If you still have mercury, I would recommend creating mercury (II) iodide. It's a beautiful red color and has an interesting property where if you heat it, it will turn into a bright yellow powder. Pretty simple to make as well.
As an end-stage renal patient, I have to take enormous amounts of calcium acetate with every meal to bind with phosphorous in my stomach before it enters into my blood stream.
Recently, I was searching for a smallish bag of sand for a sand bath. I looked in the pet section at Wal Mart and came across a bag of Premium Reptile Sand (or something like that.) I passed on it though, because the sole listed ingredient was calcium carbonate. Very nice, fine white granules, IIRC. Might be easier than Tums if you want another go ;)
Heh love these mentions. It's like all the shit is out there if you know what rock to look under... Not that they're intentionally "hiding" calcium carbonate from anyone... 🤣
Awesome Videos as always ! Due to it beign light weight and fluffy and easy to get it on fire calcium acetate was used in old days as fuel source for explorers they took it with them dump alcohol on them make the jelly and then paste it on wood logs to burn it. People think it could be the greek fire. Amazing
Since the Calcium Carbonate isn't very soluble in water, Why not just crush them up and wash the other ingredients away with water? Seems that most of the sweetness and binders could rather easily be washed away with a few water washings. Much easier than trying to burn them away?
+Timothy Meche I forgot to say why. It just forms a suspension that never settles. And it is super hard to filter and becomes a mess. I think there is corn starch too, which doesnt wash away anyway
+Nile Red I think you can haste and even get better result with the burning, if you add some H2O2 to it or liquid O2. Maybe some other oxidant would work too... NO2?
Could you possibly make a video with different types of uses for the vacuum pump setup that you sometimes use? I would love to see more about that piece of equipment from your point of view.
the yellow color is actually contaminates like sugar, flavoring, and leftover carbon from the burnt off sugar. I did this with egg shells and used a lot more calcium carbonate and less of a concentration of acetic acid plus extra filtering which resulted in a completely white solution and precipitate the whole time. just trying to give you a couple tips. good luck if you try it again!
IIRC there are generic versions of Tums that have little or no sugar in them or even any other additives... though off the top of my head I couldnt tell you of any.
A cheaper and cleaner source of calcium carbonate would be the lime they sell as a soil additive for increasing soil pH. Some people people have been suggesting chalk but most chalk sticks are actually made of gypsum and a binder these days.
Wouldn't a cheap bag of masonry lime from a hardware store contain more calcium oxide and be suitable for making calcium acetate without all the trouble from TUMS?
I think that easier method would be to "dissolve" tablets in water and filtrate calcium carbonate. CaCO3 is rather poorly soluble in water (solubility is even smaller in slightly basic solution) so this procedure should be much faster then burning all sugar. But your procedure is also interesting.
Maybe the sugars can be removed by powdering the Tums up and dissolve the sugar. Calcium carbonate dissolves a lot less than sugar, so this process should dissolve off all the sular and leave you with a slightly sticky (leftover sugar) pile of calcium carbonate powder.
Is there the possibility of there being some sort of CalciumAcetate(bi)Carbonate salt forming? Just a question I had since you added an acces of calcium carbonate.
I used 3 775mg tum tablets, I crushed them with a pill crusher. I mixed it with about 3 ounces of ethanol for about 15 mins then I let it sit for a few hours. What I got now is white precipitate at the bottom and the ethanol is a green color. Correct me if I'm wrong but sucrose is soluble in ethanol while calcium carbonate isn't. I should have about 1.5grams when it's dried
hey nile! Have you ever considered making silica aerogel? It's got some very cool properties like great heat resistance and its exceptionally low weight. There's a few tutorials out there, but i feel you might be able to do it easier and cheaper than others because you're on a budget. Thanks for your consideration.
yeah it seems like it'd be pretty cool, even if it was just as a novelty. I don't know of any applications regular people might have for it, but it'd be a cool project just for fun.
So…..correct me if I’m wrong but couldn’t you just take the tums and dissolve it in water to remove the sugar and leave behind the insoluble calcium carbonate? It would take some thorough washing but….idk it might be better than incineration
What's the benefit of the burning step? I would think that if the impurities are sugars like you mentioned, you could just dissolve the tablets directly in water and recover the pure CaCO3 as whatever doesn't dissolve. If there were any inert binders that also wouldn't dissolve in this step, then you could filter them off after reacting the carbonate into the acetate.
Hey Nile, instead of eggshells or tums I'm currently trying to make CaAc from a rock I found in my garden. I think it's mostly CaCO3, the rock was easy to powderize and it's almost pure white. But it doesn't dissolve very well and leaves a faintly yellowish greenish solution. Only a fraction had been able to dissolve. Have any idea on what to do next? Just try to dissolve it in more and more acetic acid?
TheKnaeckebrot It does, but way less then I expected. With each addition the fuzzing is minimal and dies down pretty quickly. So it doesn't seem like the acetic acid is the limiting reagent, but it should be!
if the impurities are only sugar, why don't you just mix with water, dissolve the sugar, and filter the CaCO3? Re the weighing, if some of the CaCO3 was converted to CaO by the heating, then that will mess up your calculations.
Would it be cheaper to use chalk for the source of calcium carbonate? I mean the CHEAP plain white chalk, not the fancy "waterproof" or colored chalk either.
I think it is easier to just go to a pet store and buy farm animal calcium (I don't think that this is its name in english, but I'm not from an english-speaking country). I got it as a 2 kg bag of 99% CaCO3 powder for about 0.5$.
Well quite a lot of the calcium carbonate does decompose, but it doesn't change the outcome of the reaction with the acetic acid. You get calcium acetate with both CaCO3 and CaO.
Didn't you already do the Iodine Clock Revisit just a few days ago? If so, you should probably remove it from the list (unless you plan on posting another video about it, that is).
+ThatOneIdiot yeah the one i did a few days ago was with vitamin c. The revisit would be like the old one i did where i straight up used KI. It would be a much more in depth video on the reaction
Why did you choose not to powderise the Tums before heating it? Seems as though it would have been easier to deal with post burning, even though I can imagine it sticking and forming into a disc of some sorts.
I have a very different explanation on what that cloudiness was from yours. You used the calcium carbonate in excess which you previously heated. That means there could have been some calcium OXIDE in the mixture and when you used this mixture in excess, the calcium oxide just made some hydroxide, which that after stirring, created the original calcium carbonate after absorbing CO2 from the air. I had a lot of trouble with this once before when I did stuff with calcium hydroxide and then I tried to wash the containers :D
+Krisztián Szirtes Yes, the cooking of the calcium carbonate would have decomposed much of the carbonate into oxide, which means he had a lot of quicklime after cooking his tums. Regardless, vinegar added to quicklime will still result in calcium acetate, so it doesn't really matter.
so the high yield is due to the fact that there is still some water and other impurities .also what kind of other heat source would you recommend . that is easy to use and store more TUMS at one time so we can prepare big batches . also what is TUMS ?
I have a question. Since CaCO3 is water insoluble and sugar is, couldn't you just have crushed it and let the sugar dissolve leaving the CaCO3 just drop to the bottom? I'm no chemist so I'm asking out of curiosity. Thanks.
Since sugar is water soluble and calcium carbonate is not, why not just crush the tabs and wash with water? Seems like it'd be less messy and take less time🤔
I am Hoping that you or one of your other subs can answer a question for me. I am looking to make a home made Buffering solution for indoor gardening, Basically ill be making a Cal Mag solution. I would like to know how to make Calcium Acetate from Garden Lime and 5% Distilled white Vinegar, Any Ideas How much Of each Lime and Vinegar ?
Wouldn't it be much cheaper and easier to actually buy CaCO3 on Ebay? I can buy an entire pound of it for $6.62, but 160 g of it from Tums would cost over $15, and then you have to deal with all that burning and still not getting a pure product.
So, you burn off the sucrose-- can't it be separated by dissolving in water and filtering? Sugars are quite soluble, and I didn't think calcium carbonate was particularly (limestone notwithstanding).
Since he said "this has to be done outside, because this will make a lot of smoke" had me thinking "does he has a method to not create contamination in the enviroment?". Not a complain, just curious, maybe I'm not paying the right attention
chalk is mostly made of calicum sulfate, so yea. It would work but you would produce sulfiric acid while doint it. It wouldn't produce CO2 during the reaction
If the calcium carbonate is insoluble in water, couldn't you just grind up the tums and mix them with water until the other components dissolve, then filter off the calcium carbonate?
well the calcium acetate here would be later used in a solution with ethanol, so it would probably have some trace, therefore inaccurate amounts of ethanol in the final product
Nile Red oops. Well, usually i wait a while then binge watch your videos because they are super good! Also, you should look up "nighthawkinlight". He is currently doing a alkaline metal project, maybe you can give him advice! :D
What if I use a mortar and pistol to grind the tums to dust at the start with out the hammer , will that suffice and can I thus follow the same procedure?????
