what’s up guys welcome back to the king
of random labs where I’ve got a little
experiment cooking up for a today
now the inspiration for this experiment
today goes back to the video where we
made the pull-tab smoke grenade you
might remember I cooked up a huge batch
of this rocket fuel to the point where
it was spilling over the edges and
almost making contact with the burner
itself that made me a little bit nervous
because there was a chance the whole
thing could go up in my face at once so
the purpose of this experiment is to
find out just that how much heat can
this mixture take before it will
spontaneously burst into flames oh and
we’re going to test gunpowder too now if
you ever stop to read the labels of any
pyrotechnic composition including
fireworks you’ll probably see it asks
you to store it in a cool dry place away
from any flames heat or sparks but the
question really is how hot is too hot I
mean say you have this stuff sitting in
your garage in the middle of summer and
gets incredibly hot in there at what
temperature can we reasonably expect
this stuff will go off not really sure
so let’s find out and the other question
in my mind is what exactly happens to
gunpowder when you put on a stove does
it melt together does it go off in
flames or to sit there and do nothing
let’s get cooking and find out so here’s
what we’re working with today I’ve got a
20 gram mix of our rocket fuel because
when this goes off it’s going to
generate a lot of smoke and I want to
limit it to 20 gram batch we’ve also got
some pyro decks muzzleloading propellant
as well as some green dot smokeless
gunpowder for reloading cartridges let’s
start off with the rocket fuel first
we’ll throw this white powder in a pan
heat it up until it caramelizes it and
keep cooking it until it burns to a
crisp I’ve also got an infrared
thermometer so we can keep track of the
temperature as well as an IR camera so
we can actually see the heat changes
taking place now this is going to take
just a minute for this to start to warm
up if I use a spatula we can help
disperse the heat a little more evenly
what’s interesting is this starts off as
a white powder but the sugar begins to
caramelize and turns into a syrup and
absorbs the potassium nitrate into it
and once it hits that consistency we
just back away slowly and let it cook
electricity’s buzzing bring out our
temperature gauge here we’re starting
off at about 76 degrees Fahrenheit
that’s about room temperature right now
if we go over the burner showing about
74 as well so the heat is just coming
under that all right so it’s been about
45 seconds we’re up to 85 degrees
Fahrenheit the burner is now at 132 so
we’re definitely on the right
looking good infrared cameras rolling at
this point we just buckle down and watch
[Music]
this isn’t usually about the point where
I start getting nervous because when I
see the stuff burning it makes me feel
like it is going to burst into flames
all right we’re up to 350 now there’s
quite a bit of smoke coming off of this
right now a lot of little black spots
where you can see everything’s been
charred and it almost looks like this
composition is cooking and drying out
the bubbling is starting to reduce now
the burner itself is over 500 degrees so
it shows there is still quite a bit of
heat that can go into that pot so I
think we still have a chance of getting
this to go off here well we’re up to 400
now so the temperature is starting to
rise you can see all the bubbling
stopped it’s not gooey and bubbly like
it was before it’s pretty much flattened
out for the most part looks like a burnt
oatmeal cookie now I’ve never played
with rocket fuel that was hot before
there’s a chance that this could combust
very vigorously if it starts from the
bottom it could actually explode out of
the pot and spew rocket fuel all over my
workshop might be a good time to put on
a lab jacket checking what the
temperature gauge it seems to have
leveled off around 420 degrees
Fahrenheit it’s not climbing much more
than that but this whole thing is nearly
black at this point black and very burnt
Brown
there’s no bubbling there’s no movement
there’s no hissing it’s just sitting
there stagnating I’m starting to wonder
if it’s even gonna go off at all of
course if it doesn’t that would be the
best thing that could happen to us
because we don’t want this stuff going
off while we’re cooking it do it so you
know what I’m gonna do is grab a fork
and let’s poke this thing and flip it
over like a pancake and cook both sides
oh wow very light and crispy almost like
a meringue so interesting update guys
it’s been about 15 minutes we’ve been
cooking this thing on high heat we’ve
got up to 430 degrees Fahrenheit and
instead of combusting into giant ball of
flames
instead it’s burnt itself into a black
ash at this point I’m not even sure if
it’s still clown wool so why don’t we
take a spoonful of it and apply it
directly to the burner itself
all right here we go
[Music]
oh good go off a little bit interesting
okay so Wow and come look at the residue
here it’s got kind of some sticky gummy
syrupy residue I’ll look up in the
ceiling you can actually see all the
smoke clouds lingering in the ceiling
here now we got this mixture up to 400
degrees Fahrenheit and it would not go
off but when we applied it directly to
the burner it did go off relatively
quickly the difference is the burner is
740 degrees Fahrenheit while the pot
itself was just 400 the auto ignition
temperature must be somewhere in between
that I guess the lesson learned from
this is if you’re cooking this stuff
make sure it doesn’t fall on the burner
alright so just for fun let’s go ahead
and pour the rest
[Applause]
[Music]
sweet look at the smoke rollin feeling
interesting update guys the syrupy stuff
stuck to the burner isn’t a sugar
composition at all it’s actually molten
potassium nitrate we can tell that
because we use something like a paper
towel to wipe it up it instantly begins
to combust
alright guys we got our workstation
cleaned up and we did learn a few things
but I’m still not entirely satisfied I
want to see the stuff burst into flames
as the temperature still rising so this
time I’m gonna make a new batch a little
bit smaller and this time I’m going to
build it directly on the burner itself
it’s amazing that haven’t gone off yet
820 degrees Fahrenheit I didn’t even
know the burner to get that hot
[Music]
there goes oh wow that was amazing that
was amazing we got up to 835 degrees
Fahrenheit and then it spontaneously
combusted that went off really really
fast it’s like spitting all these little
fire balls in every different direction
and that went off so fast I really
wasn’t expecting it by this point I was
almost giving up on it actually
happening and then boom there goes I
have to admit that did take me a little
bit off guard lots of fun lots of fire
balls lots of smoke that’s really cool
that was amazing we got up to 835
degrees Fahrenheit and then it
spontaneously combusted that went off
really really fast and look at the black
ash residue if you look closely you can
still see the coals are glowing red down
there look at that if I blow on it that
is some of the glowing carbon left over
from that sugar now that’s up to
temperature let’s put on a little bit
more and see if we have the same
reaction
[Music]
interesting so I was very encouraging
guys we actually had to max out this
burner get up to eight hundred and
thirty degrees Fahrenheit before the
composition actually went off so that
makes me a lot more confidence during
this thing up because we really
shouldn’t be going over about 200-250 at
most there’s a really nice wide range of
buffer there when cooking up our rocket
fuel so now it makes me wonder how would
gunpowder react let’s clean up this
workbench and try that next
for our second experiment here we’re
going to try pyro decks I’ve got my
burner back down to 420 degrees
Fahrenheit right now I’m not sure if
that’s too hot or not I’m just going to
take a small spoonful of this sprinkle a
few grains in the center see what
happens it’s already starting to smoke a
little bit 590 Fahrenheit we’re at 660
Fahrenheit and climbing that’s smoking
pretty good though isn’t it feel like
that’s got to go up in an instant any
any minute now 670 so this is the
pyrotechnics we’ve maxed out at about
900 degrees Fahrenheit which is way
higher than this thermometer can go and
apparently is as high as this can go now
in looking at the powder it’s no longer
a powder it’s mushed down and turned
into some kind of a sludge a black
sludge I don’t know if it’s still
flammable or not
so to kill this stuff off I’m going to
take a flame from a barbecue matter and
see if it was still ignite here we go
moment of truth
[Music]
[Applause]
yep still works still works
apparently our pyro decks mix will not
light off even at 800 to 850 degrees
Fahrenheit we had to go to the flame to
get that to work
next up smokeless gunpowder same routine
as before we’re starting the burner at
580 degrees Fahrenheit and working our
way up so we’re actually down to about
530 Fahrenheit here let’s see how this
works out a bit of powder in the middle
and there it goes
wow that was instant and notice there is
no smoke that is smokeless that’s
actually really cool
so smokeless gunpowder apparently will
take off a lot faster boom and look no
smoke no smoke no residue
it’s just churn and burn and I could do
this all day long so just from this
small experiment so far I’d say that
smokeless gunpowder is a lot bigger fire
hazard than any of the other
compositions we’ve played with so far so
I’ve let our burner cool down to 280
degrees Fahrenheit so we can add a small
pile of smokeless gunpowder to the
center of the burner and then bring up
the temperature I want to find out
exactly what temperature of this stuff
goes off at alright let’s turn up the
heat my guess is this is going to go off
somewhere around 390 and 400 and here’s
what we’re looking at we’re currently
280 degrees Fahrenheit and starting to
climb 400 420 430 there goes 430 degrees
Fahrenheit 430 degrees Fahrenheit that’s
pretty cool
case we’re back down to 410 Fahrenheit
and the verdict is
it’ll still work there’s nothing there
enough residual heat so I would say
anywhere between about 390 Fahrenheit
and about 430 is where the stuff is
going to go off interesting let’s turn
off the burner and talk about what we
just learned here today we entered this
experiment with a purpose to find out
what temperature our solid state rocket
fuel would go off if it accidentally
came in contact with the burner from our
experiments here today we saw that it
would not auto ignite in the pot itself
but instead burn to a crisp and grind
down into a fine black ash but we also
saw that when we transfer that ash onto
the hot plate itself it would still
ignite so we tried an experiment making
a new batch of rocket fuel and running
it right on the burner itself and found
that it would auto-ignite somewhere
around eight hundred and thirty degrees
Fahrenheit next we tried a commercial
pyro Dex muzzleloading propellant and
put it directly under the burner where
we maxed out the heat maxed out the
thermometer and had no successful auto
ignition instead it turned into some
kind of a gloopy black paste but we
found that it still would ignite with a
lick from a barbecue plant last but not
least we tried smokeless gunpowder
putting that directly on the hot plate
we found that it went up in an instant
as we cooled the burner down to around
280 degrees and slowly warm it up from
there
where it auto ignited around 430 degrees
Fahrenheit we can come to the conclusion
that the highest-risk material for
spontaneous combustion in your garage
would be smokeless gunpowder
although the chances of your garage
getting up to 400 Fahrenheit aren’t very
high well that is it for this set of
experiments today guys thanks for
hanging out I’ll be looking for you the
next video talk to you that hey guys
thanks for watching and remember I’m
giving away prizes now on every new
video all you have to do to qualify is
subscribe to my channel ringing the bell
and select to be notified when my next
videos get released the secret link to
my giveaways will be pinned in the
comments for the first 12 hours if you
like what I’m doing show your support
right now by giving this video a big
thumbs up and share with a friend I love
you back
I’ll see you next time
of random labs where I’ve got a little
experiment cooking up for a today
now the inspiration for this experiment
today goes back to the video where we
made the pull-tab smoke grenade you
might remember I cooked up a huge batch
of this rocket fuel to the point where
it was spilling over the edges and
almost making contact with the burner
itself that made me a little bit nervous
because there was a chance the whole
thing could go up in my face at once so
the purpose of this experiment is to
find out just that how much heat can
this mixture take before it will
spontaneously burst into flames oh and
we’re going to test gunpowder too now if
you ever stop to read the labels of any
pyrotechnic composition including
fireworks you’ll probably see it asks
you to store it in a cool dry place away
from any flames heat or sparks but the
question really is how hot is too hot I
mean say you have this stuff sitting in
your garage in the middle of summer and
gets incredibly hot in there at what
temperature can we reasonably expect
this stuff will go off not really sure
so let’s find out and the other question
in my mind is what exactly happens to
gunpowder when you put on a stove does
it melt together does it go off in
flames or to sit there and do nothing
let’s get cooking and find out so here’s
what we’re working with today I’ve got a
20 gram mix of our rocket fuel because
when this goes off it’s going to
generate a lot of smoke and I want to
limit it to 20 gram batch we’ve also got
some pyro decks muzzleloading propellant
as well as some green dot smokeless
gunpowder for reloading cartridges let’s
start off with the rocket fuel first
we’ll throw this white powder in a pan
heat it up until it caramelizes it and
keep cooking it until it burns to a
crisp I’ve also got an infrared
thermometer so we can keep track of the
temperature as well as an IR camera so
we can actually see the heat changes
taking place now this is going to take
just a minute for this to start to warm
up if I use a spatula we can help
disperse the heat a little more evenly
what’s interesting is this starts off as
a white powder but the sugar begins to
caramelize and turns into a syrup and
absorbs the potassium nitrate into it
and once it hits that consistency we
just back away slowly and let it cook
electricity’s buzzing bring out our
temperature gauge here we’re starting
off at about 76 degrees Fahrenheit
that’s about room temperature right now
if we go over the burner showing about
74 as well so the heat is just coming
under that all right so it’s been about
45 seconds we’re up to 85 degrees
Fahrenheit the burner is now at 132 so
we’re definitely on the right
looking good infrared cameras rolling at
this point we just buckle down and watch
[Music]
this isn’t usually about the point where
I start getting nervous because when I
see the stuff burning it makes me feel
like it is going to burst into flames
all right we’re up to 350 now there’s
quite a bit of smoke coming off of this
right now a lot of little black spots
where you can see everything’s been
charred and it almost looks like this
composition is cooking and drying out
the bubbling is starting to reduce now
the burner itself is over 500 degrees so
it shows there is still quite a bit of
heat that can go into that pot so I
think we still have a chance of getting
this to go off here well we’re up to 400
now so the temperature is starting to
rise you can see all the bubbling
stopped it’s not gooey and bubbly like
it was before it’s pretty much flattened
out for the most part looks like a burnt
oatmeal cookie now I’ve never played
with rocket fuel that was hot before
there’s a chance that this could combust
very vigorously if it starts from the
bottom it could actually explode out of
the pot and spew rocket fuel all over my
workshop might be a good time to put on
a lab jacket checking what the
temperature gauge it seems to have
leveled off around 420 degrees
Fahrenheit it’s not climbing much more
than that but this whole thing is nearly
black at this point black and very burnt
Brown
there’s no bubbling there’s no movement
there’s no hissing it’s just sitting
there stagnating I’m starting to wonder
if it’s even gonna go off at all of
course if it doesn’t that would be the
best thing that could happen to us
because we don’t want this stuff going
off while we’re cooking it do it so you
know what I’m gonna do is grab a fork
and let’s poke this thing and flip it
over like a pancake and cook both sides
oh wow very light and crispy almost like
a meringue so interesting update guys
it’s been about 15 minutes we’ve been
cooking this thing on high heat we’ve
got up to 430 degrees Fahrenheit and
instead of combusting into giant ball of
flames
instead it’s burnt itself into a black
ash at this point I’m not even sure if
it’s still clown wool so why don’t we
take a spoonful of it and apply it
directly to the burner itself
all right here we go
[Music]
oh good go off a little bit interesting
okay so Wow and come look at the residue
here it’s got kind of some sticky gummy
syrupy residue I’ll look up in the
ceiling you can actually see all the
smoke clouds lingering in the ceiling
here now we got this mixture up to 400
degrees Fahrenheit and it would not go
off but when we applied it directly to
the burner it did go off relatively
quickly the difference is the burner is
740 degrees Fahrenheit while the pot
itself was just 400 the auto ignition
temperature must be somewhere in between
that I guess the lesson learned from
this is if you’re cooking this stuff
make sure it doesn’t fall on the burner
alright so just for fun let’s go ahead
and pour the rest
[Applause]
[Music]
sweet look at the smoke rollin feeling
interesting update guys the syrupy stuff
stuck to the burner isn’t a sugar
composition at all it’s actually molten
potassium nitrate we can tell that
because we use something like a paper
towel to wipe it up it instantly begins
to combust
alright guys we got our workstation
cleaned up and we did learn a few things
but I’m still not entirely satisfied I
want to see the stuff burst into flames
as the temperature still rising so this
time I’m gonna make a new batch a little
bit smaller and this time I’m going to
build it directly on the burner itself
it’s amazing that haven’t gone off yet
820 degrees Fahrenheit I didn’t even
know the burner to get that hot
[Music]
there goes oh wow that was amazing that
was amazing we got up to 835 degrees
Fahrenheit and then it spontaneously
combusted that went off really really
fast it’s like spitting all these little
fire balls in every different direction
and that went off so fast I really
wasn’t expecting it by this point I was
almost giving up on it actually
happening and then boom there goes I
have to admit that did take me a little
bit off guard lots of fun lots of fire
balls lots of smoke that’s really cool
that was amazing we got up to 835
degrees Fahrenheit and then it
spontaneously combusted that went off
really really fast and look at the black
ash residue if you look closely you can
still see the coals are glowing red down
there look at that if I blow on it that
is some of the glowing carbon left over
from that sugar now that’s up to
temperature let’s put on a little bit
more and see if we have the same
reaction
[Music]
interesting so I was very encouraging
guys we actually had to max out this
burner get up to eight hundred and
thirty degrees Fahrenheit before the
composition actually went off so that
makes me a lot more confidence during
this thing up because we really
shouldn’t be going over about 200-250 at
most there’s a really nice wide range of
buffer there when cooking up our rocket
fuel so now it makes me wonder how would
gunpowder react let’s clean up this
workbench and try that next
for our second experiment here we’re
going to try pyro decks I’ve got my
burner back down to 420 degrees
Fahrenheit right now I’m not sure if
that’s too hot or not I’m just going to
take a small spoonful of this sprinkle a
few grains in the center see what
happens it’s already starting to smoke a
little bit 590 Fahrenheit we’re at 660
Fahrenheit and climbing that’s smoking
pretty good though isn’t it feel like
that’s got to go up in an instant any
any minute now 670 so this is the
pyrotechnics we’ve maxed out at about
900 degrees Fahrenheit which is way
higher than this thermometer can go and
apparently is as high as this can go now
in looking at the powder it’s no longer
a powder it’s mushed down and turned
into some kind of a sludge a black
sludge I don’t know if it’s still
flammable or not
so to kill this stuff off I’m going to
take a flame from a barbecue matter and
see if it was still ignite here we go
moment of truth
[Music]
[Applause]
yep still works still works
apparently our pyro decks mix will not
light off even at 800 to 850 degrees
Fahrenheit we had to go to the flame to
get that to work
next up smokeless gunpowder same routine
as before we’re starting the burner at
580 degrees Fahrenheit and working our
way up so we’re actually down to about
530 Fahrenheit here let’s see how this
works out a bit of powder in the middle
and there it goes
wow that was instant and notice there is
no smoke that is smokeless that’s
actually really cool
so smokeless gunpowder apparently will
take off a lot faster boom and look no
smoke no smoke no residue
it’s just churn and burn and I could do
this all day long so just from this
small experiment so far I’d say that
smokeless gunpowder is a lot bigger fire
hazard than any of the other
compositions we’ve played with so far so
I’ve let our burner cool down to 280
degrees Fahrenheit so we can add a small
pile of smokeless gunpowder to the
center of the burner and then bring up
the temperature I want to find out
exactly what temperature of this stuff
goes off at alright let’s turn up the
heat my guess is this is going to go off
somewhere around 390 and 400 and here’s
what we’re looking at we’re currently
280 degrees Fahrenheit and starting to
climb 400 420 430 there goes 430 degrees
Fahrenheit 430 degrees Fahrenheit that’s
pretty cool
case we’re back down to 410 Fahrenheit
and the verdict is
it’ll still work there’s nothing there
enough residual heat so I would say
anywhere between about 390 Fahrenheit
and about 430 is where the stuff is
going to go off interesting let’s turn
off the burner and talk about what we
just learned here today we entered this
experiment with a purpose to find out
what temperature our solid state rocket
fuel would go off if it accidentally
came in contact with the burner from our
experiments here today we saw that it
would not auto ignite in the pot itself
but instead burn to a crisp and grind
down into a fine black ash but we also
saw that when we transfer that ash onto
the hot plate itself it would still
ignite so we tried an experiment making
a new batch of rocket fuel and running
it right on the burner itself and found
that it would auto-ignite somewhere
around eight hundred and thirty degrees
Fahrenheit next we tried a commercial
pyro Dex muzzleloading propellant and
put it directly under the burner where
we maxed out the heat maxed out the
thermometer and had no successful auto
ignition instead it turned into some
kind of a gloopy black paste but we
found that it still would ignite with a
lick from a barbecue plant last but not
least we tried smokeless gunpowder
putting that directly on the hot plate
we found that it went up in an instant
as we cooled the burner down to around
280 degrees and slowly warm it up from
there
where it auto ignited around 430 degrees
Fahrenheit we can come to the conclusion
that the highest-risk material for
spontaneous combustion in your garage
would be smokeless gunpowder
although the chances of your garage
getting up to 400 Fahrenheit aren’t very
high well that is it for this set of
experiments today guys thanks for
hanging out I’ll be looking for you the
next video talk to you that hey guys
thanks for watching and remember I’m
giving away prizes now on every new
video all you have to do to qualify is
subscribe to my channel ringing the bell
and select to be notified when my next
videos get released the secret link to
my giveaways will be pinned in the
comments for the first 12 hours if you
like what I’m doing show your support
right now by giving this video a big
thumbs up and share with a friend I love
you back
I’ll see you next time
Please follow and like us: