Pioneers of modern chemistry such as Robert Boyle and Antoine Lavoisier were gentlemen scientists who pursued their research independently from their source of income.
For example, in 1886, Charles Martin Hall co-invented the Hall-Héroult process for extracting aluminium from its oxide whilst working in a woodshed behind his family home.
[2] Many academics, from researchers to university professors, and even Nobel prize laureates, have acknowledged that at least part of their interest in sciences could be traced back to chemistry sets and home labs when they were young.
These include Dorothy Hodgkin,[7] Robert F. Curl,[8] George A. Olah,[9] Rudolph A. Marcus,[10] Louis J. Ignarro,[11] Richard Schrock,[12] Roger Y. Tsien,[13][14] William D. Phillips,[15] Steven Weinberg[16] Peter Licence,[17] etc.
[20] Even as recently as 2023, amateur chemists on forums and YouTube channels have been credited by academic researchers for suggesting and discussing novel viable synthetic routes before full investigations by the latter.
[21] Home-based chemistry labs were explored as a way to remotely teach students during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially since many local and state-level governments across the world imposed lockdowns or other types of restrictions to contain the spread of the virus.
Medium-sized suppliers and multinationals have whole departments, sometimes named Compliance or Regulatory affairs, tasked with periodically checking and implementing new regulations regarding chemicals on their companies.
Reagent manufacturers typically require customers to sign an end user declaration before accepting and processing the sale of a chemical listed on these schedules.
It requires that each member state must define a National Contact Point to which economic operators must report suspicious transactions, thefts, and disappearances of significant quantities involving scheduled substances.
However, professional users and members of the general public must also report significant disappearances and thefts of restricted explosives precursors within 24 hours of detection to the national contact point.
[60] In Italy, regulations regarding explosives precursors have been approved as the Ministry of the Interior's Circolare 557/PAS/U/004997/XV.H.MASS(53)5,[61] titled Identificazione e tracciabilità degli esplosivi per uso civile: - Indicazioni operative e gestione delle scorte.
[64] On January 3, 1994, Eduardo Rey Díaz, a 13-year-old boy from Getxo, Basque Country, was at a friend's house doing an experiment using materials from a chemistry set.
[70] According to the Resolution of 20 November 2013 of the Spanish State Secretariat for Security, the National Contact Point for this country is the Intelligence Center for Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO).
The first ones (purchases and sales) must include information on the quantities, full contact details and address, and NIF or DNI number of the suppliers or buyers.
[75][76][77] Additionally, the storage of chemicals, including reagents, flammable solvents, and gas cylinders, is regulated by Royal Decree 656/2017, of 23 June.
[81] Business that meet the definition of 'waste producers' or 'waste management facilities' need to obtain an Environmental Identification Number (Número de identificación medioambiental, NIMA).
This exemption requires obtaining an Activity and Establishment Code (Código de Actividad y del Establecimiento, CAE), which allows to request a refund from the Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria) by submitting a filled form model 572.
[84] A refund can also be requested for the special tax on hydrocarbons as long as they aren't used as fuels, according to article 109 the same Royal Decree (1165/1995, of 7 July).
[83] One of the laws regulating chemicals in Sweden is the Act on flammable and explosive goods (Lag om brandfarliga och explosiva varor).
In September 2018, a 29-year-old physician and amateur chemist and his girlfriend were arrested at their home on in Nord-Jæren, two days after inquiring a local pharmacy about the availability of 35% hydrogen peroxide.
In the UK it is a criminal offence for members of the general public to purchase, and for business to sell, certain types of poisons or explosives precursors to those of the former group without a valid EPP license.
[88] Since July 1st 2018, the acquisition of sulphuric acid in concentrations above 15% in weight by members of the general public also requires an EPP licence, which has impacted lead-acid battery sellers.
[95] Directly related to the above is the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, which forbids the sale of corrosive chemicals to minors, as well as their shipment to residential addresses or lockers.
[101][102] United Nuclear, an amateur science supplier based in New Mexico was raided in June 2003 at the behest of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission,[1] and subsequently fined $7,500 for "Selling Illegal Fireworks Components".
[103] In 2008, the home laboratory of Victor Deeb, a retired chemist, was raided and dismantled[104][105][106][107][108] Almost a year later, Jack Robison,[109][110] then a 19-year-old chemistry student at the Holyoke Community College, received a visit from members of the Massachusetts State Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the FBI.
They asked him questions regarding several videos on small-scale experiments he had posted two years earlier on YouTube involving energetic materials, including PETN, potassium nitrate, and RDX, and wanted to check his mother's house basement.