Make Iron Oxide (for Thermite) 

the cheapest way to get iron oxide is to buy a ford pick up

My pit bull ate an entire box of S.O.S. steel wool soap pads and shit iron oxide for a week.I suppose you can use this method,but it may change the odor of the Thermite just a bit.

“Yeah I’m still easily impressed despite having a PhD” 😂 this is my favorite science channel and I thank you greatly.

Iron oxide is always available if you don´t want it and pretty complex to get when you really need it :/

If you're interested, theres a hydrothermal method can make iron oxide with interested properties. If you use a solution of iron chloride and a sugar (sucrose or glucose work well) and put the solution in a hydrothermal reactor you'll end up with iron oxide nano spheres surrounding a nano sized carbon ball scaffold. Filter and dry to powder and then heat to several hundred degrees burns on off the carbon leaving a hollow sphere of ironoxide. I'm curious to see if it make better thermite. I'll make some in a video in the near future probably

This video also took way longer to make than i expected. Oh, well, better late than never. Do you guys like the longer more comprehensive video format? or do you prefer shorter videos (~4mins)?

If you run a magnet through fine dry soil, particularly red soils you tend to pick up a noticeable amount of iron. These little pebbles tend to be very tiny from my experience, less than 1cm. I would imagine they would be easy to grind into a fine powder for oxidation by taking advantage of a large surface area!

9+ minutes is amazing! This will be really interesting and I hope you continue with this style of video. I want to emphasize that I only want this if you have 9+ minutes of things to say about the subject. Don't let the pressure of needing a longer video compromise the excellence in quality that we have grown to love! Keep up the good work.

I haven't watched your video's in a few years because my computer broke and i simply could not check all my subscriptions on an xbox. I got a new computer recently and this is the first video I'm watching since then. I'm still amazed by the quality of your production and your attention to detail. Thank you

NurdRage, you are not alone. I also have a PhD (of sorts) and am also easily impressed. i think its because I understand how amazing the process is behind what I am witnessing. I am still amazed by turbine engines for example. Drives my wife nuts.

I find that the easiest way to ignite thermite is with glycerine and potassium permanganate - it also gives an inherent time delay to allow you to walk away from it before the reaction starts and doesn't require any magnesium.

If you want iron oxide you can scrape the bottom off my piece of shit car

I'm not joking, I was actually looking for a blueberry pancake recipe. Might try this one day, though.

I needed some ironoxide for my chemiluminescense experiment, I made it by a percipitation reaction. I mixed iron sulphate with sodiumhydroxide, than I removed the water and was left with ironoxide. It's a really fast way but the downside is that you need iron sulphate :)

I'm so glad you're back!

Thank you so much for your videos! I found myself experimenting (successfully) with an old bit of iron/steel wool to see if I could get some rust. 1. I washed it in dish detergent to rid it of oil residue. 2. I immersed it in hydrogen peroxide solution (3%) in an empty water bottle. 3. Put it in window sill and added pinch of sodium chloride. 4. It worked in a week or so.

I’ve learnt more from this guy than any science lesson I’ve had at school

LONGER VIDEOS PLEASE I LOVE SCIENCE

You can also perform the electrolysis inside, near candles. This drastically increases the chance for hydrogen combustion setting the entire room and you on fire. I don't know WHY you would want to set your face on fire, but you can.

Great vid very informative, been using FE304 for a biochar fertilizer mix, it was expensive to buy here in Northern Thailand so I was looking at making it myself, you have put me off the idea, mission accomplished

nurd rage i really have respect for you . you made me tha i want to be a chemist i even built my own mini lab and i always watch evry video so thanks greetings from a twelve year old boy from malta

Hint: "washing soda" is sodium carbonate. Ferrous Sulfate is sold as moss killer in hardware stores or garden stores. Cheap. Ferrous Hydroxide if Lye used, which oxidizes or use as is (thermite Al works with NiO, MnO, CuO, FeO). On thermal drying Fe3O4 formed.

3 year sub, and all I do with my life anymore is school, youtube, and science! It's awesome! Keep it up!

Surprisingly great result with the electrolysis method :0

I work at an auto parts store, where we have a brake rotor lathe. I got just about all the iron filings I want! If your nearby store has a brake lathe, you might could ask for them to give you some. It just gets dumped in the dumpster anyway.

2:44 *the forbidden cake mixture*

now THAT is an awesome teacher!

I find that white vinegar is a useful catalyst and scrap iron for cans can be used. Iron (II) acetate is unstable to oxidation while iron (III) acetate breaks down into iron hydroxide, releasing the acetate for further reaction. With an ice cream container, a liter of vinegar and a few squashed cans you can make a kilo of oxide a week. Cheap white vinegar is factory made now and is literally just acetic acid. As a bonus the unreacted acid will evaporate off when you're done.

Hey nurdrage, I'm loving all these electro vids keep em up! I was wondering if you could do a Palladium Chloride video as it is such a useful catalyst and it is also fun to make. Thanks.

Are you aware that it looked like you were stirring around a turd?

I understand nothing but for some reason I like your videos!

THE STIR BAR IS AWESOME

"Black crud become, red crud" I love this.

Very informative, but I think I am out of my depth! Your descriptions are so scientific that I would need to go back to 8th grade and retake chemistry (beginning) Really want to learn this stuff but you are moving way fast for my simple ol' mind(60 yrs)

If you use steel wool wash it off with dish soap first (Dawn works best) cuz there's an oil on the steel wool to keep it from rusting. It speeds things up A LOT. lol I found this out looking for info on making old-timey DIY wood stain from steel wool and acetic acid.

When you heat the products from the electrolysis reaction, are you simply using an electric hob or something more specific? Thanks in advance, and sorry for the stupid question.

I'm studying chemical engineering because of you!

Found a nice way to remove the salt. Boil down the iron oxide tell dry in a pie tin and use a large magnet on the bottom. The iron oxide is easily rinsed with no loss.

thank you for sharing your knowlegde with us peaseants i will be a great chemist inventor one day ,thank you

mayb u can cleensweep a mechanic-shop (iron oxide from welding and grinding) -or even a dockyard. I came across a bulkhead wall lately where large chunks of rust fell off.

Hey there, A friend of mine is working on making some ferro-fluid and I noticed the wet method makes a black iron rust. I thought it might be Fe(II)O, which is what I want as opposed to Fe(III)2-O3, so I went ahead and made some FeCl. It started yellow, but it's now clear, and I am wondering if you would be able to explain this at all?

I was wondering if I could use cupric chloride in place of feric chloride for etching or other similar projects

good place to start to look for it is at any big hard-where store in the concrete coloring part

Have you noticed any differences in speed to produce or quality of; between type and quality of the raw/scrap iron? Example: Does the different reactions take longer or provide more pure results between something like a treated nail, (such as you were using) and an untreated iron like cast iron?

Do you think it might be feasible to use a sodium bisulfate electrolysis setup or a ball mill of some kind to powder bulk iron and THEN get it wet and salty to rust up?

While I'm doing the electrolysis method i notice some bluish stuff forming at the positive end, is that suppose to happen? Im using a power cord to do this and its rated for 12V and 7A, but I'm not drawing full current.

What are your thoughts on continuously pumping ozone into salt water, letting it bubble and rust Iron that way? Or would it just destroy the air pump rather quickly as well?

this was awesome!

Love your vids man. I think we all like a bit longer vids :)

I think the most efficent way of seperating water from iron hydroxide is boiling off the water, also you can keep boiling after the water is gone to convert the iron hydroxides to iron oxide, i used this method for my experiment

5:17 for a second... I thought I was smart, then I remembered this is electrolytic and not galvanic. I cringed a little inside. Thanks for making me use my brain a little more than normal and jogging my memory. Much appreciated. I will forever remember my chemistry prof repeating, "I'm POSITIVE I have a cat in the garage." Over and over. Professor Nipe... thanks for being (sort of) helpful.

So I have no idea whether or not anyone will see this, but I just wanted to drop in. I am in High School and I am writing a paper for forensic science about dangerous chemicals/materials and whether or not we (The U.S) should place higher restrictions. My main argument is the restrictions we'd have to put in play to ban ONE thing: Thermite Hypothetically say that we put restrictions on the purchase of fine iron oxide and aluminum powders that most metallurgy workers use for their thermite (readily available from Wal-Mart and Amazon, as well as others). With this, you would need some form of permit saying you're a metallurgy worker or something similar. So because of these restrictions, obviously these powders would be a lot harder to get your hands on. I'm making a counter-argument to the proposal in favor of 'restricting' thermite and other chemicals. Using this video and the one where Cody's Lab made thermite with aluminum foil, I'm pressing the argument that thermite is something we pretty much can't do anything about. If we put limitations on the powders, it's worth mention that all someone needs is a sheet of aluminum foil and a box of steel wool to show you how unhappy they are. Not sure if anyone cares!

Hey where would I buy equipment for things like this like a hot plate and viles ect

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but can will it still work if we skip the addition of h2o2 (using fecl2 rather than fecl3)? I realize you stated this in the video but I was hoping someone could explain this further.

I have had a problem when dissolving black sands in aqua regia that I end up with much to much dissolved iron which you have identified here as iron chlorides. I will test it when I get the chance, but would using sodium bicarbonate and I precipitate iron hydroxides and iron carbonates, will it leave the aurochloric acid behind to later precipitate out with SMB? If I use the dilution and decanting method to filter it does the dilution adversely affect the aurochloric acid or can it simply be evaporated to a more concentrated state.?

does electrolysis works with metal from foods can boxes? and oxydation ?And what is the product when we don't use salt?

can you please help me to know where to refer for SYNTHETIC IRON OXIDE MANUFACTURING PORCESS understanding for my college project.

Hi. I just re-watched your video. I am wondering how to go about purifying some rust into pure iron oxide? I have a big heavy bucket full of big pieces of rust that have come off my old digger as thick layers. I would like to make a thermite mix from this.

Which method if any would work for large steel U beams cut into six inch by 3 inch strips and would any extra steps need to be taken I'm obtained the steel from my uncle he does demolition

mine did the same as the electrode one and i had a blueish green soulution and when exposed with air turned red powder so thats weird...

i wish you could be my tutor i am studying a lot i love chemistry it blows my mine on how many chemicals that can be made someday i want to find someone that would help me i have problems with writhing equations thank you for your videos you are a very smart chemist i wish i was half as smart as you

I tried the electrolysis method before, however before i filtered and dried the soln was green not black like urs. Was this just due to maybe a higher concentration of a particular iron oxide level?

Vinegar on steel wool forms perfect dust like iron oxide.

A variable power supply was recommended, but I have old computer power supplies that can supply 3v, 5v, or 12v. I suspect that 12v will certainly go faster, but risks over-volting. Most PSUs can supply the most watts on the 5v rail, and 3v would end up being the most efficent, but will take longer and or require higher surface area for the anode and cathode.

So I used baling wire and ended up with some blue fluffy particulate and some tan color fluffy particulate. they both settled to the bottom of separate containers after I decanted the electrolysis flask. Any idea? I should note that the Erlenmeyer was cleaned with borax hand soap, I'm thinking that some glycerin or something of the sort is the culprit.

2nd one acid cardonate high water use ? Do you Heat it! Faster removal off h2o and transfer off at least a percent no?

I just attempted this and ended up with nanoparticulate size iron filings live that are still highly magnetic I'm rinsing the whole lot right now I got quite a bit a couple of pounds worth. Did I do something wrong I used to large iron bar I did use a copper play that I have I had no bubbling with the anode and I use the saturated salt solution I used to kosher salt

This is the science teacher we all wanted in high school but never came close to getting lol

Hey, NurdRage, I have a question. I know this is an old video, so I really hope for a reply, but I won't hold my breath. I did the wet chemical process shortly after the video was released and ended up with a great result, nice brown/red powder that looked like I would expect iron oxide to look. When I moved, I threw away a lot of stuff and that was one of the things to go. I did this again recently, diluted and let the particles settle 3 times before finally allowing it to dry. About 2 weeks into the drying (WA state doesn't get very warm...) I got impatient and put the remaining solution in a glass casserole dish and into the oven at 200° F for about 12 hours to let it dry faster. I didn't do this with the first batch, allowing it to dry outside in the TX heat. The second result wasn't as good as the first though, giving me rock-like chunks almost totally black in color, with a lot of white powder crystallized on them. I assume that the white stuff is either salt or excess bicarb. I put a few of the chunks in a mortar and pestle and crushed them up (white powder and all) and ended up with a brown powder, but not quite like the stuff I got out of the first batch. I'm assuming the brown color comes from the mix of the black rock-like chunks and the white powder, and not from the typical brown/red iron oxide III product. Could you maybe point out what I did wrong or what might have caused this? Was it the putting it in the oven, or too much bicarb, or letting it settle too long between diluting it (I let it set for several hours each time because I lost track of time.) Any information would be helpful, even if it's not from NurdRage himself. Thank you!

Very fine steel wool is easy to ignite and burn. Any pros or cons for burning steel wool compared to the methods in the video?

When I did mine it was a deep reddish orange during the filtration not black like his is that?

Will it work if i use a normal copper wire and use a battery ? Like a 9v or a car battery as a substitute?

That was Really cool, I wish I had a place to do these kinda things, Definitely subbing to you.

could you do a vid on how to make easy aluminium powder or filings for thermite?

I like to come back to this video periodically whenever I have a new update, so here it is. In my case, the peroxide would the most expensive investment...until I found some septic treatment that is 15-20% hydrogen peroxide at $7 a gallon. However, even with shipping it's still cheaper to buy 20lbs of rust from a ceramics supply online, than it is to invest in the time and reagents. If youre sketchy on the quality, you can still make a weak pirranah solution to convert impurities into soluable or separable salts and particles. But I doubt the effort would be worth it. For those thinking that just adding peroxide to rust or iron with work, yes it will, but it's highly inefficient and the rust itself seems to be a catalyst to decompose the peroxide, meaning that as rust is created, the less peroxide their is to react and thus wasting your reagents. I have 15g of red rust I've been reacting under 50ml of the above concentration of peroxide going on six days. Since the rust I used is the result of three refinement and filtering steps (including magnetic and mass graduation) I doubt my sample is that impure that concentrated peroxide would continue to react almost a week later at an average temp of 80F. The only thing I can think of for it's continued reaction is that iron oxide has a catalytic property with H2O2 that would give a false positive for contaminates or continued oxidation of trace iron.

I have a question,i tried to do it and I added oxigen peroxide to te electrolisis method did I screw up? I don't know anything about chemic. Sorry for the bad English.

How do I clean the beaker after the electrolysis process?

what about aluminum powder...do you have a method for making that at home?

you should make a video about the black snake experiment. .. like do it but show different ways it could be done

This video is fantastic!!!

Sodium hypochlorite + steel wool equals a dark brown mess in about a day. Found this when I was cleaning something a while back. Left the wool in the bleach over night. How pure is the dry powder left over? I also use Sodium hypochlorite to strip copper from other metals. Copper oxidizes slower than most, so done right i can separate the copper easily from the other oxidized metals.

I would love to konw if its possible to make kind of a thermite putty

I had some old rusted metal so I made a solution of white vinegar and bleach and used that metal to speed up the reaction. It's left me with ferric chloride powder. Can I convert back into powdered rust?

Ik ik this was a year ago but can you use hand warmers?

Please Nurd Rage, could you help me? I did the elecrtolysis and all time there was like a white saltish thing coming down from the positive electrode making kind of stalactites, but I got blue-prussian-black participate and tried to filter and dry it. But my dry powder ended up black and really not very orange. May it be the black Fe3O4 ? Or must the Fe(OH)x be converted by a higher temperature than 100°C and be really really dry? I’m confused😂 pls halp

Say I extracted all pms from my waste stock and I want to precipitate the iron, how do I go about that? Did some research and the only thing I seemed to find was ammonium hydroxide. Is that correct? Thank you

is supposed to be for my solution is grey and black and very magnetic so it's basically a big mass of iron filings nanoparticulate at best and larger. I'm wondering if at this point I should pump some oxygen through it or perhaps some ozone although I know that it will oxidize with heat later on after I dry it I'm wondering if it would be easier to just do it now pumping some air oxygen or ozone through the solution

What's the purpose of salt in the straightforward rusting method?

Any reason you don't use a vacuum filtration set up?

Which chemecals defuse torchbulb filment from 5inches?

Help ! Are wires from induction coils non-conductive cause I did the experiment the exact same way but I used a 20v 4A laptop charger and a rusty iron plate and then I used a stainless steel knife for the anode but it did not start bubbling and I also used table salt with ferrocyanide from a grocery store.

Why not precipitate the Fe(OH)3 with urea? I've never used it myself, but I remember my analitical chemistry book had a photo showing clean, well-formed, solid Fe(OH)3 that had been precipitated using urea. Maybe you can just filter that and it won't clog the filter paper.

How do I dispose of the leftover chemicals?

what kind of power supply did you use?

Hi If steel rusts the iron turns to iron oxide, does the carbon in the steel turn to carbon dioxide? Therefore, would some nice thick rust pieces be a good starting point to make some pure elemental iron as the carbon has gone from the steel? Just curious and want to make some elemental iron sometime.

why did u use only a thin copper wire on the cathode ?

If you were to use a stainless steel nail in the electrolytic method, wouldnt it produce cancerogenic chromates ? (Since the chromium could easily be oxidized to chromium-(III)-ions which would then react with the bleach)

Awsome!! Loving it. Wish I paid more attention to chemistry classes than that girl in highshool. :)

How much volts should i use for the electrolysis method? Can anyone help me? Beacuse my cell produce chlorine....

Instead of using water and air to rust steel wool, would it not work to simply ignite the steel wool and let it burn in air to produce iron oxide, like you showed in another video?