Yeah. I love how casually he mentions shit blowing up by accident all the time. My favorite of his stories is where they blow up their test chamber and found the lid two weeks later in the attic xD I can also recommend ''Atomic Accidents'' where in the first half the author (Jim Mahaffey) describes the early reactor research and they were all like ''hey what happens, when we do this to the reactor. They even (unofficially) sold tickets to watch some of these experiments, where they blew up these small reactors lol. But yes, especially Ignition. Amazing book. totally recommend.
@@Peter_Schluss-Mit-Lustig yes of course the perform very good and the Lithium and flourine compounds in the are are really good for the inviorment. I agree with you 100 Prozent.
8:26 I do speak German, and I find it hilarious how unsafe those experiments must have been: "[...] there was a very violent explosion under tremendous detonation, only luck keeping one of us from being damaged." Real chemists don't get injured, they get damaged! (btw, in German "st" at the start of a word is pronounced like "sht"... aka just pretend you're Sean Connery)
Once in a German chemistry school class (long time ago) the teacher showed the exact reaction you tried to perform, like this: -he melted little potassium/sodium pieces in a glass test tube (~ 1cm metal at the bottom of the tube) -then after cooling it at room temperature he filled in a layer of CCL4 (tetrachlormethane again around 1cm) -shortly afterwards he dropped the glass tube from the window of the classroom in the 4th floor onto the concrete schoolyard pavement -there was a little explosion with puffy, thick yellow-orange smoke
Are most German chemistry classes just amazing? We also did all kinds of explosive experiments, one of which a volcano that accidentally melted the roof lamp
@@BierBart12 My chemistry teacher scorched some random plants outside with liquid bromine. German chemistry classes are both amazing and not amazing since a bunch of the chemicals used are just old stock and aren't supposed to be used anymore.
@@BierBart12 My school didn’t have a teacher that was allowed to do any experiments, so we either did something that was as exciting as boiling water or just nothing. But my classmates weren’t the brightest so maybe it was better to not let them handle chemicals.
Explosions&Fire i hear in the american civil war soldiers used Urine aka HUMAN PEE to make black powder for guns and cannon IS THAT PISSABLE? I want Davy to film a piss cannon firing a turd ball
When I was an 11 year old kid, when I got my first chemistry set, I remember finding a brown glass bottle in my garage labeled "tetra". My dad must have bought it somewhere, used as "stain remover". We also had bottles methanol, ammonia and trichloroethylene. The latter had meanwhile also been pulled from the market, but in the past it was commonly used to dissolve grease and fats. I remember my dad using it to clean bicycle chains. 1,1,1-trichloroethane was also pulled from the market, and so was dichloromethane and perchloroethylene; it seems that we aren't allowed any chlorinated solvents anymore. 😞
You ill be happy to know that New Zealand is, or at least was at the time, one of the only 7 countries that used 'trike' as we called it. Used it to dissolve grease etc, it would be heated it up it a kind steam bath (with a gas mask on0 and leave the room for a while while it did its work.
The US banned the inclusion of DCM in consumer-grade products a year or so back under the pretense of it being toxic, yet more toxic solvents like xylenes are still readily available. My best guess is that it has more to do with the relatively low activation energy of chlorine as a leaving group in SN2 reactions.
it was a grass roots lobby effort by families of the deceased, the danger wasn't long term carcinogen risks, people would use it in poorly ventilated bathrooms to strip tubs then die from the fumes in the process, and the fumes don't stink so it's easy to not realize that you are in danger.
While I disagree that xylenes are at all particulary toxic, it is true that DCM is fairly toxic to humans, mainly because it's just a darned good solvent and can cause demylelination of nerve cells as it accumulates in the body. SN2 reactions with DCM require pretty harsh conditions to occur because Cl- is only a moderately good leaving group, and the methyl carbocation intermediate has a very high activation energy. DCM is much more amenable to radical reactions.
@Maybe, maybe not. The device i'm using that isn't the hammer to hit the sodium on the foil is an attempt at a vertical, consistent drop test device. It... just wasn't consistent enough, so I let it get all rusty and sad :(
I graduated from High School in the early 1980's. We had to use carbon tet several times. We also had to make formaldehyde. And some days I had to distribute the asbestos pads. That was always a mess. The powdered asbestos (from pads rubbing against each other) always got all over my shirt. So I had to try my best to pat it all off my Pink Floyd t-shirt. Physics wasn't nearly as dangerous.
Thank god I'm not the only one. Do you think there was a screw up at the factory, because none of mine had the figurine either!!! 🐎🎠🏇 I almost had the complete set!
I remember seeing those threads pop up, keep in mind this is several years ago at this point but last i heard that anon was attempting to restart his "experiment".
"That's right - GERMAN Wikipedia" Am German, can confirm. My organics professor always said: "The mechanism is simple, if you're not sure, just look it up on Wikipedia"
4 года назад
@Evi1M4chine As a long time Wikipedia author, I can confirm your description.
It's a glorious topic. Like, in school whenever the topic of wikipedia comes up it's like "Don't ever use it, it's not a reliable source, anyone can edit it whenever they feel like it...." (which obviously isn't quite accurate) and this year at university I've got a paper to write in history and I kid you not, the document regarding all the formalities for a paper on ancient history is basically like "Yeah, and there's always wikipedia. I mean, you shouldn't use it as a direct source, but, you know... still pretty useful.." several times. I just love how schools teach that wikipedia is just about as trustworthy as your average Trump speech whereas at University you get outright recommended it...
It's almost like pre uni school is for prep and learning how to learn and or how to take orders from someone who chose continued learning as they are not innate skills or something.
It's because table salt is iodized and would likely contaminate the product with iodinated halocarbons. Kosher salt is essentially pure NaCl. On an unrelated note, Jews are allowed to eat table salt, and the reason there's a separate kosher salt is because it makes meat kosher by drawing out excess blood.
@@ExplosionsAndFire They class is as drug paraphernalia. Even if your making photos or explosives. Go figure they allow them in schools, universities, medical clinics, pathology labs, industrial labs... pretty much anywhere actually. Just don't annoy your local copper, make sure he (or she) understands what you are doing and why and you should be mostly OK as long as you don't go procuring mass quantities of red phosphorus and other precursors.
I have absolutely no background in chemistry and have no idea what you're talking about but I'm loving every second of your videos! keep up the great work
This youtube channel is why I am now doing a chemistry degree, and lets just say that I have not regretted it after seeing the following: - Someone pouring dry ice and acetone down a sink and hearing a "boom" - Someone pouring dry ice and acetone into the chlorinated waste bin basket filled with some carcinogens - Someone pouring LiALH4 into acetenaline (I think) and then running away as it started smoking
@Evi1M4chine Evi1M4chine don't be triggered, but imho nascar is boring 😅 (to watch at least). I know you need lots of skill and endurance, but compared to wrc rally und the isle of man it is just boring to look at imho.😅 Are you American? You all have a nice day and dont get bored by quarantine.
They did try the cesium, but it wasn't very impressive, and they just had access to explosives on the day (somehow?) So they filmed that as well. To give them the benefit of the doubt, it seems like they were meant to just show it as a theoretical comparison, which is why the guy mentions depth charges, but during editing they fucked it
@@procactus9109 they allude to it at the end, saying "There is one more, but they wouldn't let us try it... " as if it was too explosive. And that's the least of your concern when handling it honestly
Not only do I realy like your aussie accent but your honesty. you r showing all the damn takes it took, to get this tiny (but well worth it in my opinion) explosion filmed. You are awesome mate!
I’m relatively new to the channel, but I would like to thank you for keeping me up late at night. This is some really interesting content and I’m really impressed with the chemistry involved. I hope everything is going alright for you. Please don’t like die or some shit so you can continue to make these dope ass videos. Peace out brother
Have you ever looked into making a secondary like small scale reaction of trinitrotoluene or RDX? I'd love to see someone make it. I know Darian Ballard made RDX but I haven't seen anyone make TNT.
@@ExplosionsAndFire Yea that's a good point. I find primaries to be very fun to test because you don't need to make detonators and have large plots of property away from people to test them. So it makes a lot of sense. The only way I can think of to do small scale testing is to make a straw full of some secondary and then put the primary on top. Basically a detonator with a booster but those get very loud very quick and certain secondaries wouldn't even fully detonate like that. I use that method to test my ETN but ETN then again ETN is very sensitive for being a secondary and detonates easily. So I totally get where you're coming from. Thanks and I love your videos keep it up!
@@Andrew-my1cp yeah it just gets too loud too quickly really. Loudest I've done was 500mg of ETN and that was too loud... so yeah. Plenty of stuff to explore from the world of primaries though!
@@ExplosionsAndFire Yea I had a test of 200mg of SADS in my backyard and I was certain cops would be swarming the place soon and I know ETN is a lot louder so I can't imagine that much going off. It's weird though because I did some larger testing in the middle of nowhere with some louder stuff and the stuff that sounded like straight up gunshots in my backyard sounded like a little pop over there. Might have to do with the sound waves not having anywhere to bounce off of. Some of the bigger stuff I've done was really loud in the middle of nowhere so I can't fathom how loud that would be in my backyard. Although I'll never get to try that because of obvious reasons lol. But I agree primaries have loads of things to discover. So far I've only made SADS,
The the OP: you need to consider the environmental fate of whatever compound is being released. Will it decompose into something harmless? Will it sit there and do nothing? Will it bioaccumulate? Will it end up in air? Water? Sediment? Also the toxicity is important. If something has very low toxicity and doesn’t accumulate then it’s risk to the environment is minimal whereas if you have something very toxic and/or accumulates then that can be a major problem. Take DDT in large predatory birds for example. Accumulates up the food chain and has greater toxic effects as it accumulates more.
This meme is too mainstream and it is not okay. It should have died, like all memes, but it just keeps feeding and growing like some sort of yellow nano-machine infested quagmire of hate.
I don'geddit Edit: judging by the innuendo I probably don't _want_ to either, so I'm not going to come back and check this thread again. But feel free to explain it and scar anyone else dumb enough to read beyond this comment.
My first job was back in the late 70's working in an electronics and high energy optics lab. Back then we used carbon tetrachloride for just about everything we used gallons of the stuff. We had it in squirty bottles, steel trays even large open steel tanks. All this in unventilated rooms with no breathing apparatus.
I laughed so much when you said the atmosphere is a rubbish bin! Also when you worried about the CCl4 splashing around giving off lovely fumes. Epic video, hope to see more soon!
I was machining some aluminum and I was using “tap magic” as a cutting fluid, it contained chlorinated hydrocarbon waxes. I ended up breathing the vaporized oil for a few hours lol, next day, I completely lost my voice. I genuinely could not speak, no sound would come out, it was wild! If I used an extremely deep voice then I could speak but any higher pitched tones just sounded like hot air. I sounded like a monster for a few days, it was actually pretty sick. Highly recommend
This is exactly what I wanted to try within the next days! There where some german papers in which it was written, that sodium and chloroform do always explode, so I was curious. Btw there had been a demonstration at german universities, which translates as "Coulombic Bomb". First you hit the potassium with a hammer to flatten it out and making it stick to the hammer. Then you add carbon tetrachloride to the anvil and hit it with the hammer. Nice and entertaining video as usual! :)
This seems to be a very weirdly regional experiment. All the info on it comes out of Germany, and all the demos of it were only done in Germany or surrounding areas. Maybe one of those pre WWII things that didn't get picked up by English literature, who knows. But yeah, I think it's still worth doing, especially the sodium and chloroform. There's a thought I have that maybe my chloroform reacted that way because it was in sunlight? Like the redness and quick tarring up seems like a radical thing, no doubt brought on by the sodium but maybe UV kicks it off quicker??
@@ExplosionsAndFire I would guess the colored product is due to the formation of complexer molecules and radicals. It could be possible that the reaction begins similar to a Grignard or Wurtz reaction (look for "Grignard reagent"/"Wurtz reaction" on Wiki). There you'll see the "Single electron transfer" and once you've got radicals in there a lot of bonds could be formed in a runaway, which produces a lot of heat. The "Wurtz reaction" is similar to Grignard, but with sodium.
@@shannondove9029 I assure you that NOBODY (or NOTHING, in this case) crosses the Better Business Bureau and gets away with it........ _(I also have no clue about it crossing the blood brain barrier, sorry, I only came to make that horrible joke... since no one else did in half a year lol)_
@@RaExpIn The Wurtz reaction is a coupling reaction between alkyl halides using sodium. Alkyl halides give oxydative addition to sodium, generating an alkyl sodium species in the reaction mixture which then the coupling. But organosodium species are too reactive and unstable, so this reaction isn't used for coupling between alkyl fragments( organocopper reagents are used instead and maybe in some cases, organopalladium catalysis is employed). Of course there are many side reaction such as alpha-eliminations to produce carbenes and carbenoids.
This is a true story, this happened in the last October (can't remember the date), I spilled my jar of chloroform, and didn't ventilate my room or clean anything, 5 mins later, I passed out and puked everywhere, and on my way to the bathroom after puking on my desk, it reminded my of when I used to get high off of dextromethorphan, bumbling the whole way there.
Gotta love 1920s paper writing style. 8:37 contains "seconds after breaking the bomb a strong explosion with extreme detonation occured, which only by lucky accident did not injure one of us. Another non-sealed bomb which also contained Oxalylbromide with NaK did not explode in 2 days, when - due to the experience with the previous experiment - it was destroyed in open field by stone throw another strong explosion occured." Just a bit of a personal touch :)
Really interesting and educational video. Also you have great persona, which makes your videos really enjoyable to watch! Thanks for making these 🤘 (edit. erased my taping advice away from this comment cause the same advice was already commented)
I couldn't go past this vid and *not* subscribe. You're doing all of the experiments that I wanted to mess around with as a youngster chemist and then some - with style and flair, so thank you. Thank you for that. Stay safe. We need you. :)
During my own Ph.D studies we had a safety lecture given by the head of Organic chemistry, who also emphasised the "danger" of mixing chlorinated solvents with sodium. He poured some carbon tetrachloride in a plastic bucket, dropped a chunk of sodium in, and nothing happened. Which I had predicted, since the week before I had done a preparation of the weirdo compound C(SiMe3)4 - which is done by taking carbon tetrachloride, 4 equivalents of chlorotrimethylsilane, 8 equivalents of sodium metal and refluxing the hell out of it in a sealed glass tube for a few days. The sodium rips the chlorides off everything in sight to make a load of NaCl, and the remainder forms the target compound in essentially quantitative yield. Anyway, if sodium and carbon tetrachloride don't explode under prolonged reflux conditions (I did this preparation more than once and it never exploded on me), then what are the chances of the same combination exploding at room temperature? Pretty slim, I would say!
New to the channel this is probably my 5th video. I was sitting here thinking about putting a comment along the lines of "Where can I get one of those fancy fan's" then I saw the clean me sticker on it. Is this a super original joke? Nope, but it was so perfect I was laughing real hard. At a sticker in the background, This is quality boy's and girl's sub for life
BTW: if you ever need a German translator, I can do it. Old German Chemistry books are fun: tasting chemicals distilling Äther (ether) over open flames etc.
@@joostspohler2964 Post WWII, Germans had quite some disregard for safety, maybe even their own life. It manifests in their unsafe instructions. But, yes, they were a creative bunch. Even today, there´s Angewandte Chemie, even though it´s no longer in German. Psychology, engineering, etc. all have German loan words and the Japanese were total fanboys of Germans so much so that even today like every 3rd anime has German words in it or references German culture or folklore. Just imagine that in the 1950s it was easier to find a Japanese speaking German than English! Similarly, if we go back a little further, Sissi used English whenever she wanted to make sure that spies around her should not understand her! Slovenian, Hungarian, old Greek, you name it, were all more commonly understood than English!
I had once a discussion on the narcotic properties of these compounds. During my Chemistry studies it happened in a week that a colleague of mine got showered in DCM and a few days later, I got soaked in Chloroform. Neither of us got unconscious. However, I had to change my clothes and was sent back home. During that time, my driver complained about getting drowsy... For those that like to know what had happened to me: I was supposed to wash the solution with 1N NaHCO3 and then collect the organic phase for a few more washing steps. In order to wash, I had to shake the separating funnel and the acid within the oil reacted with the base and CO2 made it go boom, blowing out the plug. I tried to push the plug back in creating something like a valve that distributed the content all over the lab... Fun times.
Shit we had TET fire extinguishers everywhere in a past career, (the whole industry was about the last to embrace touchy feely non toxic emergency products that didn't work anywhere as well), when overhauling the TET extinguishers the apprentices were sent to depressurise and then empty them. We had another highly carcinogenic product that we used and it was engineered to smell like peeled orange so we could know if it was leaking. Problem was that in the environment we worked in, by the time you got the orange smell it was too late. The world is so whimpy these days. I know zero about chemistry but your videos are awesome. I wish I or my kids had a chemistry teacher like you....
You should do magnesium or alkali metals plus Teflon (PTFE). Easier to heat without boiling and should burn really hot! Raw PTEF is sold as a fine powder, so should be easy to mix with powdered metals.
great video, also pretty interesting that german wikipedia had more infos since i usually switch to english wikipedia when the article feels incomplete
I recently started reading a US improvised munitions manual (from the 60s) and one of the recipes is a pipe bomb filled with mixture carbon tet (or tetrachloroethylene) with powdered aluminum.
man i rarely comment for youtube videos, but every single one of your videos, is educational and relatable to anyone. You make me feel like watler white, but legally. You passion bleeds through your humor and your demeanor, we're lucky to have content creators like yourself!
