@NurdRage
Yay Potassium thermite!
@EliasExperiments
I had a great time doing this project with you, I hope we can do a lot more stuff like that in the future. ;-)
@darylcheshire1618
In the late ‘70s I purchased about 100g of potassium, when I left my home to live in a flat, I took the potassium in paraffin on a suburban train to a technical college where I handed it over. Nowadays I shudder to think I carried potassium on a suburban train (not to mention the yellow phosphorus). The half litre of bromine I tipped down a drain. The half kilo of sodium, I reacted with methylated spirits on the edge of a lake. No issues.
@friskydingo5370
I can't stop watching this video 😁 A video on growing metal Crystal's would be insanely awesome 👌
@SomnolentFudge
maybe the magnesium was an alloy called "Elektron" it contains zinc and some rare earths that could cause the pyrophoric effect you experienced.
@Foxy-za
2:39 you know things are getting real when you use the cardboard box funnel 😂
@zeno-bn7uf
That is by far the most potassium I have seen in any one place☠ , the beautiful purple hue is also super visible whilst pouring the ingot under mineral oil.
@gleya4987
i know im being that one guy but PLEASE wear your ppe more, you really do need it here. getting burning alkali metals on your skin is horrifically painful, and even a little bit can cause a lot of damage. love the video tho! cant wait to see more
@bobmcbob4399
+1 vote for an apparatus to make various metal crystals. Final products should look good!
@German_overengineer
And that’s how the first German reached the moon.
@user-pr6ed3ri2k
*peacefully testing the potassium maker* NurdRage: umm so hey guys isn't that a thermite reaction *blows up*
@NurdRage
Interestingly enough i also encountered a pyrophoric substance when i did a similar potassium thermite reaction (mine was KOH +Mg), spontaneously exploded in my handed. i don't know what it is either but its reproducible if you're getting it too. some sort of magnesium potassium alloy? idk.
@BackYardScience2000
Very nice! A little dangerous, but still very nice! Taking a look at the magnesium crystals under the lid of the still, they look remarkably similar to the magnesium crystals that I keep/sell. In my opinion, they look like pure magnesium crystals. If they are an alloy, there shouldn't be much potassium in them. I would take some of them and test them with water and steam. Pure magnesium shouldn't react with room temperature water, but it should with steam or boiling water.
@TheBooker66
Great video! The system worked great, the yield was insane and the E&F reference was perfectly placed.
@Luke-cv7bg
Awesome video, well worth the wait. Clear a huge amount of work went into this behind the scenes. Just because .... I calculated the energetics (very rough, just Hess's law on the literature heat of formation data) K2CO3 + 3 Mg --> 2K + 3 MgO + C DH = - 655 kJ per mole carbonate, or 3.1 kJ/g of reaction mixture (1330 BTU/lb, if that's the appropriate translation to banana units 🙂) That's ... a lot. For comparison, the standard aluminium + iron oxide thermite mix releases just under 4 kJ/g, and that outputs molten iron, so over 1540 C, and this is a bit over 3/4 of the energy density. Without the cooling bath, it would go well over 1000 C, maybe close to 1200 (somewhere around 2000 F). The exotherm is so large, I wondered if 3 equivalents of Mg was overkill, and it is, in theory The reaction K2CO3 + 2 Mg --> 2K + 2 MgO + CO is still exothermic, DH = - 163 kJ/mol That is only 1/4 the energy output of the reaction they used here, but still plenty by most standards. Is it possible that some parts of the charge are a bit short of magnesium? If so this reaction might happen a bit. That would make the gas you see later carbon monoxide. At least worth checking that it isn't, even though you are working outside.
@fungo6631
3:55 You already took care of it by being a cameraman. Cameraman never dies.
@MNs_LAB
Potassium graphite is pyrophoric. You have carbon and potassium :)
@LFTRnow
"Hmm. This picture is not correct" K.
@contomo5710
that is quite the brick! whats next? potassium brick house? lebkuchen haus from potassium metal??
@custos3249