Calcium carbide just looks like a bunch of rocks, but it's actually kind of dangerous. This is because it can react with water to make acetylene gas, which is really flammable. #shorts
"look like a bunch of rocks, but it's actually quite dangerous" me, my brothers and cousins when we got our hands on these when were young: "time to make bamboo cannons"
Growing up in the early 90s in Ghana we used this as 'cannons' on Christmas. We'd get a bamboo stick, cut a hole at one end and leave an opening at the other. The smaller opening is where the carbide, water and fire source go through whiles the sound comes out the other way. Interesting times. Love your videos mate.
Wow, Bamboo Carbide Cannons are surprisingly more common in the world than I expected. We in Indonesia have those too, so does other Southeast Asian countries.
We in Latvis used to throw it anywhere closable with water. The champagne bottle won the game, i bet with some injuries. You filled it 1/3 up with water, jammed some hay in the bottleneck and stuffed the end with 'karbīdu'. The strenghtened cork back on top. A good throw in the undergrowth usually leads to a good bang. Imagine the thick glass shrapnel..
The ocean under the ocean in SpongeBob happens too! It happens when there is too much salt and high pressure, the water is like salty ocean water then extremely salty water.
We knew them as "pastillas de amor" or "love pills"! Because love hurts and if you eat them you basically asphyxiate to death. I always got funny concerned looks when I bought them, but I owned a banana farm 😅
It’s to show how flammable it is by getting farther away to show that the gas can be lit from a distance with enough of it with explosive results, not fear of being burned.
In USSR, they used a lot of calcium carbide in acetylene generators for gas welding. When we, the schoolkids, were wandering construction sites and other places where gas welding was done, we could sometimes find and pick up some calcium carbide left by workers. It was a wonderful experience. We did so many experiments with it!
Once, when I was a kid, me and my boys found abandoned pieces of calcium carbide near our houses. These pieces were left by workers that fixed gas tubes nearby. We knew that it was a carbide due to its smell near gas pumps. It was a fantastic day for 10 y/o pyromants :) UPD: Just a classic childhood in postsoviet countries :)
You sure it wasn't calcium phosphide instead? It's a related compound that also produces flammable gas when exposed to water, but it's very poisonous. Sometimes calcium carbide is contaminated with a tiny amount of calcium phosphide.
Here before this gets popular. Hi also 20th like. This is a personal milestone and part of a challenge. If you have to say it, type it in notepad and delete it EEEEE E EEEE E EEEEE
In NL we put this in an old milk can with some water, put a football in the opening that acts as a lid and then light it on fire. We call it carbidschieten.
in India, we dig a hole, put some carbide and water and shut it with a barrel, and light it on fire and it goes whoosh like a rocket. I call it boom rocket affectionately. We really dont have a name for it depends on neighborhood to neighborhood
Correct me if I am wrong: The cloudy white solution remaining at the end is due to reaction between CO2 (formed due to the burning) and calcium hydroxide (limewater) formed in the reaction of calcium carbide with water. Also, a question, if the combustion is incomplete, can the carbon monoxide do something to limewater to make it look that way? Or is the white cloudy colour due to something else entirely? (The blackened top parts definitely shows that carbon was formed, which prompts my question on incomplete combustion)
here's a tip, try putting some pieces of carbide on the end of a sealed pipe with an open end, pour some water, seal the pipe with any makeshift lid, wait a couple of seconds, open the lid and put a fire at the end of it
I've made an educational demonstration of calcium carbide to a group of teenagers from a youth fire department about two years ago. The reaction is managable if the quantities are small and there is enough fresh air to ensure no large large amounts of a flamable acetylen-air mixture can form. Calcium carbide - water reactors used to be used for welding, in carbide lamps on cars etc. So it can be safetly used. But sloppiness or defective equipment will be punished brutally as the gas will ignite in mixtures of 2.4% to 82% (figures vary between sources) with air. For safety and also ease of use such reactors are no longer being used.
I did a bunch of experiments during my bachelors but I feel like I was more so a person that was heavily stressed with books, marks and grades that I forgot everything that I did. Your videos, kind of make it seem nostalgic and make me feel like I am back in the lab. Thank you ❤️
We use this in the Netherlands to shoot balls very far when its new years day. Edit: We call it "carbid schieten" (carbide shooting literally translated)
That video would be 10 seconds long. "Here I have some nitroglycerin." *drops the nitroglycerin* *nitroglycerin explodes, causing the camera to fall onto the floor and break*
Dripping water onto this was how carriages lit their way before the days of electricity. In the 1950s and 1960s it was possible to buy old carbide lamps from junk shops. But here in 2021, I do not recall even seeing carbide lamps at museums.
"wota in the faiya, wai? Wota in the faiya, wai?! I notto understand..." Well, korone, this is for you Edit : I actually didn't expect to get this many likes
This is what a lot of old miner lamps used back in the early 1900’s. They had a small reservoir of water dripping on a chunk of this stuff to create the gas for the lamp.
Technically yes, but you would need equipment. For one, burning acetylene in the atmosphere doesn't produce high enough temperatures to cut through steel. To do that, you need more complete combustion by using pure oxygen as your oxidizer. This could be done by using electrolysis to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen, then combining the oxygen with the acetylene to produce a hot enough flame. However, you need enough pressure of both in order to sustain the flame. So yes, but only if you basically already have the equipment needed to cut through the plate on hand.
Fun fact. This used to be used in old mining lamps. You would put a few rocks in , then it would drip water down and you lit the front part which had a reflective surround which projected the light
I had a ton of this stuff as a kid. It used to be used in mining lamps (I’m in eastern Kentucky) down in coal mines, before batteries were usable for such things. The lamps had a small water reservoir on top that had an adjustable drip, which controlled water going into the carbide compartment on the bottom. The gas was directed out the front, in the middle of a concave reflector, and struck to fire using a built-in flint and wheel. We would also used to use the carbide to drive crawdads out of their hidey-holes, just by dropping a piece or two inside.
Y’all gotta look up “Melkbusschieten” on youtube! It’s a new year’s tradition in some dutch towns where you put Carbide and water into an old can of milk, go sit on it and light the end, so the internal explosion will make the lid fly away! It sounds like a warzone in those towns on new years because everyone is doing it!
Carbide is amazing! In Soviet Russia, one of the children's entertainment was the collection of carbide in gas pipeline repair sites, which was left in waste from tanks to produce acetylene for welding. This carbide was fuel for such a thing as a "karbidka" - an old can of deodorant or soda without a top part. It can just make loud explosive sounds, but sometimes has been upgraded to something like a modern potato cannon. Sens of the right amount of acetylene and air for best result was a kind of art. Nowadays, this magic has almost gone, the gas pipeline service no longer uses carbide reactors anymore.
Fun fact: Miners actually used to use this in their lamps when working in mines. (I'm sure there are plenty of another jobs like that, where they were dependent on calcium but historically yes it was used for light often.)
In my country we called it karbit. Usually we used it for making a Pvc pipe cannon and use karbit as fuel. Its a tradition during Ramadan for waking people up for early breakfast before fasting or used to scare birds away from rice fields
exposing substances to extreme tempretarues the easiest way to get certain reactions out of them its usualky the more visually interesting. these van also serve as hazard awareness towarda these substances PLUS if you want to see him doing more complex experiments go to his other channels, this one is for SHORTS
My daddy was a miner. He when young used a carbide headlamp to see inside the mines. I remember the smell like it was yesterday. Also I once went to a mansion piped for lights fueled by carbide. You could smell it as soon as you walked in. Hadn’t thought of that in years. Thanks for the memories
Water is H20, two molecules of hydrogen and one in oxigen, and is more propense to chemicaly react, for example adding Sodium, the Sodium explodes in the contact with water.
Pass the gas through a hot metal tube, and you get Benzene, an aromatic compound. Get this benzene in presence of CCl4 and AlCl3, and you get toluene, or methyl benzene. This was a reaction i tried doing a while ago, it is amazing to see Nile do the first half!
Fun fact, this was how homes were lit before electricity. You had tank outside to which you'd add the Calcium Carbide and pipe the acetylene gas into the house.
At this point, I'm not surprised to find vtuber fans anywhere, lol. A bigger question is, how the hell did everyone type those comments without their fingers???
i love this stuff! i buy it from the army surplus super cheap, and use it for fire starter when i'm camping. the army used to use it for carbide lamps, so most surplus stores sell it for cheaper than chemical suppliers
And people used to put it on their heads - the old miner headlamps used it and dropped water on it to produce the gas which was lit to produce light. Yes, open flame in a mine.
