have nearly no end. Most reagents are simple chemical compounds, of which sulphur is one of the most common, while others are very specific compounds created for certain reactions.

As laboratories supplies go, reagents also require a lot more care in storage. While most reagents can be kept at room temperature, some require special storage conditions. Some reagents, for example, lose their properties if exposed to bright sunlight for too long, while others need to be kept at below freezing temperatures - even though the reagent itself does not freeze. And as if these particular conditions aren't bad enough many reagents have an expiry date as well.

For the most part, the expiry date on most reagents is far in the future. Others, however, start losing their potency as soon as they are opened and need to be used in a matter of days before becoming completely useless. Some reagents have a lifetime of a couple of hours and are mixed the moment it is to be used. The lifetime of these laboratory supplies is an important consideration when the stock manager has to order new supplies and a lot of money can be wasted on unused, inert reagents.

In most laboratories, reagents are very important. They play a role in nearly everything that happens and without them a great many processes cannot take place. These are important laboratory supplies that need to be managed and used correctly if resources are not to be wasted.

Answer 2

A reagent is a substance or compound that is added to a system to create a chemical reaction. Some examples of chemical reagents are Fehling's reagent, Millon's reagent, and Tollens' reagent. Millon's reagent is created by dissolving Mercury in nitric acid and then diluting it using water.