hey guys welcome back I’m Nate thank you
for joining me today on the king of
random here in the studio we love a good
science experiment I’ve learned about a
good one recently that I want to try out
it’s very simple but should be fun some
of you may be familiar with a movie
called October sky about a boy named
Homer Hickam who loves building rockets
the movie is based off of a book called
rocket boys and it explains that one of
the fuels that Homer tested out was a
mixture of zinc powder and sulfur the
mixture of zinc powder and sulfur is
supposed to burn very quickly and with a
very bright flash so we’re going to try
and replicate that today in the studio
using materials we can easily get our
hands on a cheap and easy source of zinc
is pennies pennies look like they’re
made of copper but since 1982
that’s just been a thin coating on the
outside they’re actually made 97.5%
out of zinc obviously for a mixture with
only two ingredients there’s not a lot
of supplies you need first is some
sulfur powder this is a dusting sulfur
which is used as a fungicide and
insecticide on plants you can pick this
up in your local gardening store the
ingredients list this as 90% sulfur so
it’s not pure but I’ve read that it will
work for this experiment the second
ingredient is zinc which as I explained
we’re gonna try filing down some pennies
to get a nice zinc powder lastly I have
a metal file which I’m going to use to
grind down the pennies hopefully I’ll
get a fine enough powder that it will
burn our first step is to take some
pennies and start filing now let’s tape
a piece of paper to the side of our
clamp so we don’t lose all of our
filings
there we go that doesn’t look super
pretty but it should be very functional
[Music]
[Music]
I’ve now grabbed up quite a bit of zinc
from our pennies so let’s put it on our
scale and see how much we’ve got our
scale says we have five point four grams
of zinc powder which is a little bit
more than the weight of two pennies I’ve
seen a few different mixed ratios of the
zinc and sulfur that are supposed to
work as a flash powder I’m gonna try one
two one for the first test all right
we’ve got one gram of our zinc powder
now let’s add one gram of our sulfur
okay I’ve now got two grams of our
one-to-one mix of zinc and sulfur powder
zinc fumes are not good to breathe in
though so I am gonna try lighting this
off outside now I’m not sure how
sensitive this stuff is in theory if
you’ve got a fine grain mixture it can
even light off with static electricity
so it’s a good idea to be very careful
with it
however I think that our filings from
the pennies are gonna be a larger grain
it might be a little bit harder to
ignite so I’m going to start by trying a
barbecue lighter and then a few other
things if that doesn’t work
oh it’s doing something oh I wonder if
it’s just burning the sulfur a little
bit it’s not very dark out here so you
can’t see but I think the sulfur itself
might have caught on fire okay that’s
smoke rising right now I think means it
just went out
all right the barbecue lighter didn’t
work so let’s go on to try using a
little bit of fuse to see if the higher
heat from the fuse will get it to ignite
Wow look at that that that burned before
kind of comes off as a shell so yeah I
think the zinc powder melted together
but wouldn’t light that’s interesting
I’m gonna use the scissors to hold the
fuse down because otherwise it sort of
tends to take off like a mini rocket
kind of like that
[Music]
nothing again I think we got some melted
zinc and I think the sulfur has caught
on fire again can you see a little bit
of that blue flame in there there it is
yep so that’s the sulfur caught on fire
but the zinc won’t catch on fire the
barbecue lighter didn’t work and the
fuse didn’t work so I’m gonna try
hitting the remaining powder with some
matte gas out of the blowtorch and see
if we can get a reaction out of that
nothing well that didn’t seem to do
anything either I think I’ve
successfully melted all of the zinc and
probably burned all of the sulfur but we
didn’t get any sort of ignition nothing
that looked like flash powder nothing
that looked like an explosion so I don’t
think that this worked very well at all
I’m fairly certain that our problem was
the size of the filings of the penny so
I’m gonna see if I can do something to
grind them down even smaller to
hopefully get a finer mesh of powder
I’ve never ground down zinc powder and a
mortar and pestle before but I’m gonna
try and see if it works four point three
five grams of zinc and four point three
five grams of sulfur I have my doubts
that the zinc is a fine enough powder
that it will ignite easily but let’s
give it a try
Wow okay that lit yep that’s on fire
that’s more of what we were looking for
all right we did get a reaction there it
did light on fire now that might have
just been because the map gas burns hot
enough to ignite zinc powder I’m not
sure if the sulfur made any difference
or not but it did light it was a cool
green flame so that was maybe a step in
a better direction but I have an idea
for how we can test this at least as a
proof-of-concept depending on the
chemical reaction that took place this
is either zinc sulfide or zinc oxide
it’s kind of hard to tell which since I
don’t know if the sulfur made a
difference or not
so we barely got an ignition and I think
the problem is the size of the zinc
powder I’m not able to grind it to a
fine enough point where it will really
light easily to test this as a proof of
concept
I’ve gone ahead and bought some
commercially available zinc powder and
we’ll use that in the mixture to see if
it ignites as quickly as we’re hoping it
will two grams of zinc powder two grams
of sulfur powder let’s go straight to
math gas
nothing Oh weird that’s like gummy
texture almost it’s all squishy like a
squishy sulfur zinc clay that worked
even less oh we got some sulfur burning
though blue flame blue fire from burning
sulfur all right I have one more thing
we can try all right that didn’t seem to
work any better in fact I think it
worked less well because we were able to
get our other one to light off with the
map gas but not this mixture I do have
one more idea there are different places
that say different ratios that you’re
supposed to mix this – I’ve been trying
one-to-one with equal weight of zinc and
sulfur but I’ve also seen something that
says you should use three parts zinc to
one part sulfur so I’m gonna try that
and see if it makes a difference alright
there’s three grams of zinc and there’s
one gram of sulfur alright this is the
three to one ratio of the zinc dust to
the sulfur hopefully this one works out
a little better
woah alright that was a fast reaction
that all just went up in a cloud all at
once that was really quick look at this
you can see it even sprayed the reaction
material all over so this is gonna be
zinc sulfide all of this burned powder
that it just like sprayed everywhere
that’s pretty cool alright now that was
the kind of reaction I was hoping for
from the beginning it went really quick
it even like it launched itself through
the air and you probably couldn’t see
very well but there is like this
mushroom shaped smoke cloud coming off
it it was pretty great let’s do that
again
okay I’ve mixed up another batch spread
that out on the ground I’ve made it into
a little bit of a line to see if we get
a slightly more delayed or stretched out
reaction but same plan I’m just gonna
hit it with the torch and watch and go
Wow it didn’t slow it down pretty much
at all to have it spread out the flame
traveled along the line like him in an
instant that stuff has just a crazy
amount of flash power to it very little
noise I would have thought it would be
loud it was just sort of a popping sound
and just a very bright light a lot of
smoke but that looks pretty great I get
why you would think that could be used
as a rocket fuel it’s very fast burning
one more time
cloud kind of came right at me that time
that stuff is really fun that just goes
up bright green flash and then big puff
of smoke and it’s all gone in an instant
and very quiet there you have it we’ve
tried mixing zinc powder and sulfur
together and we got some mixed results
when filing down pennies we couldn’t get
a small enough grain of zinc for it to
really ignite the way we want it to
after grinding the zinc filings in a
mortar and pestle for about 10 minutes
we were eventually able to get it to
light off by hitting it with a map gas
torch for a little while that was a cool
burn but it wasn’t really the explosive
reaction we were hoping for it in the
end we did unfortunately have to go some
commercially available pre-made zinc
powder but when you mix that with sulfur
in the right three-to-one ratio it went
off immediately those were some really
cool very fast burns bright green flame
big puff of smoke that looked really
cool and I think in the near future
we’re going to try and use that same
fuel to propel a small rocket I would
still love to be able to make this zinc
powder at home so if you have an idea of
how I can make a fine enough zinc powder
out of pennies please let me know in the
comments below
there you have it now you know that zinc
powder and sulfur can be combined to
make a very fast burning mixture that
might work as a small rocket propellant
thanks for joining us for this video
today and we look forward to the next
one talk to you then here you can see
we’ve got a penny from 1974 this one
should be almost entirely copper if we
file off the edge here’s our 1974 penny
on our 1983 penny and you can see the
difference when you file down both edges
the penny from 1974 has a copper
interior and the penny from 1983 has a
zinc interior hey guys quick reminder
that king of random t-shirts are
available once again just go ahead and
click the link at the top of the
description and it’ll take you to where
you can get one today
[Music]
for joining me today on the king of
random here in the studio we love a good
science experiment I’ve learned about a
good one recently that I want to try out
it’s very simple but should be fun some
of you may be familiar with a movie
called October sky about a boy named
Homer Hickam who loves building rockets
the movie is based off of a book called
rocket boys and it explains that one of
the fuels that Homer tested out was a
mixture of zinc powder and sulfur the
mixture of zinc powder and sulfur is
supposed to burn very quickly and with a
very bright flash so we’re going to try
and replicate that today in the studio
using materials we can easily get our
hands on a cheap and easy source of zinc
is pennies pennies look like they’re
made of copper but since 1982
that’s just been a thin coating on the
outside they’re actually made 97.5%
out of zinc obviously for a mixture with
only two ingredients there’s not a lot
of supplies you need first is some
sulfur powder this is a dusting sulfur
which is used as a fungicide and
insecticide on plants you can pick this
up in your local gardening store the
ingredients list this as 90% sulfur so
it’s not pure but I’ve read that it will
work for this experiment the second
ingredient is zinc which as I explained
we’re gonna try filing down some pennies
to get a nice zinc powder lastly I have
a metal file which I’m going to use to
grind down the pennies hopefully I’ll
get a fine enough powder that it will
burn our first step is to take some
pennies and start filing now let’s tape
a piece of paper to the side of our
clamp so we don’t lose all of our
filings
there we go that doesn’t look super
pretty but it should be very functional
[Music]
[Music]
I’ve now grabbed up quite a bit of zinc
from our pennies so let’s put it on our
scale and see how much we’ve got our
scale says we have five point four grams
of zinc powder which is a little bit
more than the weight of two pennies I’ve
seen a few different mixed ratios of the
zinc and sulfur that are supposed to
work as a flash powder I’m gonna try one
two one for the first test all right
we’ve got one gram of our zinc powder
now let’s add one gram of our sulfur
okay I’ve now got two grams of our
one-to-one mix of zinc and sulfur powder
zinc fumes are not good to breathe in
though so I am gonna try lighting this
off outside now I’m not sure how
sensitive this stuff is in theory if
you’ve got a fine grain mixture it can
even light off with static electricity
so it’s a good idea to be very careful
with it
however I think that our filings from
the pennies are gonna be a larger grain
it might be a little bit harder to
ignite so I’m going to start by trying a
barbecue lighter and then a few other
things if that doesn’t work
oh it’s doing something oh I wonder if
it’s just burning the sulfur a little
bit it’s not very dark out here so you
can’t see but I think the sulfur itself
might have caught on fire okay that’s
smoke rising right now I think means it
just went out
all right the barbecue lighter didn’t
work so let’s go on to try using a
little bit of fuse to see if the higher
heat from the fuse will get it to ignite
Wow look at that that that burned before
kind of comes off as a shell so yeah I
think the zinc powder melted together
but wouldn’t light that’s interesting
I’m gonna use the scissors to hold the
fuse down because otherwise it sort of
tends to take off like a mini rocket
kind of like that
[Music]
nothing again I think we got some melted
zinc and I think the sulfur has caught
on fire again can you see a little bit
of that blue flame in there there it is
yep so that’s the sulfur caught on fire
but the zinc won’t catch on fire the
barbecue lighter didn’t work and the
fuse didn’t work so I’m gonna try
hitting the remaining powder with some
matte gas out of the blowtorch and see
if we can get a reaction out of that
nothing well that didn’t seem to do
anything either I think I’ve
successfully melted all of the zinc and
probably burned all of the sulfur but we
didn’t get any sort of ignition nothing
that looked like flash powder nothing
that looked like an explosion so I don’t
think that this worked very well at all
I’m fairly certain that our problem was
the size of the filings of the penny so
I’m gonna see if I can do something to
grind them down even smaller to
hopefully get a finer mesh of powder
I’ve never ground down zinc powder and a
mortar and pestle before but I’m gonna
try and see if it works four point three
five grams of zinc and four point three
five grams of sulfur I have my doubts
that the zinc is a fine enough powder
that it will ignite easily but let’s
give it a try
Wow okay that lit yep that’s on fire
that’s more of what we were looking for
all right we did get a reaction there it
did light on fire now that might have
just been because the map gas burns hot
enough to ignite zinc powder I’m not
sure if the sulfur made any difference
or not but it did light it was a cool
green flame so that was maybe a step in
a better direction but I have an idea
for how we can test this at least as a
proof-of-concept depending on the
chemical reaction that took place this
is either zinc sulfide or zinc oxide
it’s kind of hard to tell which since I
don’t know if the sulfur made a
difference or not
so we barely got an ignition and I think
the problem is the size of the zinc
powder I’m not able to grind it to a
fine enough point where it will really
light easily to test this as a proof of
concept
I’ve gone ahead and bought some
commercially available zinc powder and
we’ll use that in the mixture to see if
it ignites as quickly as we’re hoping it
will two grams of zinc powder two grams
of sulfur powder let’s go straight to
math gas
nothing Oh weird that’s like gummy
texture almost it’s all squishy like a
squishy sulfur zinc clay that worked
even less oh we got some sulfur burning
though blue flame blue fire from burning
sulfur all right I have one more thing
we can try all right that didn’t seem to
work any better in fact I think it
worked less well because we were able to
get our other one to light off with the
map gas but not this mixture I do have
one more idea there are different places
that say different ratios that you’re
supposed to mix this – I’ve been trying
one-to-one with equal weight of zinc and
sulfur but I’ve also seen something that
says you should use three parts zinc to
one part sulfur so I’m gonna try that
and see if it makes a difference alright
there’s three grams of zinc and there’s
one gram of sulfur alright this is the
three to one ratio of the zinc dust to
the sulfur hopefully this one works out
a little better
woah alright that was a fast reaction
that all just went up in a cloud all at
once that was really quick look at this
you can see it even sprayed the reaction
material all over so this is gonna be
zinc sulfide all of this burned powder
that it just like sprayed everywhere
that’s pretty cool alright now that was
the kind of reaction I was hoping for
from the beginning it went really quick
it even like it launched itself through
the air and you probably couldn’t see
very well but there is like this
mushroom shaped smoke cloud coming off
it it was pretty great let’s do that
again
okay I’ve mixed up another batch spread
that out on the ground I’ve made it into
a little bit of a line to see if we get
a slightly more delayed or stretched out
reaction but same plan I’m just gonna
hit it with the torch and watch and go
Wow it didn’t slow it down pretty much
at all to have it spread out the flame
traveled along the line like him in an
instant that stuff has just a crazy
amount of flash power to it very little
noise I would have thought it would be
loud it was just sort of a popping sound
and just a very bright light a lot of
smoke but that looks pretty great I get
why you would think that could be used
as a rocket fuel it’s very fast burning
one more time
cloud kind of came right at me that time
that stuff is really fun that just goes
up bright green flash and then big puff
of smoke and it’s all gone in an instant
and very quiet there you have it we’ve
tried mixing zinc powder and sulfur
together and we got some mixed results
when filing down pennies we couldn’t get
a small enough grain of zinc for it to
really ignite the way we want it to
after grinding the zinc filings in a
mortar and pestle for about 10 minutes
we were eventually able to get it to
light off by hitting it with a map gas
torch for a little while that was a cool
burn but it wasn’t really the explosive
reaction we were hoping for it in the
end we did unfortunately have to go some
commercially available pre-made zinc
powder but when you mix that with sulfur
in the right three-to-one ratio it went
off immediately those were some really
cool very fast burns bright green flame
big puff of smoke that looked really
cool and I think in the near future
we’re going to try and use that same
fuel to propel a small rocket I would
still love to be able to make this zinc
powder at home so if you have an idea of
how I can make a fine enough zinc powder
out of pennies please let me know in the
comments below
there you have it now you know that zinc
powder and sulfur can be combined to
make a very fast burning mixture that
might work as a small rocket propellant
thanks for joining us for this video
today and we look forward to the next
one talk to you then here you can see
we’ve got a penny from 1974 this one
should be almost entirely copper if we
file off the edge here’s our 1974 penny
on our 1983 penny and you can see the
difference when you file down both edges
the penny from 1974 has a copper
interior and the penny from 1983 has a
zinc interior hey guys quick reminder
that king of random t-shirts are
available once again just go ahead and
click the link at the top of the
description and it’ll take you to where
you can get one today
[Music]
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