That isn't the lab, its the kitchen. I don't have enough SPACE in the lab for all my lab equipment, only a small proportion of it is actually permanently located up in there. The chemicals are, bar a few small cans of solvent, and some NaOH in the kitchen, currently also some borax since I'm experimenting with it a lot lately. Attempting, and I believe succeeding in forming amorphous boron plus a vitreous material of uncertain composition, which is a very pretty clear blue, and quite hard, I believe due to electrolysis of molten sodium borate (borax) using copper wire for electrodes.
This is the electrolyzed borax melt, reddish-brown is the color of at least one amorphous and several crystalline allotropes and polymorphs of elemental boron.
And this is the vitreous, possibly crystalline, possibly amorphous, uncertain material, that I am currently attempting to replicate production of experimentally. Could be an allotrope of boron, although I don't think so, but I am not familiar with them all, and especially not with exotic allotropes/polymorphs. Could be a composite of fused borax, boric oxide (B2O3) etc. The bottom piece, has what is most likely vitrified amorphous boron or a boron-borax or boron-boric oxide or boron-borax-boric oxide all vitrified together with copper ions providing the color. A further experiment will be to use a non-color donating set of electrodes, for example platinum, or palladium-plated ones, or iridium-plated electrodes of either copper, nickel or silver as the base, covered by a thin layer of course, since iridium, platinum, palladium and the other platinum-group metals are sodding expensive and I don't have very much platinum metal, and likewise I only have a little palladium chloride, iridium, none but can get it, albeit at a price. But especially iridium is useful, and I want some of the compounds (so I can plate what I like with it, rather than relying on solid pieces, which would be a bastard to work with, being incredibly hard, impossible to melt without resorting to a powerful arc furnace or plasma torch and resistant to all but the most brutal chemical assaults. Fused alkali metal hydroxides and molten potassium or sodium cyanide are some of the very few things that attack it. I think fluorine gas might do, or chlorine trifluoride, chlorine pentafluoride, and chlorine will when the metal is already very hot. But other than that iridium is neat stuff, tough as old boots, with one of the highest melting points of any element, along with osmium, carbon and molybdenum, as well as tungsten. So easier by FAR to select one's electrodes or other items of choice them plate onto them a thin surface layer of the hard to work with and rather expensive iridium metal. Osmium-iridium alloy was/is used for coating the nibs of some high-end fountain pens under the name osmiroid, the alloy being known as osmiridium, owing to its great durability.
anyhow, here is my unexpected, although not unwelcome little creation. Will be experimenting next with doping using chromium, manganese, vanadium, various valencies of said metal ions, and also cobalt. Cobalt glass takes a beautiful deep ultramarine-indigo blue, as well as uranium (VI) ions as a dopant aiming if the rest of the experiments are successful in serving as dopant ion species for color donation since I can get hold of some uranyl nitrate or acetate easily enough, just need to have a reason to want to buy it. Or make some U(VI) cation salts or complexes myself, using staballoy, after first leaching out the depleted uranium, since the tungsten can be dissolved in a peracid mixture consisting of hydrogen peroxide and phosphoric acid.
Also planned are experiments in spray-coating and vitrifying thin protective layers of potash glass using potassium silicate solution to assist in preserving and making this and any other such differently colorful materials more durable. These crystals or amorphous vitreous chunks I found in my electrolytic melt, after first breaking up the boron or boron and remaining borax, found them waiting for me under the surface, to my rather nice surprise, had to go digging for them and then hack them out, carving off any borax-boron composite or amorphous, fused, vitrified boron.
