Thermite has lot of use cases from welding to incendiary grenades but it seems to always be iron thermite, why is that? We decide to mix up couple different thermite flavors to see how they work. Don't try this at home :D
Each type of thermite is used for a specific type of welding, for example magnesium thermite is used to weld underwater, copper thermite is used to weld copper connections, iron thermite is commonly used to weld tracks together
@@Beyondthepress Finer the grains, faster the reaction. I had micron sized Alu, barium nitrate and FeO2, which made very good thermate. But the reaction was instantaneous. Once I placed 500g into porcelaine enameled pot, which (I guess) had a bit of humidity on the bottom. Ignited it with a sparkler. The vapor explosion created cone ~5meter in diameter on the top 2-3meters high of flying molten iron. Looks cool, realised how stupid idea it was. But funny thing was, the pot became transparent, you could see the molten iron inside of the pot on it´s bottom through the walls of the pot. Sadly my dumb friend didn´t record it properly... So if you use coarser/bigger grains of the materials, it will be slower.
I usually use toilet paper as a sort of fuse. Just unroll it, attach the end to the firework(s) fuse(s) and roll it far enough back. Light your end, toilet paper burns really quick. It's like the perfect fire starter.
And shoot those fireworks from hands, at least in Finland. But it happens almost never anymore, because we don't drink to drunk like old times. ;) Why? Russia is collecting all alcohol from where they can get it to saturate their own need's. You cannot live or breath, if you're not heavily drunk and living same time today's "dreamland". Will it be as great than soviet union? (That thing collapsed by itself) It's hard to judge 😒
Copper thermite has industrial uses, for instance when linemen have to climp up all types of towers, they don't bring a welder up, if they have to weld they wrap the section of cables to be welded in copper thermite, which leaves a conductive weld
I could see this. As depending on the ratio you mix it, It has a fine line between a thermite reaction that actually leaves molten metal glowing behind, and being a violent extremely loud bang. I've used a small amount in 1" plastic spheres and launched 1ft stumps way up in the air and copper plated everything that was around it. Which, did look neat, to see copper plated dirt/tree xD
The magnesium thermite is unusual in that the temperatures aren't hot enough to melt the magnesium oxide, despite the extra energy release. That's why it leaves foam behind, the oxide forms in place around the iron liquid that drips out. Copper thermite is almost the opposite, where the copper that forms is so hot it is a gas, so it poofs away.
Yup, Al2O3 has a high melting point but not stupendously, and the iron mix is hot enough to liquefy everything. MgO has a much higher melting point (it's one of the hottest-melting oxides period!), despite the higher energy output. Blending in a little fluorite and/or silica would help reduce the melting point, allowing the metal to consolidate. There may also be a MgO.Al2O3 eutectic, i.e. using a mix of both Mg and Al powder may work better than either one alone. (Downside to silica: it will also react, giving a mildly ferrosilicon product -- arguably maybe not a bad thing, indeed this product has industrial application.)
@@T3sl4 Very rarely have I seen anyone use the word "eutectic". Metallurgy, solid state science, geology and wierd chemists, more or less exclusively :p which one are you?
@@hamstsorkxxor Eh, I know a little bit of metallurgy. Mostly I just use one regularly (63% Sn 37% Pb solder for electronics). Good to know a little bit about everything :)
I've discovered from experience that there are quite a few things you shouldn't do in your kitchen. One of them is cutting open the used silencer from a diesel exhaust with a disc cutter. Somehow bits of diesel soot go everywhere in the kitchen and you'll never get rid of the smell and the soot.
Another no-no is grinding up dried Carolina Reaper chillis indoors- even in the shed. The superfine dust is invisible and gets even on your eyelids. Later in the shower my eyes burned the worst yet- even worse than the time a fuel line split and petrol sprayed in both eyes.
@@disguisessalt8031 Ewwh! Yeah. It may look kinda like a fume hood, and it notionally runs on the same basic principle, but it does not have the sucking power of one, nor the nice confining wall. A good point that "do not try this at home" is not necessarily just a patronizing "do not try this because you're too 'dumb'" but because literally even if you know something about how to do it, to do it safely may still require equipment that you simply do not have at home, period. I did chemistry experiments at a University ("A" grade in chemistry, 2 courses in the subject) involving dangerous acids and the like, and even though I still understand how to work with the materials I would not dare to try those same experiments "at home" precisely because I know I don't have the retinue of lab equipment that the U. provided. Experiment with vinegar, of course, but not 6 M Nitric Acid hah hah
There's zero risk of reaction involved in mixing those elements . I don't know what they're on about here but .. I guess it's a misinformed belief that these elements are somewhat like explosives but they're not. They won't react unless ignited with very high temperature heat source (fuse, magnesium strip, torch). You can jump on it , throw it on the ground , hammer it "Reactive Targets for Rimfires" here on yt and see the dude hammering it , and see that it can go off when shot at if there's steel plate behind it)
@@TheOneAndOnlySame It is because copper is toxic. You don't want to get copper powder on your skin. Iron and magnesium powder are only dangerous if you get it in your eyes or in your lungs. That is why the copper thermite is more dangerous.
@@TheOneAndOnlySame I was mainly trying to get people not to start mix ultra fine metal powders on their houses and without proper respirator. This stuff is not good to breath and really hard to clean up.
I work in radio communication, and we use copper thermite *all the time* ! The biggest brand name I can think of is Cadweld. It's the funnest part of installing an antenna system. I mixed some up myself, and I used copper carbonate instead of copper oxide; the side reaction is endothermic but it makes a lot of gas and doesn't solve the problem of the copper spraying everywhere. I think the name-brand stuff has some magic in the crucible design and some more additives I don't know about. It also helps to use slightly larger granules to limit the available surface area.
There are two oxides of copper: cuprous (red, Cu2O) and cupric (black, CuO). The former has a comparable burn rate to Fe2O3. The latter is not only so hot that the product is vaporized (Cu BP 2562°C) but indeed is shock sensitive too -- use carefully! Basic copper carbonate (the most common kind) decomposes to H2O and CO2, which can burn with Al (and better with Mg), but in any case gas is emitted. Better to calcine it first (to black CuO).
My dad's into ham radio, and he used some copper thermite once when installing a large outdoor antenna. I got an awesome picture of the reaction right as it went off.
It looked a bit like some of those 'arc flash' videos on failures at electrical substations/control panels - if the operator is not wearing the correct PPE, as well as severe burns, they would get molten copper droplets blasted into their bodies!
Blacksmiths work in fairly dark environments as it’s hard to judge the steels color, and therefore temperature in a bright environment. The fact it looked so bright on camera in direct sunlight means it was very hot indeed!
Awesome power. I use copper cadwelds to attach the grounds to towers. Our molds are simple carbon molds. We have to sweat them of moisture before we use them or they can blow up.
I haven't used cadwelds since the early 90's (maybe late 80's) I shot probably 100 - 150 on a big construction site to ground the tanks and the cable trays to the structure at the time I couldn't properly research what they were made of but they were as fun to use as they could be dangerous.
@@TopCat2021 Heh, tell me about it. We had to use that for a ground loop in a finished room for a radio system, and the whole thing was mounted about 6-7ft high along the wall. One of the shots wound up upside down when it went off, and some of the molten metal went into some water we had trying to keep fire down. I learned first hand molten droplets of copper and water DO NOT MIX
Brown cloud from copper thermite really shows that the pile blows itself apart before it has the chance to react. It's similar to what happens during nuclear fizzles or any strong criticality accident. If you put such fine copper thermite in a tube, it would probably detonate.
Ive used copper based thermite before. Its used for cadwelding. The mix has extra copper, Cu1 oxide Tin 2 oxide and manganese oxide. It is still a bit more violent than regular thermite
I welded the grounding system for my Amateur Radio (Ham) shack with a CADWELD copper thermite set. In stock at my local electric supplier. Also at Amazon.
I'm excited for this series It's been quite a while since anybody's done videos on thermite in such a way. Last I can remember are explosions and fire and maybe Cody's lab.
@@seneca983 It is still an explosive, even if the sound of it precedes the blast and burn of it. That's the difference. Does it break the speed of sound?
If the reaction and the movement of the particles stay subsonic it's burning. You get a heat wave and maybe strong wind but no shockwave. If the reaction causes movements faster than the speed of sound it's an explosion. Your material creates more energy than the surface of your surrounding material can absorb, so it forms a pressure wave that travels until it hits something. Natrium and Magnesium for example will burn in the air but can explode under water.
Great video!! Small tip: try magnesium and lead dioxide thermite. It burns faster than most of the commercial flash powders. Lead dioxide is found in dead car batteries (2-3 kg of PbO2 per battery)
You can get the same, but healthier, result using bismuth trioxide. Using silicon powder will neatly and “gently” reduce it to bismuth metal, but aluminum, magnesium, or magnalium will typically detonate. A slightly modified recipe is used to make the crackle effect you see in many modern fireworks.
Lead has a boiling point of 1750C so that probably helps release more gas pressure after the thermite reacts. I doubt you get a nice solid piece of metal after that reaction. I don’t mind shooting, soldering with lead etc but vapors/particles/oxides are more bioavailable then the bulk metal so lead toxicity would be a big downside.
As someone reading random video comment section entries, I couldn't give one iota of an expletive what form of danglies your body has, and where, so, whatever you hoped to communicate with this completely irrelevant factlet (not factoid, yes, there's a difference), enjoy feeling happy about rubbing it in people's faces, I guess …
@@Anvilshock I *love* that this was your takeaway here. Had you watched the video, you would instantly realize that it's relevant to a comment made in the video itself, and then you wouldn't have made a fool of yourself. =^_^=
@Anvilshock nobody but you is responsible for being an Incel. So don't randomly shit on ppl mentioning their significant other, just because you're envious and lonely amd frustrated (;
Copper (II) aka copper oxide mixed in is flash powder, essentially, it burns really fast and can be dangerous an explosion which sends a spray of copper drops to considerable distances so make sure you're at a safe distance or in a bunker. Copper oxide when mixed right can also burn blue.
The army taught me to never, ever set a fuse and run away. You’re 100 times more likely to fall close to the explosive than if you just set a longer fuse and walk away.
A fun coincidence :D I was watching videos of copper thermite yesterday, also I think copper thermite has a very unique prettiness to it although I've never seen it in person
I was hoping more from it. I think others that have tried this haven't had as fine particles as we had since it made zero splashes or any drama when it went
We used to use magnesium ribbon or a sparkler. Both burn down slow enough so make it safe. Putting it in a clay plant pot with a hole in the bottom also makes it more controllable you can put a little bit of paper at the bottom of the pot to stop it falling out. This lets you direct the liquid iron also. Once it burns the paper will burn up and liquid iron falls out the small hole onto whatever you want. People make it out to be able to burn through engine blocks and stuff, but yeah tried it does not really work. It cools down to quick when it hits the large chunk of metal. Maybe if you preheated like the engine block or something it might work with a good flow but it would take loads of it like a skip full. Engine is interesting as usually its aluminum head and iron block so in theory it could use the engine as fuel. Would love to see someone to get that to work.
Years ago when I was working for the railroad, when we still had jointed railroad track, we would bond the rails together with a large piece of breaded, or twisted copper wire and magnesium oxide weld it to the track for the track signaling circuits. With CWR, (continuous welded rail) we still fit a mold around the track ends to be joined and thermite weld the ends together
I used ot work on the railways many many years ago, and we used to weld rails together using thermite (I think it's still done today too). It would be in a mold, with a vestle on top for the reaction to happen in, and the metal would sink to the bottom and fill the mold, and the slag would rise to the top and be left in the vesstle and could be removed and then trimmed to the same shape of the rails. I wonder if doing copper in some enclosed vestle like this could yeald some useable copper at the end? It may be more dangerous though as if it was too confined it could explode maybe due to the pressue, but as long as the top was open, and just the sides were enclosed, you could possibly get something useful out of the bottom? Especially if you use some kind of slowing agent in the mix.
I've heard that it's used in welding copper terminals in power tranmission systems, in conjunction with a lot of flux mixed in to moderate the burn rate and draw out impurities. By itself without any kind of burn rate retardant I doubt it would be of much use for any kind of welding though lol, it's rapid burn rate and intense heat turns the copper to vapor, and if it were contained in a strong sealed container then it's burn rate would become even higher (assuming it wasn't pressed into a puck with a bit of binder mixed in). Just like an increase in temperature, some chemical reactions can be sped up with an increase in pressure and this is one of them, it would nearly detonate if in normal powdered form. I _am_ curious if a short duration cutting torch could be made from a solid rocket motor with a fuel made of copper (II) oxide thermite bound together with a small amount of PBAN or HTPB resin binder, it's low gas production would decrease thrust enough to make it manageable to hold onto (on second thought, scratch that lol, it might need a mounting system😂) and it's high burn rate would give the copper vapor some serious velocity, if it were piped through a tungsten nozzle it could be concentrated into a fine beam of superheated copper vapor, which due to it's high thermal conductivity could tranfer a metric F ton of heat into whatever it's directed at. I've got everything I would need to make one, I might actually take a stab at it now that I think about it lol.
@@TheExplosiveGuy Hmm, I wonder if it could be used for copper plating of some kind? Not directly from the burn, but through a short section to seperate the spatter from touching the target material the vapour is to be deposited on. Electro plating is probably way easier and more efficient, and probably makes no sense to do it this way over that, but I'm just wondering if it would be possible. A kind of budget plasma vaporised coating, for when you don't have the propper aperatus and need to coat someyhing in a thin layer of copper in a pinch xD.
@@DaftyBoi412 it might work if done in an inert atmosphere or vacuum, but I suspect the part to be coated would need to completely stripped clean of all contaminants and heated near the melting temperature of copper for it to bond in place, electroplating systems work so well because they bond to the substrate at a molecular level, I don't see much bonding happening with a thermite system, it would all just wipe off if the part wasn't heated.
@@Typical.Anomaly Or would iron oxide retard the burn rate of the copper? Or would the copper ignite burning iron oxide and shoot gobs of fire into the air? That's why I'd love to see them test it out.
My dad was using copper thermite to weld some copper for a radio antenna. I took a picture right as it went off and caught an awesome spray of sparks and flame with a little mushroom cloud coming off of it.
@@thecrazyisreal I figured it was something he had said in the video in response to one of the thermite reactions. I read it in Lauri's voice in any case!
I have a story that ought to be interesting to the commentariat here. Back in the early 00's, I had the bright idea to go back to university and train as a teacher. I know, I know, what could possibly have motivated me to do so? I have no idea, but I did. And in my first year of training, I had a pretty good experience at my first school placement, teaching middle schoolers (which contrasted markedly with my next placement - I got out of that field as fast as I could...suffice to say, teaching was not for me). But in the university part of the education, I introduced a unit plan to my fellow student teachers about redox reactions, and I ended the introduction with a thermite demo - MnO2/Al specifically. And it was great, everybody loved it, some people were temporarily blinded. You know, the stuff of science class legends. So I took the demo to my student teaching placement, and set it up in the fumehood. Note that this was a time before RU-vid, and the internet was in its youth, so there wasn't much information about this topic available (basically all I knew I had learned from the Mythbusters, who had exploded onto American television screens recently). And I had a class of 13 year olds, none of whom had ever heard of manganese, but who absolutely would know what copper was, so I decided to alter my methodology to use copper instead. I just expected the same reaction, except with a nice puddle of copper metal being left on the ceramic plate instead (yes, I should have tested it first, without the same inherent risks...I was young and stupid, I fully accept that). So I did the stoichiometry, mixed up about 80 grams of the stuff, stuck a bit of magnesium ribbon in, and lit it off. Umm...yeah, everybody was surprised at the result, but I think I was the most surprised of all. Fortunately, most of the boom was confined to the fumehood, but plenty shot out, leaving the entire classroom filled with a thick copper and aluminum oxide fog/powder. Thank goodness, nobody was injured, and the fire suppression system was not triggered either. But it was a fairly traumatic experience for the students, and for me personally (I can laugh about it now, but I don't know what I'd have done if someone WAS harmed). I didn't get into (much) trouble, because nobody could figure out what went wrong (like I said, there wasn't any information on this, so while I knew other metal oxides could be used, I did not know that the results would be so varied). Nonetheless, I kept my demos to the safe side afterwards (but who knows, maybe one of those students has grown up to be the biggest pyromaniac ever...I'd take great pride in that knowledge). As a postscript to this whole thing, I have remained fascinated with thermite ever since (I guess I like to fly close to the sun, even if my wings sometimes fall off), and I actually have since learned why copper thermite behaves so differently to every other variety. It is because copper metal has a *boiling point* that is around 150°C less than the temperature that the thermite reaction creates, so the copper as created does not come out as a liquid (like iron or manganese), but a gas. And when you vaporize copper metal, it expands to ~32,000X its volume as a solid. So if you're producing 3 or 4 cubic centimeters of copper, solid equivalent, as a result of the thermite reaction (which is a tiny amount), that works out to ~0.13 cubic METERS of vapor (or a cube with 50 cm sides). Add in the energy of the thermite reaction itself, and you get quite an explosion. Cody, over at Cody's Lab did a (since removed from RU-vid) video where he crammed 500 mg of copper thermite into a metal pipe, capped it, and set it off (yes, he did make a b-word...but back then, RU-vid was a bit less squirrelly about such things), and it produced a great big boom.
the time I did thermite, I decided to go 1 gram approach, to keep it on the "safe side", (aspiring to be you know which TF2 member back then), anyway, it burned through a pyrex watchglass, and left me blinded for a couple seconds, and two of my lab buddies went "what the hell did you did? it lit the whole lab!"
Normal thermite is quite useful for welding large steel beams. They use it to weld train track segments together. It can also be used to cut so long as accuracy of the cut is not needed
I wonder if you could use the copper thermite to cut metal. Shape charges usually use copper as the metal projectile but requires an explosive to start it. I wonder if you could contain the copper thermite long enough for it to cut without the explosive charge.
4:10 Magnesium oxide melts at 2852°C so there may have not been enough heat to meld it so it stays as a fluffy ash. This also affects the reaction dynamics as it is solids reaction instead of liquids. Mg is less energetic as it donates only two electrons per atom while aluminium gives 3.
Did the copper thermite cause the steel plate to immediately rust? The steel plate was black before the copper thermite ignited and then it was rust colored...? Was it just residue or did it rust?
I wonder how that copper thermite mixture they used would work as a propellant. By the look of that plate you would have a lot of residue but would it have any kind of power behind it?
Made termite at my first job for track welding product. We used iron oxide and iron millscale (mixed sizes of rust flakes). It burned very hor and at a lot longer than your mix.
7:00 slowed down (even more using 1/4 speed on YT) makes a really nice scaled down FX "explosion". Great billowing dark clouds with a nice internal fireball.
What if you have different ratios of copper and alluminum thermites mixed; is there a ratio that produces anything more interesting than either of the pure mixes?
Always a pleasure to watch you guys having a lot of fun and always with a positive attitude. To me this is one of the most valuable channels of the youtubes, especially at times where the world gets crazier by the minute. Thanks for doing all this crazy stupid stuff
Could you -make a mixture and/or modify the ratios? What about other metal oxide experiments -This is great! I'm wondering if you could pack a safe with Cu thermite the see what happens in a closed environment? Thanks!
Is that copper thermite suitable for cleaning dishes? Like when you have a pan with burned in rests of food? The metal sheet looked quite clean afterwards.
I would love to see you work with flash powders or the material from old-school camera flash bulbs sometime. The largest of them could illuminate the inside of an auditorium for a picture.
I actually have a set of copper "cadweld" thermite welding crucible molds and some of the premesured copper thermite charges left over from my father's career as an industrial electrician.
as kids lighting off fireworks everyone stood around the guy lighting the fuse and then ran away, it only takes one guy to light it. i realized that back then and picked a good viewing spot and i didnt have to run and maybe miss the boom if the fuse was fast
