hey what’s up guys welcome back now
today I thought it’d be fun to play with
some off-the-shelf kitchen chemistry to
prepare for this experiment today I went
down to the local Super Center and
picked up two main ingredients a bag of
white sugar and a bottle of drain opener
like this now when you get to the drain
cleaner aisle there’s going to be two
main types of drain cleaners there’s
sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid this
one here is sulfuric acid and you can
tell that because they put it in another
bag for additional protection this is
extremely nasty stuff it can do a lot of
damage and you definitely don’t want to
get it on your skin so it’s important to
use the right kind of protection now
this stuff is labeled drain opener but
all it really is is about 96%
concentrated sulfuric acid and if we
open up the bottle and pour it out you
can see it’s a very clear liquid very
similar to the sulfuric acid we
extracted from my car battery that’s
essentially all this is virgin sulfuric
acid with buffer whatever buffer means
if we dip something like a piece of pH
paper in the liquid you can see it
actually tops out on the acidity scale
pretty dangerous stuff so we got our
bottle of drain opener we got a bag of
white sugar now what do you think is
going to happen if we mix the two
together so step one I’m just taking a
normal drinking glass I’m gonna fill
this up about halfway with white sugar
and then step two we’re gonna take our
drain cleaner pour it into the glass
until the liquid level rises just above
the sugar then we’re going to stir that
up thoroughly with something like a fork
and then we’re just going to watch and
see what it does looks kind of nice huh
what’s going to delicious right now take
it on a nice golden color it’s pretty
sweet
look at that it’s kind of goopy kind of
slushy it looks like a coke frosty see
it changing color getting kind of syrupy
it’s actually starting to warm up so at
this point it’s a good idea to insert
back in the way
ok so it’s been about 30 seconds since
we stirred this sulfuric acid in you can
see the liquids turning black nothing
else much seems to be happening though
just kind of hanging out if I were to
feel this I can feel the glass warming
up it’s turning into like a black syrup
oh and it’s starting to grow this right
here is where the magic happens watch
says
[Music]
this little black pillar starts rising
out of the glass you see the smoke and
the steam coming off there that is
vapours of sulfur dioxide and steam if
you were to try this reaction indoors
the sulfur dioxide would actually
irritate your eyes making them water
like crazy and if it gets into your nose
if you breathe it in it can actually
make your nostrils swell making it very
difficult to breathe ask me how I know
that even being outdoors you can see the
fumes are irritating my eyes as we speak
now you can see the reaction stopped and
we’ve actually let it cool down for
about five minutes so we can touch the
glass this is an exothermic reaction it
produces a lot of heat so now that it’s
had a chance to cool off a bit let’s go
ahead and pick up the glass and take a
closer look that is extremely hot that
is super super hot I have to keep moving
this thing or it’s going to burn my hand
and this is after five minutes I’m
actually surprised the glass didn’t
crack and look what we’ve got coming out
of here guys we’ve got a big black
charred column of carbon you see how it
arched over and then solidified look at
this stuff closely it’s very unique and
very interesting it almost looks like
lava rock that’s spewed on a volcano and
cooled down in the ocean but it’s
definitely not that hard see if we can
pull it out the glass here yeah look at
that
so looking down the glass you can see
actually all of the sugar burned up
everything’s completely reacted there’s
no more sulfuric acid no more sugar
everything is completely gone we’ve got
all captured here in this dark and
demonic looking black candy cane that’s
fantastic now this stuff is pretty firm
I’m surprised is holding up as well as
it is but it’s still very brittle as
well let me break it apart for you so
you can see what it looks like on the
inside
so this was the top of the reaction here
this is the stuff that came on the glass
first if I take that and just give it a
little twist you can see it breaks right
apart and look at all the bubbles that
were formed in there this is a light
frothy foam of carbon this is mostly
carbon but there is residue of sulfuric
acid on here as well so it might be a
good idea to have some baking soda
solution nearby so you could neutralize
that acid if you needed to but I’m
wearing gloves and I’m comfortable with
the risks right now and I’m finding that
this just really
stuff it feels firm but it definitely
feels a little bit spongy you can see
all the air pockets in there if I just
put it in my hand and squish it a little
bit Wow it turns to ash that’s amazing
it completely crumbles with this stuff
being carbon makes me wonder if it would
be conductive could we make our own
carbon bridges our own carbon electrodes
out of sulfuric acid and sugar we should
try that with the arc furnace see if it
conducts electricity this is the part
here that was down in the glass I’m
going to break that apart for you and it
just snaps cleanly and evenly and
without any problem at all and you can
see even though this is firm this is a
piece that was down to glass and I think
maybe the sulfuric acid ran out and
that’s why the reaction didn’t continue
this top part is really crumbly but as
we get closer to the bottom here oh
that’s crumbly as well haha and still
really hot ouch that’s really hot crazy
crazy how much heat that captures watch
this
[Music]
that’s it it’s gone easy as that okay
cool apparently now we have a process we
can make a black carbon foam with
slightly acidic residues let me explain
a little bit about what just happened
the sulfuric acid is a dehydrating agent
that means it wants water and sugar has
a lot of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in it
so the sulfuric acid violently rips that
hydrogen oxygen away to satisfy its need
for moisture that just leaves the
resulting carbon which bubbles up and
turns into this frothy foam which very
quickly cools and turns into the hard
black substance that we saw this makes
me wonder if we mixed up the concoction
put it into a flask like these what’s
going to happen when the ash hits the
neck of the bottle is the bottles going
to build pressure and explode is the ash
going to reform itself and work its way
out of the channel normally is nothing
going to happen at all the purpose of
this experiment is to find out
[Music]
I’m going to add a little bit more this
time so we get a full reaction you can
see how the sulfuric acid starts out
relatively clear and then as it mixes
with the sugar it starts to darken up
you know it’s interesting about this is
I can’t get it all the way to the bottom
I think we’ve got about 60 seconds
before the reaction takes place so we
want to get this mixed as much as
possible before that happens the flasks
still feels relatively cool when it
starts heating up I’ll know it’s time to
set it down and back away starting to
warm up what’s going to happen is the
container going to explode here it goes
oh my goodness
[Music]
oh wow it’s spewing ash out of the top
like a little sulfuric acid volcano look
at all that steam and sulfur dioxide
coming off the top the reaction is still
going but nothing else is coming out is
it
is a container already empty I suppose
it is we’ll need to let that cool down
for a minute where the stuff is pushing
out on the top like that it almost looks
like one of those black firework snakes
if you light and just growth
if this one is highly acidic I want to
get too close to that so the flasks did
not explode but the reaction was a
little bit different than I was
expecting as well it seems the carbon
sets up so quickly that by the time it
hits the top the pressure breaks it into
chunks and spews out kind of like a
volcano spitting ash I was really
impressed at how quickly that reaction
took place once it got going once the
levels started rising the whole thing
only took about 10 seconds before it was
over that is extremely hot this stuff
down here
gooey and spongy but very brittle look
at all these pieces of ash that clumped
off they look like little lava rocks but
they’ve got the same weight as styrofoam
peanuts they’re extremely lightweight
smells like sugar and chemicals it’s not
extremely pleasant but it’s not too bad
either
[Music]
instant ash brought to you by the King
around for one final experiment today I
want to try using a round flask to see
what kind of a difference if any that
makes
[Music]
yeah it’s starting to get pretty goopy
they’re trying to mix it as best I can
it’s starting to heat up here goes it’s
like a black bubbling potion of evil
look at that spattering and spewing
everywhere oh gosh there’s a lot of
pressure in there it’s spitting it out
and of building the top at the same time
look at that
[Music]
weird okay that was unexpected kind of
looks like a t-rex like a skeleton t-rex
it’s got a little arm sticking out there
his open mouth and head spine
okay maybe t-rex is living a stretch but
does look really cool so what I saw
happening when this reaction took place
is it did get clogged but the pressure
just kept pushing out the carbon and it
started spewing chunks up to about four
feet away and what was really
interesting is near the top little bits
of carbon would start to collect and
form a little tube and it started
building this chamber this black bridge
column that just continued one chunk
after another it was amazing very
similar I imagined how volcanoes build
themselves as well as the lava flows out
the chunks solidified the volcano grows
bigger and that’s what we see happening
here it even kind of jetted off at a 45
degree angle but it looks really cool
very cool reaction I wasn’t actually
expecting it to turn out that way but
I’m glad that it did interesting
I love the randomness in this design
what’s amazing to me is there was
actually like a column inside this neck
look at that you can see the cavity is
completely filled up but there’s a
little hole there which I imagine where
everything was spewing what’s amazing is
that was able to continue this far
that’s a good eight inches if we break
this in half yeah you can see that hole
continues right through it and if I keep
breaking this you can see that hole
continues through the entire length of
that neck so we actually made a sulfuric
carbon straw and it looks really cool
look at the texture to that awesome
experiments guys let’s talk about what
just happened we started off with the
classic experiment mixing sulfuric acid
with sugar but we did it with a little
bit of a twist
rather than using sulfuric acid from a
chemical lab we use sulfuric acid from
drain cleaner we found that when the two
substances were mixed nothing really
apparent seemed to happen right away
after that we found our container very
quickly warmed up and shot up a pillar
of black carbon ash we saw that the big
black carbon column pushing up out of
the glass looks a lot like those black
snake fireworks you see around the
fourth of July and we found that this is
because sulfuric acid is a very strong
dehydrating agent and sucks the moisture
out of the sugar leaving nothing but the
black carbon residue
next we tried putting this mixture in an
Erlenmeyer flask where the opening
constricts near the top to see if we get
the container to explode but rather than
exploding we saw the pressure just push
the carbon chunks up and out of the
container letting them flop down over
the side for our final experiment we put
everything in a round bottom flask where
even more pressure could build up but we
still didn’t get it to explode instead
what we saw happened was chunks of
carbon would spew out up to 4 feet away
and the ones that collected near the top
coagulated together and formed a long
carbon tunnel which is something I
haven’t seen done before well there you
have a guy’s great day of experimenting
and hopefully you learn something new
thanks for joining me for this set of
experiments I’ll be looking for you the
next video talk to you then it’s a quick
update guys some of that black ash
flaked off and it’s sticking to my skin
and starting to burn I’m going to wipe
that off and come back with my lab
jacket I’ll be right back it’s got a
nice whiff of sulfuric acid it it’s kind
of a nice setting texture that’s
interesting shiny carbon foam
[Music]
today I thought it’d be fun to play with
some off-the-shelf kitchen chemistry to
prepare for this experiment today I went
down to the local Super Center and
picked up two main ingredients a bag of
white sugar and a bottle of drain opener
like this now when you get to the drain
cleaner aisle there’s going to be two
main types of drain cleaners there’s
sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid this
one here is sulfuric acid and you can
tell that because they put it in another
bag for additional protection this is
extremely nasty stuff it can do a lot of
damage and you definitely don’t want to
get it on your skin so it’s important to
use the right kind of protection now
this stuff is labeled drain opener but
all it really is is about 96%
concentrated sulfuric acid and if we
open up the bottle and pour it out you
can see it’s a very clear liquid very
similar to the sulfuric acid we
extracted from my car battery that’s
essentially all this is virgin sulfuric
acid with buffer whatever buffer means
if we dip something like a piece of pH
paper in the liquid you can see it
actually tops out on the acidity scale
pretty dangerous stuff so we got our
bottle of drain opener we got a bag of
white sugar now what do you think is
going to happen if we mix the two
together so step one I’m just taking a
normal drinking glass I’m gonna fill
this up about halfway with white sugar
and then step two we’re gonna take our
drain cleaner pour it into the glass
until the liquid level rises just above
the sugar then we’re going to stir that
up thoroughly with something like a fork
and then we’re just going to watch and
see what it does looks kind of nice huh
what’s going to delicious right now take
it on a nice golden color it’s pretty
sweet
look at that it’s kind of goopy kind of
slushy it looks like a coke frosty see
it changing color getting kind of syrupy
it’s actually starting to warm up so at
this point it’s a good idea to insert
back in the way
ok so it’s been about 30 seconds since
we stirred this sulfuric acid in you can
see the liquids turning black nothing
else much seems to be happening though
just kind of hanging out if I were to
feel this I can feel the glass warming
up it’s turning into like a black syrup
oh and it’s starting to grow this right
here is where the magic happens watch
says
[Music]
this little black pillar starts rising
out of the glass you see the smoke and
the steam coming off there that is
vapours of sulfur dioxide and steam if
you were to try this reaction indoors
the sulfur dioxide would actually
irritate your eyes making them water
like crazy and if it gets into your nose
if you breathe it in it can actually
make your nostrils swell making it very
difficult to breathe ask me how I know
that even being outdoors you can see the
fumes are irritating my eyes as we speak
now you can see the reaction stopped and
we’ve actually let it cool down for
about five minutes so we can touch the
glass this is an exothermic reaction it
produces a lot of heat so now that it’s
had a chance to cool off a bit let’s go
ahead and pick up the glass and take a
closer look that is extremely hot that
is super super hot I have to keep moving
this thing or it’s going to burn my hand
and this is after five minutes I’m
actually surprised the glass didn’t
crack and look what we’ve got coming out
of here guys we’ve got a big black
charred column of carbon you see how it
arched over and then solidified look at
this stuff closely it’s very unique and
very interesting it almost looks like
lava rock that’s spewed on a volcano and
cooled down in the ocean but it’s
definitely not that hard see if we can
pull it out the glass here yeah look at
that
so looking down the glass you can see
actually all of the sugar burned up
everything’s completely reacted there’s
no more sulfuric acid no more sugar
everything is completely gone we’ve got
all captured here in this dark and
demonic looking black candy cane that’s
fantastic now this stuff is pretty firm
I’m surprised is holding up as well as
it is but it’s still very brittle as
well let me break it apart for you so
you can see what it looks like on the
inside
so this was the top of the reaction here
this is the stuff that came on the glass
first if I take that and just give it a
little twist you can see it breaks right
apart and look at all the bubbles that
were formed in there this is a light
frothy foam of carbon this is mostly
carbon but there is residue of sulfuric
acid on here as well so it might be a
good idea to have some baking soda
solution nearby so you could neutralize
that acid if you needed to but I’m
wearing gloves and I’m comfortable with
the risks right now and I’m finding that
this just really
stuff it feels firm but it definitely
feels a little bit spongy you can see
all the air pockets in there if I just
put it in my hand and squish it a little
bit Wow it turns to ash that’s amazing
it completely crumbles with this stuff
being carbon makes me wonder if it would
be conductive could we make our own
carbon bridges our own carbon electrodes
out of sulfuric acid and sugar we should
try that with the arc furnace see if it
conducts electricity this is the part
here that was down in the glass I’m
going to break that apart for you and it
just snaps cleanly and evenly and
without any problem at all and you can
see even though this is firm this is a
piece that was down to glass and I think
maybe the sulfuric acid ran out and
that’s why the reaction didn’t continue
this top part is really crumbly but as
we get closer to the bottom here oh
that’s crumbly as well haha and still
really hot ouch that’s really hot crazy
crazy how much heat that captures watch
this
[Music]
that’s it it’s gone easy as that okay
cool apparently now we have a process we
can make a black carbon foam with
slightly acidic residues let me explain
a little bit about what just happened
the sulfuric acid is a dehydrating agent
that means it wants water and sugar has
a lot of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in it
so the sulfuric acid violently rips that
hydrogen oxygen away to satisfy its need
for moisture that just leaves the
resulting carbon which bubbles up and
turns into this frothy foam which very
quickly cools and turns into the hard
black substance that we saw this makes
me wonder if we mixed up the concoction
put it into a flask like these what’s
going to happen when the ash hits the
neck of the bottle is the bottles going
to build pressure and explode is the ash
going to reform itself and work its way
out of the channel normally is nothing
going to happen at all the purpose of
this experiment is to find out
[Music]
I’m going to add a little bit more this
time so we get a full reaction you can
see how the sulfuric acid starts out
relatively clear and then as it mixes
with the sugar it starts to darken up
you know it’s interesting about this is
I can’t get it all the way to the bottom
I think we’ve got about 60 seconds
before the reaction takes place so we
want to get this mixed as much as
possible before that happens the flasks
still feels relatively cool when it
starts heating up I’ll know it’s time to
set it down and back away starting to
warm up what’s going to happen is the
container going to explode here it goes
oh my goodness
[Music]
oh wow it’s spewing ash out of the top
like a little sulfuric acid volcano look
at all that steam and sulfur dioxide
coming off the top the reaction is still
going but nothing else is coming out is
it
is a container already empty I suppose
it is we’ll need to let that cool down
for a minute where the stuff is pushing
out on the top like that it almost looks
like one of those black firework snakes
if you light and just growth
if this one is highly acidic I want to
get too close to that so the flasks did
not explode but the reaction was a
little bit different than I was
expecting as well it seems the carbon
sets up so quickly that by the time it
hits the top the pressure breaks it into
chunks and spews out kind of like a
volcano spitting ash I was really
impressed at how quickly that reaction
took place once it got going once the
levels started rising the whole thing
only took about 10 seconds before it was
over that is extremely hot this stuff
down here
gooey and spongy but very brittle look
at all these pieces of ash that clumped
off they look like little lava rocks but
they’ve got the same weight as styrofoam
peanuts they’re extremely lightweight
smells like sugar and chemicals it’s not
extremely pleasant but it’s not too bad
either
[Music]
instant ash brought to you by the King
around for one final experiment today I
want to try using a round flask to see
what kind of a difference if any that
makes
[Music]
yeah it’s starting to get pretty goopy
they’re trying to mix it as best I can
it’s starting to heat up here goes it’s
like a black bubbling potion of evil
look at that spattering and spewing
everywhere oh gosh there’s a lot of
pressure in there it’s spitting it out
and of building the top at the same time
look at that
[Music]
weird okay that was unexpected kind of
looks like a t-rex like a skeleton t-rex
it’s got a little arm sticking out there
his open mouth and head spine
okay maybe t-rex is living a stretch but
does look really cool so what I saw
happening when this reaction took place
is it did get clogged but the pressure
just kept pushing out the carbon and it
started spewing chunks up to about four
feet away and what was really
interesting is near the top little bits
of carbon would start to collect and
form a little tube and it started
building this chamber this black bridge
column that just continued one chunk
after another it was amazing very
similar I imagined how volcanoes build
themselves as well as the lava flows out
the chunks solidified the volcano grows
bigger and that’s what we see happening
here it even kind of jetted off at a 45
degree angle but it looks really cool
very cool reaction I wasn’t actually
expecting it to turn out that way but
I’m glad that it did interesting
I love the randomness in this design
what’s amazing to me is there was
actually like a column inside this neck
look at that you can see the cavity is
completely filled up but there’s a
little hole there which I imagine where
everything was spewing what’s amazing is
that was able to continue this far
that’s a good eight inches if we break
this in half yeah you can see that hole
continues right through it and if I keep
breaking this you can see that hole
continues through the entire length of
that neck so we actually made a sulfuric
carbon straw and it looks really cool
look at the texture to that awesome
experiments guys let’s talk about what
just happened we started off with the
classic experiment mixing sulfuric acid
with sugar but we did it with a little
bit of a twist
rather than using sulfuric acid from a
chemical lab we use sulfuric acid from
drain cleaner we found that when the two
substances were mixed nothing really
apparent seemed to happen right away
after that we found our container very
quickly warmed up and shot up a pillar
of black carbon ash we saw that the big
black carbon column pushing up out of
the glass looks a lot like those black
snake fireworks you see around the
fourth of July and we found that this is
because sulfuric acid is a very strong
dehydrating agent and sucks the moisture
out of the sugar leaving nothing but the
black carbon residue
next we tried putting this mixture in an
Erlenmeyer flask where the opening
constricts near the top to see if we get
the container to explode but rather than
exploding we saw the pressure just push
the carbon chunks up and out of the
container letting them flop down over
the side for our final experiment we put
everything in a round bottom flask where
even more pressure could build up but we
still didn’t get it to explode instead
what we saw happened was chunks of
carbon would spew out up to 4 feet away
and the ones that collected near the top
coagulated together and formed a long
carbon tunnel which is something I
haven’t seen done before well there you
have a guy’s great day of experimenting
and hopefully you learn something new
thanks for joining me for this set of
experiments I’ll be looking for you the
next video talk to you then it’s a quick
update guys some of that black ash
flaked off and it’s sticking to my skin
and starting to burn I’m going to wipe
that off and come back with my lab
jacket I’ll be right back it’s got a
nice whiff of sulfuric acid it it’s kind
of a nice setting texture that’s
interesting shiny carbon foam
[Music]
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