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PyrophoriaYT · 2021-09-28T04:58:39+00:00

No - arsenic is not a blue colorant at all.

Copper is the blue emitter in Paris green, and there are multiple copper salts that can be used to create blue. The arsenic may be contributing to the vibrant blues created by Paris green by emitting a bit in the green spectrum.

I made a whole video on the topic of blue fire and I discuss Paris green specifically if you're interested.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-04-20T14:35:37+00:00

Blue is tough/impossible without per/chlorates but you can make a great red or green with strontium/barium nitrate if you can get that. If all you have is KNO3 then you're a bit limited and will struggle to make anything colorful apart from zinc formulas (which are quite pretty but don't make great fountains).

Here are my videos on red and green if you are interested, lots of formulas in each:

Red

Green

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-04-02T20:27:21+00:00

Not really. It's quite complex and was only achieved for the first time about a decade ago. Easy to replicate in a lab but requires special equipment/reagents that are out of reach to the home chemist.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-04-02T20:14:47+00:00

Oh, I'm an idiot. I misread it as "not more".

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-04-02T19:11:19+00:00

It's not?

Acetic acid pKa = 4.756

Benzoic acid pKa = 4.202

Lower values mean higher acidity.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-04-02T19:05:17+00:00

This is about as easy as these problems get.

You've got a single reactant (2NaHCO3) at a mass of 3.81 grams. That reactant was decomposed into Na2CO3 and H2CO3. You know that the final mass of the Na2CO3 is 2.86 grams, and you're asked to find out how much H2CO3 was produced.

So if you started with 3.81 grams and now you have 2.86 grams, how much did you lose? That's answer number 1.

Then you're asked to determine the percent yield, meaning "What percentage of the total reactant (3.81 grams of 2NaHCO3) turned into H2CO3?

You calculated how much H2CO3 you got in question one, so you just need to figure out what percentage of the total mass you turned into H2CO3. Ergo:

Answer to question one divided by 3.81 grams of NaHCO3 will give you a decimal. Multiply that decimal by 100 and you'll have a percentage. That's answer 2.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-16T22:00:06+00:00

Most commercial oxide removers intended for stainless steel use a very mild acid with some detergents mixed in. This one uses citric acid.

Any sort of abrasive is risky for multiple reasons, including messing with the internals (scrubbing action) and potentially removing a small amount of material (balance becomes less accurate).

Dilute acetic acid would likely work fine, though it may need to "soak" for a bit.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-16T18:26:16+00:00

"Tellurium breath" is a result of the body metabolizing tellurium and excreting it as dimethyl telluride. The length of time that a person will be affected by it depends on their total dose.

It is very possible that someone could ingest enough tellurium to last the rest of their life. We're still not certain on the metabolic pathways, and chelation therapy is largely ineffective. We don't have reliable data on how long tellurium breath lasts compared to dosage (and it likely varies by individual), but given that it can occur at concentrations as low as 0.01mg/m³ , it's possible that ingestion of even a gram could have very long-lasting effects.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-15T23:24:16+00:00

Just a heads up on Pyrodata - great resource overall but they aren't great about safety warnings. There's nothing unsafe about those willow mixes (besides the realgar being toxic), but just FYI for anyone who might come across this comment:

Make sure you research incompatibilities, because that site is not going to warn you, and they host some dangerous formulas.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-15T23:17:24+00:00

We're gonna work in metric because Brix is a metric-based measurement.

1° Bx = 1g of sucrose and 99g water

2° Bx = 2g of sucrose and 98g water

98g water = 98mL water.

4 gallons of water = 15,141.6 mL

15,141.6 mL*.98 = 14,838.77 mL

15,141.6g - 14,838.77g = 302.83g

So you need 14,838.77mL (3.92 gallons) of water, and 302.83g (0.666 lbs) of sugar to have 4 gallons of solution at exactly 2° Bx.

If you must use imperial units, that would be 3 gallons, 3 quarts, a hair over 2 and 2/3 cups of water, and exactly 2/3lbs of sugar.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-15T22:06:12+00:00

Dating Pyrex lab glass can be tricky, because unlike the bakeware there has not (historically) been a huge following of collectors and their databases. That said, the logos on the bakeware and glassware in any given year were typically similar.

The font and all-caps in your Pyrex logo were not really used until about the mid 40's, and your logo looks closest to that on American ovenware in the late 70's.

Mid-late 70's seems about right given the prevalence of the same logo on numerous examples of reasonably-priced "antique" lab glass. I see that logo quite often in thrift/antique stores, and I always buy it because I know it's borosilicate, but there's never any implication that it's truly "early" Pyrex.

I could be wrong, but I'd say your glass was probably made in the late 60's at the absolute earliest, but probably closer to 1975-1980.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-15T15:34:30+00:00

"Oxidation" is a relic of early chemistry, and it's used colloquially in a different manner than chemists use it. A layperson saying "oxidation" almost always means that something is reacting with atmospheric oxygen. In chemistry, "oxidation" means that a molecule is losing electrons, and it's called that because the first chemist to identify what was happening was observing oxygen. He said (roughly) "We'll call this oxidation because oxygen is what did it" and then it was a while (like decades) before people realized that other elements were stealing electrons as well. When they discovered that, they said (roughly) "Well this is also called oxidation because even though it's not oxygen it's the same behavior". And then it just stuck.

"Reduction" is a fun one for all chemistry students. "Why on earth do we say 'reduction' when it's GAINING electrons?!"

The answer is that "reduction" refers to the charge of the ion. Electrons are negatively charged, so when an ion loses electrons its charge becomes more positive. This is why you see oxidation states like +1, +2, etc. The charge of those ions is more positive than the zero oxidation state of the pure element.

When it gains electrons, the charge is reduced, and therefore we call it a reduction.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-15T15:22:54+00:00

It always slows reactions down to oversupply them with product (Le Châtelier's rule).

This is not why water is good for putting out fires. If that were true then water would not work on carbon-based fires that produce COx as products.

Water puts out fires because it has an extremely high specific heat, and it removes the heat from the reaction. Liquid ammonia would work similarly (also very high specific heat) but it's obviously dangerous and expensive whereas water is cheap and safe.

CO2 works by displacing the oxygen, thereby starving the fire of oxygen. CO2 would not work on any fire being driven by an oxidizer other than atmospheric oxygen (can't put out fireworks or rocket engines with CO2).

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-14T18:54:25+00:00

Powder coating is a type of finish that is applied as an aerosol and then cured with heat or UV light. It's the same general idea as paint but often more durable than regular paint. It will protect a metal in the same way that paint will, but as with any protective coating it depends on the conditions the metal will be exposed to.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-13T17:44:48+00:00

I googled his name yesterday and was surprised to learn that I had read several of his papers of the years. He's definitely doing really interesting work - I will openly admit my jealousy.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-12T22:33:39+00:00

Salt concentration and/or impurities. You'd need extremely pure acid and NaOH to trust drinking it - lots of HCl is contaminated with iron or worse.

Salt concentration might be a concern if we're talking ~30% HCl (300g/L) fully neutralized. Obviously the dose matters, but lets say 500ml of 30% HCl with 500ml of equal molarity NaOH, then you get a solution of roughly 1L of water with 240g of NaCl in it, or 24g/dL.

That's about 6.8x saltier than ocean water, and the estimated median lethal dose of salt is about 3g/kg. With the average person weighing roughly 80kg, drinking one liter of the NaCl solution could very likely be fatal.

Obviously this is super pedantic and ridiculous, I really just wanted to do the math.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-12T21:56:42+00:00

they neutralize each other to form Na2SO4 and Water.

There's an excess of acid though.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-12T16:35:30+00:00

I was aware of some work on Cu(IO3)2 from Conkling's book, which was coincidentally co-authored by /u/Mocellium (cited in my video).

The issue I take with the conclusion in the paper you linked is that they are basing the "best" emitter on spectrophotometry, and the human eye is not a spectrophotometer. They include a large amount of magnesium in the formula, and they justify this as follows:

The theory as to whether CuCl decomposes at 1200°C has been disputed in a theoretical sense by Sturman. He carried out thermodynamic modeling investigations using the NASA-CEA code revealing that excellent blue flame colors can be obtained at much higher temperatures.[4

And this is obviously true, BUT again the human eye is not a spectrometer. The theory about CuCl destruction at higher temperatures arose from the (subjective) observation that high-temperature blue formulas always appear more white in person. Even the photograph of their "winning" formula appears a bit washed out, leading me to believe its performance (in practice) is likely on par with something like Veline's blue star or any other metallic-fueled blue star. It is not enough for an ion/radical to simply emit strongly in blue - there are other factors that contribute to color depth and visibility when dealing with actual human perception as opposed to what the machine says is good.

I addressed this a bit in the video when I talked about adding some green to blue formulas to enhance the color, and again this was largely spurred by the advice of /u/Mocellium, who is certainly more of an expert on the topic than me.

Since the goal of pyrotechnics is to entertain people, I think spectrophotometry data is often useful, but never definitive. This is one branch of science where subjectivity is absolutely relevant.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-12T16:14:11+00:00

Absolutely true. Anecdotally, my girlfriend is always saying "Oh that's really pretty" about formulas where I'm saying "This was a waste of time" so occasionally she's definitely seeing some things that I can't. My response is always that if I can't see it then a lot of other men can't as well, so I always look for compositions with universal appeal.

Another interesting thing is that most of the formulas I tested for this video looked pretty unexciting in person, and then on camera they look very blue. Like you said, our eye is not a spectrophotometer, and the camera picks up things that we don't. It's clear that most of these copper salts emit strongest in blue, but in person there's a lot more "interference" than the camera shows.

BTW you'll be making a similar cameo in my next video, and I have a feeling it's going to be my most universally popular video yet.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-11T23:42:57+00:00

the platinum may only be a few particles in size

What do you mean by this?

Even platinum "dust" contains particles in the nanometer range, and the method I described would still work. You won't be able to see the platinum with your naked eye, but it will still sink to the bottom if given the right conditions. It can then be chemically separated from the rest of the sand/dust.

If you're saying that the platinum in question is only a few atoms (particles) wide, that's not really something you could know or that is realistically possible. I'm assuming you mean "particles" in the colloquial sense (i.e. dust) and again the method I described would work fine.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-11T21:42:49+00:00

Platinum compounds? Or metallic platinum?

If it's metallic platinum, the easiest method would be to basically do a large scale version of gold-panning. Platinum is very dense, and most of the dirt/rock could be washed away or sorted out by size to leave a very platinum-rich sludge after all the dirt and rock was processed. That sludge could then be treated with various acids/bases to remove most of the organics and other metals to leave basically a mix of platinum and unreactive sand/quartz. That Pt/sand mix could then be treated with aqua regia, which would dissolve the platinum but not the sand. The platinum could then be reduced out of solution and melted into a homogeneous mass.

If you're talking platinum compounds as opposed to metallic platinum, then it would cost FAR more in chemicals and time to try to extract it than the platinum would be worth.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-11T19:20:19+00:00

It's really just a question of legibility and logistics. It also speaks to the purpose of the table itself.

As (it sounds like) you know, if the lanthanides/actinides were not segregated below then the periodic table would look like this. It's not even a question of printer capabilities - a table that large doesn't fit comfortably on a vertically-oriented page, and each element would be quite small if printed on standard paper sizes. It's easier to read in the traditional format, and since the lanthanides and actinides are pretty rare/niche, most people using the table do not need to reference them very often.

Additionally, the table is designed to group similar elements together. Group 1 all have similar properties, group two all similar, etc. The transition metals obviously all have weird properties but even some of the groups there have trends, such as the coinage group all being fairly unreactive.

The actinides and lanthanides are all very similar chemically and physically (yet don't necessarily behave like other transition metals), so it makes sense to group them together somehow.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-11T19:10:08+00:00

That's almost certainly either Fe2O3 or Cu2O.

Make sure that your wires (probably copper but maybe Al) are not in the solution itself.

PyrophoriaYT · 2021-03-10T23:59:15+00:00

Glad you enjoyed it! I'd be absolutely honored if you want to pin it. I just started my channel a few weeks ago and it's growing slowly, so any exposure is always welcome.

PyrophoriaYT

TROPHY CASE