Nice! Not enough gallium salt videos, anywhere. You have an upper hand! This is a main jngredient in LEDs, gallium nitride is a blu-ray laser btw. I can see why now
You won't get many subs though. But everything else is true. It is a great place to discuss chem. Just be sure to read the rules for the group. That's very important. Don't want to be kicked out for breaking the rules. Lol! But yeah, just go to one of the Poormans Chemist videos and go to the descriptions to find the link to his discord server.
I agree with them both Harry. I have so many question I would like to ask you. Now that we are in another circuit breaker lock down in Victoria I’m able to conduct more experiments. Keep up the fantastic work
Thanks Harry, really well done with this video. Gallium is one of our favorite metals, we are happy to see it getting more attention. We have some gallium and we may also give this a try.
Wow Harry, all that work for a 90 second timelapse I don't think this is useless at all, this is so beautiful TT & that's all that matters 🥰 --- This is unrelated but I think you'll find it useful Recently I stumbled across some CARBON FIBER tubes at my school's engineering center And I had a BIGBRAIN moment Maybe it'd be a good electrode that *doesn't decompose like graphite*? I got really excited bc I want to make chlorates but can't really get cheap MMO. Look, I a asian and asian only buy if good deal 💸 So I got to it. I sawed off two 2-inch lengths of tubing, sanded off the plastic outer insulation, sawed the tubes into quarter-arcs, stuck them through slots I made in a thick plastic bottle with a soldering iron, and sealed the gaps with hot glue. (easier to make holes for small arcs than for circles). I put the electrodes into a row of four pairs and connected them to a power supply with alligator clips. I filled the bottle with saltwater and ran 2A through it (500mA per electrode). It's been two days now and not even a drop of carbon has fallen off the electrodes *haughty smile 😏* BUTTT the contact resistance between the clips and the supply was really high. No matter how much I sanded the surface, the voltage I measured at the graphite was half that of the alligator clips, which is an efficiency of $h!+ percent. The electrodes got so hot that the hot glue melted and I had to put it near the window for freezing winter air to blow over it. (Imagine living in warm summer Australia rn, haiyaa) So there's a lot of improvements I have to make but so far I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. :) I'm going to try carbon fiber with different solutions than NaCl and let you know how it works in each.
Interesting! I've always been told that carbon fibre is one of the least conductive forms of carbon, so I never thought it was worth giving it a try, especially given the price. If you can get a few pieces cheaply, it's definitely worth having a go with it. The resistance is a pretty big issue, but I'll look forward to hearing how it works out with other electrolytes.
Hmm... interesting. Metal alloys are often difficult to plate out of solution in the correct proportions, but mabe the reduction potentials are close enough together to allow it to occur? Tin plating out first might be a problem, I don't know. Either way, I'm glad you enjoyed. Good to see you here!
G’day Harry. I really appreciate the great work you are doing. Is there anyway I can contact you. Thanks for your prompt reply and all the best with your studies.
I'm afraid at this stage I don't really have the time to correspond with people by email, sorry. Most of my time is taken up with university studies at the moment, but at the end of the academic year I'll hopefully have the time to set up an email to associate with my channel. If you can wait until then, I'll be more than happy to talk. Or if anything you need can fit in the comments here, I'm always keen to respond.
Something really cool happened here. Did anyone else notice that when big enough globules of gallium formed and fell from the cathode, they made contact with the anode and become part of the anode so hydrogen was coming from the gallium too!! Too funny! Nothing wrong with that. The cathode was way at the top so no danger of the cell shorting out.
Can you separate calcium from aluminium, if so you could use liquid metal cathode to produce sodium, potassium, and calcium and aluminium from aqueous solution
Harry try the following to quickly dissolve gallium metal: 2g gallium in a beaker or evaporating dish. Add 12g concentrated HCl. Solution needs to be only warm enough to keep gallium molten. Now add some 1-2g iodine. Once the iodine had sufficiently dissolved in the HCl an amazing reaction starts: the ball of gallium chases the iodine and devours it before your eyes. Once all iodine consumed add another gram or 2. Keep doing this and in less than 10 minutes 10g iodine will be consumed and just a tiny bit of gallium left, in a crystal clear solution. I only played with 2g gallium quantities but pretty sure you can scale it up. I suspect you end up with gallium chloride and hydrogen iodide in solution as products. But this still to be confirmed. If this solution is now neutralised with ammonia until ph just stays high you end up with gallium hydroxide as a gel. I did all this earlier today and recovered gallium hydroxide as a white powder and the iodine from the filtrate as lead iodide. But the beauty of this is how quick the gallium gets into solution. In minutes. Love your videos thanks from Brisbane.
Thanks! I'm pretty sure I saw your posts (at least I think they were yours) on sciencemadness literally the day after I finished filming this video. I'll definitely keep it in mind for any future gallium projects.
Not yet I'm afraid. I've got a couple of videos on chlorate production on my channel right now, and I'll hopefully be attempting perchlorate production before the end of the year.
Bondall brand HCl and some others, have dyes and inhibitors. Purple occurs when metal dissolves into solution, and red/orange/brown can be a sign of oxygen addition. Adding H2O2 into a dyed HCl, will turn it dark red - as an example. Great video mate, loved it. Havnt had the chance to see Gallium in person yet but looks fun :D
That doesn't sound like a bad method for making gallium into a soluble salt, yeah. Molten sodium hydroxide is a little tricky for me to make and work with at the moment though, one day I'll probably give it a go.
