Mostly, alchemy describes dwarves experimenting with things to explode and things to eat.

Wands, though. We don't use those very often. Larger foci are more efficient for our magic. Which can do a great many things. I focused my studies on the interaction between the Fade and the physical plane.

[He's his world's equivalent of a theoretical physicist.]

And setting things on fire. But others focus on healing or cold or entropy or throwing objects about. Any number of things, really.