Making nitromethane because the DEA won't text me back 

FOR CONFUSION ON THE MECHANISM: Yes, the nitrogen is cursed. I forgot to add the hybrid lines for resonance if I was to write it the way I did. My apologies for that. Some people commented on this and I want to bring this to everyone's attention. Yes, it should be H₃CNO₂ with =O, -O⁻ , N⁺, and -CH₃.

Your gonna have so many friends glowing at your house you will never need a lamp again.

Next video: I finally completed my DEA watch list chemical collection

Nitromethane is sold as fuel for RC cars and planes and stuff. It seems to be fairly easy to purchase, but I’ve never done so before. Wicked cool video.

My boi inhaled so much nitromethane he drew the infamous pentavelant nitrogen atom. On a more serious note, great video, great production quality and amazing humor as always, love you man.

Nitromethane burns almost invisibly outside. If you spill nitromethane around you and it catches on fire, you’ll see leaves and sticks appear to spontaneously combust. Don’t ask me why I know this.

Next video: "Making Mustard Gas in a CVS to Scare The American Public."

To use nitromethane in the reaction control thrusters for the Lynx suborbital space plane we were developing at XCOR, I had to register with Homeland Security to buy it undiluted. I was experimenting with various desensitizers so yeah, I was doing actual rocket science rather than engineering. It was almost as difficult as getting a security clearance, which I don't recommend unless it is required for your employment. But it did make a lovely pale white plume with colorless shock diamonds.

Chemistry really exemplifies the magic and wonder of the world we live in.

List 1 chemicals are always speaking to me in my dreams, stay strong.

That was a great video, it was really well put together. I like the way you explained everything and the piano in the end really made everything pop. This was pretty great, I definitely appreciated it.

You guys be like ‘covering titanium in thermite in my back shed to see if I can set it on fire’ without blinking. Hard science RU-vidrs are INSANE and I love it.

It's kind of funny and fascinating seeing you go through so much effort to make this stuff. When I used to buy it, only at organ prices, for drag racing.

This exact video ive been searching for months to find! Thx for the educating experience

You reached strontium’s atomic number and almost got me drunk on nitromethane. 😅

Let’s gooooo! I’ll actually have to watch in a couple hours when I finish work 😅 but I’m watching in spirit 😉🍻👊🥰

Absolutely chemically brilliant! Thank you for sharing your pathways. Chemascray! Mostly we just buy it to run our race car, monster truck, dragster, cart and motorcycle engines. but, that kind of chem process takes a refinery, not a small lab.

Lol, your narration matches the cadence of Nile Red's speaking voice almost 100%. You are going to give chemists a reputation that we all sound this way. Also, as a best practice, it kills me that you absorbed the water with the sieves but then left them in there for the distillation. =P

Thank you for the upload

Thanks for knowledge of chemistry ❤️💕. Very interesting! Thanks!

That was very kool. I love the color of the flame. You really have great videos.

That's really cool man You did an awesome job 👍🏻👍🏻

You could vacuum separate racing fuel or model airplane fuel if the only objective is to get a supply of nitromethane. But thanks for posting this video. This looks like a fun synthesis.

Back in the old days radio controlled airplanes used engines that ran on methanol. Nitro was added to soup up the power output. I used to buy the nitromethane in 5 gallon pails for about $120, which included shippihg. It's now such that the shipping is more than the nitro!

You're going to have to repeat that a LOT to run a dragster down the strip! Interesting thing about nitromethane, with a bit of compression it can become a monopropellant, that is, not require any additional oxygen from the air in order to combust. It is also used in model airplane glo engines along with methanol and lubrication (2-stroke). If the mixture is rich, the exhaust is brown.

Great video mate! 👌🥰🍻👊

This was amazing thank you

Hi Chemdelic, nice video. The decarboxilation reaction of nitroacetic acid is pretty common reaction into organic chemistry; and it is mainly due to the electron withdrawing effect of the nitro group onto the close hydroxy-carbonic group and easy elimination of H2CO3 (H2O + CO2). This effect of close (viccinal) EWG can be seen into conversion (easy thermolysis) of trinitrobenzoic acid into TNB; aceton (propanon) from 1,5-pentadioic-3-one (from oxidation of citric acid); ethanal from pyruvic acid (CH3-CO-CO2H from oxidation of lactic acid); etc. The low yield come from the bad selectivity of NO2(-) towards R-NO2 from R-X (X is halogen Cl, Br or I); because 50% of the yield turns into nitrite instead of nitro thus: R-X + NO2(-) -->1/2 R-NO2 (desired product) +1/2 R-O-NO (nitrite ester) +X(-) R-ONO + H2O R-OH + HONO HONO -air-> H2O + NxOy There have been a lot of efforts to increase R-NO2 production from R-X by: 1) activating the -X with surrounding EWG groups, 2) changing -X (I > Br > Cl) but so does the price, 3) changing the nitrite salt solubility (Li(+), Na(+), K(+)) eventually with help of the solvent to favourize the exchange reaction. 4) Playing onto the metal reactivity (like Ag(+) with help of precipitation of AgX and proportion of nitro vs nitrite ratio). --> but no really big improvements and limitation of the price (you know silver salts and organic iodides ) There is stil the reaction of nitric acid with hydrocarbons in the gas phase but methane require more heat than ethane or propane what is uneconomical and ethane or propane generate more sideproducts (nitroethane, nitropropanes, acetal, aceton, etc.) that can be stil of interest but require usually some purification by distillation One of the main interest of nitrite ester vs nitroaliphatic is the "stability" of the second against heat and its very good boiling point increase, thus separation ability (usually bp nitro vs nitrite ester is + 100°C). PHZ (PHILOU Zrealone from the Science Madness forum and from AOL newsgroups)

I focus more on the reflection on the flask than on what's inside the flask lol. Love your vids btw!

The insoluble particles you observed might come from carbonate ions in the NaOH solution (absorbs CO2 from air over time) combining with trace metal ions that form insoluble carbonates (Ca, Ba)

I've ran it in my race car before. Very interesting to watch you make it at home.

About the separation of the two layers: Why didn't you add some brine to it in order to make the water more polar? Wouldn't this reduce the nitromethane in the water and the water in the nitromethane? We always do that in our lab at university as a standard procedure.

I used to use 45% nitromethane in glow plug model aero engine fuel. That was as much as would stay in solution on a cold morning, the other constituents being methanol and castor oil. A powerful oxidising agent that fuel mix increased power output by ~ 50% over "straight" non nitromethane fuel.

Nice job ! I really would like to analyze the emission spectra of that flame. Anyway, I was close to see your face from flask reflection.

Nitro-Methane is most notably used in Radio Control Vehicle fuel as a booster for the the castor-oil and methanol blend glow fuel used.

Dope content, you gained a sub

This is Amazing! INSTANT SUBSCRIBE🌻 keep it up!

As someone who worked at IHOP, that line broke me, lol. Great video man!

Yeah, DEA doesn't care about nitromethane. Nitroethane is the problematic one.

What would be a good refrigerant to circumnavigate the freon empire? When the DEA comes to my front door, I'll just let them all in, and they won't want to leave! They'll say, "son you are a genius! We'll trade you some Morphine for some Magic-On". Then I'll be pain free, and cool once again!

seeing your reflection in some of the flasks and it struck me: it must be a nightmare to shoot these chemistry videos, having to operate and monitor all the equipment while doing and monitoring a kinda risky chem reaction

That flame at the end is so beautiful

The memes My god man we're approaching critical meme mass

awesome, Id love to know what temp the fire burns at? is it hotter or colder than a normal flame?

An old friend of mine worked at a plant that made nitromethane. It was mostly used as fuel for a certain type of race car. It was also a pretty decent explosive. He had a few interesting stories.

Thanks for not talking over it! I can't believe it makes that noise!

Nice one bruv

So if I was to attempt improving yield how much boric acid would be necessary? Of course could adjust the ph again to make sure its acidic, but would be nice to have some idea how much.

how are you gonna make nitrometh and NOT boil it in a sealed container? the blast from nitrometh is pretty amazing

That’s a super cool looking condensation adapter from your RB to your condensing tube (can’t see what type). You can tell your glassware is good quality 😀 edit now iv watched it all; who knew a chemist could play piano!

That's a lot of work and explains why it's 84 bucks a gallon. Fun Fact, Top Fuel and Funny Cars that run on almost all Nitro have to be started using gasoline do to how hard it is to burn. This can be seen when they start the car with orange flames out the headers and change over to white flames when on Nitro. Cool Video.

When was a teenager, we were able to purchase nitromethane at the local hobby shop as they sold it for use with the RC model engines. I got some and mixed it in with my freinds weedeater gas. It sounded like a miniature top fuel dragster. Total waste of money. Boy was that fun.

Guano has everything you need to make this. Omnivorous birds. Chickens guano and some piss grass make wonderful "propellants" when catalyzed and distilled properly.

The guy who bombed the OKC fed building, McVay, used nitromethane in his fertilizer bomb. It’s also used in top fuel dragsters.

No wait new idea: _I turned these old rocks into high assay uranium hexafluoride and now I can't go in my garage for 700,000,000 years_

ThatChemist in fact IS in the Pantheon of chemistry gods... I knew it...

I ran out of wine… however I now feel fantastic!! Thank you 😄 9:36

Once again the humor is on Point! Really dope video and good chemistry too also, how does this decarboxylate so fast? I wasnt familiar with the synthesis and though, well are you gonna decarboxylate that now or what? Thats gonna need quite the temperature.. but than well, it wasnt needed apparently lol. Is it due to the fact that the NO2 draws away all the electron density from the Carboxylic acid?

Thanks for your nice video. Why didn't you use HNO3 and H2SO4 to nitrate methanol???

great video , with a name like nitromethane i was expecting it to light with a bigger bang :)

I’ve just binged your entire content. Just 1 thing though - could you possibly explain to us regular people what the uses are for the product you make? It’d be very much appreciated. Also, NileRed has an “edible chem” series. You’d be great at that and would be able to relate to many of us with a non-chemistry background. Just a thought :) Great videos though, keep it up! 👏

This video glows like no other. We have another Timothy McVeigh here.

nitromethane as mentioned is easily available in RC motor fuel.. you can distill it out - which also gives you a good amount a methanol which comes over first... done this sooooo~ many times using a veru to extract the nitromethane, it leaves a yucky hard to clean out buncha oils and parafins and waxes in the flask

It’s beautiful

what a beauty! though i have a few questions. why not simply dry the nitromethane layer with na2so4 (i often find the brine washing step obsolete) and why not extract the water layer with e.g. DCM? b.p. would be much more different and distilling off DCM is so much faster.

Wouldn't using the molecular sieves as boiling chips release all the water again, especially since you are boiling them? Great video as always by the way!

In my area there's a motorsports shop where you can buy NM by the drum, or at the pump by the gallon. Really not difficult at all. Lots of hobby stores sell it as well as RC aircraft fuel.

The DEA has deprived me of seeing that fantastic white flame my entire life?! What kind of world have we created?! Really cool.

Can you add cetyl alcohol to avoid foaming?

Note: In the mechanism you made a few small miitakes with the nitro group. If you have a 4-bond nitrogen, it will always bear a positive charge. Thus, the nitromethane-"enolate form" will bear one positive nitrogen and TWO negative, singly-bound oxygens. Similarly, the nitroacetic actic (/sodium nitroacetate) in the step before will also have N+ and O- in one structure instead of neutral N and double-doubly-bound oxygens. Otherwise an interesting mechanism!

No wonder it's so expensive. Cool demo!

Takes me back to my college days, I miss organic chemistry :/

The RC car fuel makes a fun fuel addition in a fast motorcycle.

that is a pretty flame for sure, however what is the temperature of that flame?

Ahh yes, chemistry with friends (black cars parked outside)

Fun fact about DEA list I/II chemicals for those who don’t know: these lists and the regulations therein are for MANUFACTURERS AND DISTRIBUTORS of these chemicals - not for end-users. Do with that what you will.

Nitromethane is the fuel used in Top Fuel Funny Cars, and Dragsters. The cars burn between 5 to 7 gallons of it in a 1/4 mile run, and make 10,000+ horsepower on it. It's a 50/50 mix of Methanol & Nitromethane. It is perfectly legal to have as well. But the cost it great., Depending on fuel supplier. It can run $45 to $60 a gallon.

This is the best title of a RU-vid video ever

Nice stuff, full of possibilities. Is this why sodium nitrite is getting harder to buy?

Pentavalent nitrogen in the mechanism, just lovely 💃💃💃

Since nitromethane is used in dragsters & rails it seems like it could be purchased at the drag strips across the country. It must be extremely powerful if the gov. restricted its use. I remember hearing that a dragster's engine had to be rebuilt after just 1 race using nitromethane.

Once I had a remote helicopter. The 0.90 cui Engine did not even start with less than 30% nitromethane in the fuel. I loved the smell, but the stuff is quite expensive.

What the heck is it used for? Also, that flickering white light of glory was mesmerizing. Depending on where I looked, the pulse was faster or slower. Reminiscent of those old 90s anime cartoons that could induce a seizures. Pleasurable. No idea what is going on, but pleasurable to watch anyways. Your previous videos inspired me to pick up an organic chem book. 🐄🛸

Good luck 🤞👍

When I was racing I used Nitromethane fuel. I had a fuel line pop and my arm was ablaze. Luckily a guy ran over quick and put my arm out. I will tell you it burns way hotter than methanol. Luckily I only ended up with a few blisters under the race suit on my arm.

I love how your videos are a good mix of shits and giggles and informative chemistry a fellow chemist on the watch list

It is used for fuel in drag racers and can produce incredible power but the extreme pressures mean the engine must be overhauled after every run. Sometimes the engines explode violently.

Brought back my organic chemistry days😁

0:39 Cool, just watched that ep the other day! thx for the anime references!

Maybe you could explain the difference between FDA, DEA approved (synthetic) Delta 9 THC, and go to jail (natural) Delta 9 THC, Tetrahydricannabinol. FDA & DEA won't say. But the Physicians Desk Reference PDR for Marinol does say the fake THC is the same as found naturally in Cannabis.

just what I needed for my rc plane

Is Nitromethane explosive? And how to make it, i ever making Methyl Nitrate but never and does not know how to make Nitromethane.

What happens with nitrate, for example if you only have a crude mixture of nitrates and nitrites, would the nitrates just oxide everything to CO2& H2O reducing yield, or create completely different products ?, For instance is there such a thing as methane nitrate that's different from nitromethane?

keep it up with the DEA challenge list

Instantly subbed, What is the legal drinking age of nitro-methane? lol

Model aeroplane fuel additive. It's not cheap and I wouldn't use it for anything else. But yeah it's readily available

It’s pretty weird that the nitrogen in nitrite can act as a nucleophile if it’s got 3 bonds to oxygen atoms. Maybe the oxygen formal negative charge is spread among both oxygen atoms stabilizing it, and the lone pair on the nitrogen is not happy to be in an sp2 hybridized orbital since when the relative s-character of a hybrid orbital goes up it’s electrons would rather delocalize into a bonding molecular orbital with a carbon sp3 orbital instead of just hang out awkwardly by themselves.

Can you do a video on Nitroethane? I know it was available as nail polish remover at one point. Its also useful in some reactions

I keep getting recommendations of no-no-chemical synthesis on RU-vid and I can’t tell if it’s the algorithm or I’m on a list and a fed is fishing lol But I’m happy to be here and drive Algor’s Rhythm.

dope☆