the dome not too long ago we did an
experiment to see if we could make
rainbow fire
we used methanol and a few different
chemicals to change the colors of our
flames and I thought by far the best –
we’re using boric acid to make our flame
a nice bright green and using lithium
out of some batteries to turn our flame
a very intense magenta color I wanted to
try scaling that up so instead of a
little desktop fire we have something
more of a considerable fireball
something that really is impressive and
still has that same bright green and
bright magenta color that we had before
this is an experiment and I don’t know
how well it will work so to start out
we’re going to scale up to just using a
household spray bottle we’ll fill this
up with our methanol and we’ll fill it
with our boric acid or our lithium and
see if we can ignite the spray and get a
nice bright green and bright magenta
flame out of it as you may recall from
our previous experiments the methanol
burns very easily but it doesn’t put off
the same yellow flame that we’re used to
seeing in a fire it burns with a very
pale blue flame since the methanol puts
off so little light when it burns it’ll
be interesting to see what happens when
I spray it out of the spray bottle and
try and ignite it maybe it will turn
yellow as it combines with more oxygen
all right that’s spraying out now let’s
see what happens if we spray it through
a lighter well it sprays not on my hand
a little bit
now just to try and make that show up a
little bit more I’m gonna close the door
to the dome and see if we can make it
even darker in the door to the dome is
now closed and you can see that there is
still sunlight and that’s because we’ve
got sort of an oculus up at the top
that’s letting in a little bit of light
so you can still see me but the ambient
light is way down now let’s see if our
that’s pretty cool it’s blue then purple
this is working really well the methanol
in the spray bottle definitely lights we
get a cool little jet of colored fire
this is the blue to purple to orange
fire now let’s see what happens if we
refill some more methanol and then add
in a little bit of our boric acid I’m
hoping we get a nice bright green flame
[Music]
start with the mist spray see if this
will ignite see if we get green like
something straight out of Harry Potter
that’s great Diagon Alley it’s so greed
and this when I do just the methanol
that sort of gets borange at the end it
changes colors long-playing this just
stays green the whole way oh that’s
this is working great let’s move on and
see if we can get the same result using
the lithium in the methanol and get a
nice magenta flame
I am trying you experiment where I use a
pipe cutter to open up one of these
lithium batteries getting the casing off
has always been a bit of a challenge you
can do it just by being persistent keep
tearing away at it but it’s not fun I
think I’m through now it’s whether you
can get it off it’s sort of crimps as it
cuts a little bit good as a reminder
here’s what happens to be just light
lithium on fire
there he goes will bed up and you’ve got
our spray bottle with methanol in it
you’ll drop it down in there and shake
it around and stir it until it is all
dissolved alright we’ve got a nice spray
see if it lights let’s see what color it
is
I love it I love it it’s so bright
I need to set something up I need to be
able to have both bottles at once
that worked great but I think we need to
step it up another notch this works
pretty well but I want bigger flames you
may remember the project where we showed
you how to make flamethrowers out of
fire extinguishers well let’s see what
happens if we take both of these fire
extinguishers fill them up with methanol
add the boric acid in one and the
lithium in the other and see if we can’t
just get a giant colored flamethrower
going in two colors at once one safety
precaution I am going to take when the
lithium in the methanol burns it puts
off a smoke that feels very aggressive
and kind of uncomfortable if it gets in
your lungs at all so I try to only do
that in places with good ventilation but
the dome keeps the smoke in one place
fairly well for a while so I am going to
be wearing a face mask that should
filter out some of the smoke and make it
safer for me to be in there my cameraman
will be wearing one as well
[Music]
let’s do this
[Music]
here we go green on one side red on the
smokey they have managed to catch just a
little bit of the room on fire that was
awesome
and I think we’ve got just enough fuel
that word great I am really happy with
how the color showed up both from the
little spray bottle scheme and our fire
extinguisher flamethrowers I want to
know what you think we should do next is
there a good way that we could scale
this up even more let us know hey guys
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see you next time dr. Ben