Highly Reactive Potassium Metal Production
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- Опубліковано 19 вер 2024
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In today's video, Elias and I will be producing an alkali metal on a large scale-specifically potassium. We will use a custom 10-liter stainless steel still that we have been working on for months. The parts were machined on a lathe and welded together. Our starting materials are potassium carbonate and magnesium metal, which are relatively inexpensive compared to the price of the final product.
Check out Elias Experiments Video:
• How I Mass Produced Po...
A huge thanks to NurgRage for the cameo: / @nurdrage
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Yay Potassium thermite!
It's a way to make uranium metal right ?
......... hear me out, Cesium Thermite next!
When Nurdrage comments on a video it has my full attention
Hi nurdrage!
@@Enjoymentboy Hes in the video too!
I had a great time doing this project with you, I hope we can do a lot more stuff like that in the future. ;-)
You are always such a great addition to this channel!
Same! I'm sure this won't be our last project together ;)
dude, you all almost died :D
Really nice finally seeing the finished video, also had a great time experimenting with you, let me know when you need more turning done
Mach mal ganz auf deusch
2:39 you know things are getting real when you use the cardboard box funnel 😂
maybe the magnesium was an alloy called "Elektron" it contains zinc and some rare earths that could cause the pyrophoric effect you experienced.
Interesting. I've never heard of it. But I will look it up.
@@AdvancedTinkering Does it match what you saw?
Alternately, some machinist cutting fluids contain phosphorus (or sulfur or chlorine). Not sure in what quantities though. Anyway, IIRC, elemental phosphorus can go up like that.
@@kevinjones5001 It's possible, but I think it's less likely because if there was significant cutting fluid he probably would have washed it off and phosphorous would either boil off or react to form metal phosphides at the temperatures in this reaction that said metal phosphides react with water/humidity to make phosphine which is pyrophoric but it would look like a gas burning not a sparklery solid burning. So it is possible but it didn't really look like phosphorous or phosphine burning.
+1 vote for an apparatus to make various metal crystals. Final products should look good!
I will try to make it work!
@@AdvancedTinkering Cool, can't wait. Bismuth crystals have been done all over YT, but the oxide layers make for great colours.
Also useful for other stuff, I dont remember what though. Ohh yeah copper crystals are great for thermal epoxy.
The thing about this video that surprised me the most is the fact that potassium metal is barely more dense than mineral oil.
"Hmm. This picture is not correct"
K.
Posted to two different chs?
Very nice! A little dangerous, but still very nice! Taking a look at the magnesium crystals under the lid of the still, they look remarkably similar to the magnesium crystals that I keep/sell. In my opinion, they look like pure magnesium crystals. If they are an alloy, there shouldn't be much potassium in them. I would take some of them and test them with water and steam. Pure magnesium shouldn't react with room temperature water, but it should with steam or boiling water.
That is by far the most potassium I have seen in any one place☠ , the beautiful purple hue is also super visible whilst pouring the ingot under mineral oil.
And that’s how the first German reached the moon.
" what you just say was incredibly wreckless on our part " 💀
Potassium graphite is pyrophoric. You have carbon and potassium :)
Potassium intercalated graphite - KC8
Yes, those Magnesium crystals are fascinating and beautiful.
Interestingly enough i also encountered a pyrophoric substance when i did a similar potassium thermite reaction (mine was KOH +Mg), spontaneously exploded in my handed. i don't know what it is either but its reproducible if you're getting it too. some sort of magnesium potassium alloy? idk.
Very interesting. Another comment suggested that KC8 might have formed in our case. I never tested the pyrophoric properties of KC8 so I can't say if it would behave the same way.
But the fact that you made a similar experience using KOH seems to indicate it is not an intercalation compound of potassium and graphite but something else.
That's pretty cool, I might have to look into that a bit
@@AdvancedTinkering The sparks look a lot like the ones you get from ferrocerium in a lighter or what you get from a sparkler (Wunderkerze). Might really be the rare earth another commentor suggested? Or was it maybe contaminated with iron, as the sparks were also not bright white i. e. not magnesium? I haven't used KC8 so far, but it doesn't seem like organometallics throw such sparks. BuLi and AlMe3 look totally different when they burn. 🤔
I remember reading a long time ago that an explosive, possibly potassium hexacarbonyl benzene, can be created; although that was related to distilling K2CO3 with C, not Mg. Most common alloys are Al, Zn, Si, etc., nothing wild; there are some that use REs, up to a few %, but they would likely react as well, or at least, probably not condense on the lid? KC8 sounds promising though.
Same here. I assumed it to be K reacting with atmospheric water vapor??
8:10 yeah blowout will go sideways, and as mr. Newton concluded, still will go in oposite direction sideways, so clamp it down good. Godspeed! :D
My exact thoughts when I saw that deflector trotted out .
Really depends on if the blowout is big enough, they probably assume any force is just absorbed by the still because of the weight difference
@@RaineyPeng sure, but burst at the begining of video when 4 kg of mass was trown pretty high up tells that it was quite energetic event :)
Suggestion for sealing the distillation receiver:
1: Don't use a glass receiver.
2: Failing #1, you can use a PTFE o-ring instead of a viton one. You aren't dealing with nearly as high of a vacuum that you would get with a normal KF seal, so PTFE should be just fine.
Great video! The system worked great, the yield was insane and the E&F reference was perfectly placed.
Thanks!
This is why you never leave your Germans at home unsupervised
that is quite the brick!
whats next? potassium brick house?
lebkuchen haus from potassium metal??
No, a Sodium/Potassium alloy (NaK) rocket engine ;)
@@AdvancedTinkering That's exactly what I'm doing in my laboratory. You are going to have so much fun with it. Especially tossing about an ounce of the liquid into water.
@@AdvancedTinkering uhh niiice!
Nice @explosionsandfire cameo af 17:30 😂
“Honey, where are my baking trays?”
unicorn tears are super purple. who knew?
Yes. It's not a verz well known fact.
**peacefully testing the potassium maker**
NurdRage: umm so hey guys isn't that a thermite reaction
**blows up**
This is the kind of dodgyness I expect from Explosions and Fire, I love it, 10/10
I won't come at you because you're right, TIG is superior.
Just more expensive and more difficult.
But was that 5 hours welding experience a joke?
I mean, those welds are FAR from great, but if you're actually just a beginner then well done.
Just be sure to wear a respirator while welding stainless from now on.
As a chemist, you should know the danger of hexavalent chromium.
Just because there isn't much visible smoke and fume doesn't mean you aren't being exposed.
Yes, I'm a complete beginner. I would guess my total welding time is about 5 hours. That's why I thought it's funny to claim that TIG welding is the best type of welding. But I'm aware all methods have pros and cons. I mean there is a reason pipelines are not welded with TIG.
Thanks for the safety advice! I will wear a respirator next time.
Man seeing from when you guys started distilling alkali metals, at least on youtube, you can definitely see the progress youve made and all that potassium is absolutely crazy! Totally awesome video yall!
What reagents did you use to synthesize unicorn tears? It's for a school assignment.
Edit: you got nurdrage on the video? Amazing!
Awesome video, well worth the wait. Clear a huge amount of work went into this behind the scenes.
Just because .... I calculated the energetics (very rough, just Hess's law on the literature heat of formation data)
K2CO3 + 3 Mg --> 2K + 3 MgO + C DH = - 655 kJ per mole carbonate, or 3.1 kJ/g of reaction mixture (1330 BTU/lb, if that's the appropriate translation to banana units 🙂) That's ... a lot. For comparison, the standard aluminium + iron oxide thermite mix releases just under 4 kJ/g, and that outputs molten iron, so over 1540 C, and this is a bit over 3/4 of the energy density. Without the cooling bath, it would go well over 1000 C, maybe close to 1200 (somewhere around 2000 F).
The exotherm is so large, I wondered if 3 equivalents of Mg was overkill, and it is, *in theory*
The reaction
K2CO3 + 2 Mg --> 2K + 2 MgO + CO is still exothermic, DH = - 163 kJ/mol
That is only 1/4 the energy output of the reaction they used here, but still plenty by most standards.
Is it possible that some parts of the charge are a bit short of magnesium? If so this reaction might happen a bit. That would make the gas you see later carbon monoxide. At least worth checking that it isn't, even though you are working outside.
"There are old chemists and there are bold chemists but there are no old and bold chemists".
Safety last! These guys are nuts (and very, very lucky to be alive). And I also love the random use of gloves. Why you would EVER touch any of this equipment with your bare hands is beyond me.
if the weather conditions are correct, you could have humidity condensing, setting off trace amounts of potassium, rather than a new substance that's ignited by air.
this could be a substance like carbon, or a texture with nucleation sites for humidity to condense.
Gotta check back in on the grass in that field a few weeks later, metals in soil can have very interesting effects on plant life and i'd be curious to see how the field's ecology handled it
I was not ready to hear NurdRage =)))
4:24 “i think we lost some potassium here” lmfao i love your sense of humpr
Wow never seen so much K in my life
This video gave me flashbacks to reading "Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants". 😬
ES IST KEIN PFUSCH WENNS FUNKTIONIERT!!! Sehr cooles Projekt!
Danke!
...Waren seine letzten Worte.
you are quickly becoming one of my favorite mad scientist youtubers
Idk why, but the sight of a man in a lab coat with a very long stick poking out around the corner is hilarious to me 😂
You've very quickly become the Electroboom of chemistry. Well done. I'd say "stay safe out there" but wouldn't expect (or want) you to listen. I look forward to seeing your future videos in my feed. 🙂
Finaly the video is out.
Nice! Love how you give the bad example to learn from! Someone got to do it!
yes to all crystal growing experiements. crystals are such a fascinating area of study.
Don't know if someone mentioned it here, you should team up with integza for the rocket part. Great video!
The crystal growing idea would go down a storm in the mineral collectors market, I would certainly have a specimen.
Ah yes! The Mongolian Throat singing vacuum pump!
Those magnesium crystals were incredible! I suppose this is a supercharged version of physical vapor deposition.
I would have never guessed I'd see filthy frank in one of your videos 😂
Also, I'd love to see a crystallised metal video.
Nice Roman candle , and as if making Potassium on kilo scale wasn't good enough , those Magnesium crystals are magnificent just by themselves .
Very impressive .
when i grow up i wanna be just like you and share my love for chemistry to the world.
you could add a water(mineral oil, for safety) "jacket" around the o-ring and steel flange (perhaps the entire condenser), then the water will absorb the large temperature spike whilst also holding the temperature over 60c to prevent clogs
This looked like a lot of fun.
I look forward to you doing large scale Rubidium production
Use a cheap 24v diaphram pressure switch for a high efficiency gas furnace. You can get them down to 0.05" w.c. (fuck all in metric) put it on your bubbler. So when it starts to pull a vacuum the pressure switch sees it, and opens argon solenoid.
It amazes me how quickly it reacts with the water. I think they need to figure out how this occurs because I believe it will lead to a major breakthrough in propulsion technology.
It is a coulomb explosion.
Large scale reactor/distiller is working, now we demand a loaf-shaped cesium ingot
10 Loaf's !!!!
Diese kurzen clips auf Deutsch sind einfach zu lustig 😂 Situationskomik würde ich das nennen
On the topic of alkali metals, I think it would be a very interesting challenge to produce an ampoule of high purity lithium metal, seeing as conventional distillation methods probably wouldn’t work
i know im being that one guy but PLEASE wear your ppe more, you really do need it here. getting burning alkali metals on your skin is horrifically painful, and even a little bit can cause a lot of damage. love the video tho! cant wait to see more
Guys, I enjoy watching you so please keep the risks manageable. Oh, and have the neighbors complained yet? Just curious.
1:03 thanks for the information that what was happening was not a suitable method. Wouldn't have known otherwise
damm those magnesium structures are pretty. exellent merch opportunity
Listening to this while at work and hearing Nurd confused me for a second 😂
0:58 _what a flame_
Back to your roots ❤
I cant help but notice the guys wearing more and more protective equipment as the video goes on. 😂
I’d personally love to see you guys make another apparatus to make those crystals, they are stunningly beautiful!!!
I love the fact you had this precision equipment made on a lathe and this cool science but then used a cardboard box as a funnel 😅
Casually pouring a liter of molten potassium... Sounds fun
In Elias's video I thought he said "There are no old and bald chemists" and I was like what??😆
Very nice! I think you could get together with an engineer to design an apparatus that you won't need to assemble and disassemble or expose your extremities to its holes.
You should tell your Patrons what's in your will so they know where the money is going
Steam jacket for the distillation spout? Heats the spout up, but with wet steam and condensate in the jacket, its harder to spike very far above 100C? Or just an open water bath, and direct a bit of the furnace exhaust towards it so it maintains a boil.
Seeing you pour your mixture into the still made me think "Looks like thermite"
Funny how these things turn out
A killo of potassium bought from ligma-balldrich would be 4000 dollars so you are balling
Who needs horror movies when we have chemistry
A bleed amount of argon could be fed into the still at approximately the same rate as the off gassing that was you can still tell when the off gassing has stopped but aren’t instantly into explosive distillation territory
Very very cool. I just got done making a few pounds of sodium to produce some NaK.
Also yes, unicorn tears glycerin is very helpful.
I was hoping that you would throw the entire ingot into very big body of water
So this was posted to two different chs!
Fantastic result. Rocket engine research from you would be brilliant!
Perhaps the pyrophoric reaction could have been caused by finely dispersed potassium on the surface of magnesium crystals? If you have a very large surface of potassium its likely it will ignite in air
Just seeing that 2L collection flask near the stone floor made me nervous... Other than that, compliments on the achievement! Enjoyed the video very much :)
A NaK/water rocket he says... right after making metallic potassium by the pound...
The interesting part about all of this is the exhaust stream is destined to ultimately become the original reagent as the KOH scrubs CO2 from the air.
Would seem you could do the exact same thing with sodium as well... or I'm guessing you already have... or will... 🤣
Interesting project man. The alkalis are fascinating elements.
Cooles Projekt! Den Gasofen kann man bestimmt auch noch mit einem 2 Punkt Regler Temperatur kontrollieren, wie bei einer Heizung.
Love the whole process, cool experiment. If you need a kind of PLC to control the still or the furnace or whatever let me know.
Today I learned that unicorn tears are made of potassium permanganate.
It really does impress as a thumbnail, but I don't know how you can smile while holding a kilo brick of reactive metal. I'd be so nervous, my sweat would make it explode.
You make science look fun and exciting thankyou
I was having a bad day, and your video gave me a good laugh. Thank-you! 😊
Due to high temperatures and a presence of excess magnesium, a magnesium-potassium alloy could have formed.
Which could be highly reactive to air.
yeah "suka" definetely means "great" lmao
I think that the second reaction produced an alagam mixture of potassium and magnesium similar to the old mixture of silver and mercury that was used in teeth fillings, but your potassium magnesium alagam is sensitive to the moisture in the air causing it to spontaneously combust!
Very very cool. I appreciate all your time and effort.
Elias didn't mention the flipped stamp in his video, he just showed it mirrored 😂😂😂❤
Well since it was not my own mistake I did not want to highlight it :D
I think you might have to include depreciation on the equipment in the price. I don't know how many hours of specialised work and materials were put into it but most of the parts are not going to last very long, I would think.
A NaK rocket... 😂 now thats "bold chemistry"
Wenn ich das in meiner Stadt gemacht hätte, hätte ich die gesamten Einsatzkräfte aus Bayern am Hals weil meine Nachbarn denken würden ich koche Meth. Aber mega Projekt und unfassbar unterhaltsame Kombination bitte mehr davon! Zur Sicherheit ... ihr wart steht bemüht:D
I would love seeing a magnesium crystallizer
I will definitely try to make it work!
unicorns cry potassium permanganate? wild.
You know there's something called humidity that could be reacting with the magnesium criso
11:30 Likely potassium intercalated carbon. Very very pyrophoric.