I fell in love with chemistry because i didn't have a hard time making a mental image of what happens during a chemical reaction. Now when i can visually see the beauty i'm happy i decided for chemistry. You inspire me NurdRage.
I'm sure that these are the same things God says when he makes things. "Wow, look at that - isn't it amazing!" Thank you for showing how incredible even very small things can be.
@@AstralTraveler cost of materials its probably cheaper to just buy silver than grow it in any significant amount...Also time...time is money...If it was cheaper to make silver than buy it people would be doing just that :)
@@cutlerylover Actually just so happens that I have around 50kg of electric contactors - copper with silver patine and contacts made of pure silver with addition of iridium and paladium... This will be probaqbly my first step in the process of extraction/rafinstion... :) The only issue is the NO2 - do you know if there is some kind of air filter to prevent the deadly pollution of my neighbourhood?
@@AstralTraveler well the silver crystal growth here is through a microscope or at least loupe so id imagine you would need to replicate what was done here 1000+ times? maybe 100,000 times? to maybe get 1ozt silver currently worth $23..is that profitable? thats for you to decide lol
@@cutlerylover I guess that it's possible to adjust the speed of crystal growth by increasing the amperage of electric current. Besides, extracting silver is only the first step. What I'm mostly interested in are the "leftovers" of electrolyse - mostly platinum, iridium and palladium. Compared to them, silver is just a mere byproduct. .. I mightt soon become quite rich (at least compared to my current standard of life) :)
monkeyemperor12 Its possibile with gold cyanide. Cody did a gpld platin video. If things can be gold plated why do you think that gold crystals cant be grown?
Yes. You absolutely can. If you can plate something with it, you can grow crystals with it. Gold would behave almost the exact same way. You could use gold chloride, or gold cyanide solution. Density, chemical resistance, or mercury have nothing to do with this. Gold chloride is a commonly used compound, and its very easy to get your hands on. As long as you have the money, because I believe its somewhere around 240 dollars a gram. As a jeweler and goldsmith, electroplating is one of the things I have to do all the time. We use a solution of rhodium sulfate and sulfuric acid for rhodium plating. A solution of gold chloride for gold plating. Nickle chloride for nickle. and copper nitrate for copper. In our setup, we have a platinized titanium anode, and a gold cathode. The cathode is some gold wire with four hooks soldered to it. I love when we clean the cathodes off, because you can watch the rhodium metal slowly crystallize onto the hook. It takes months, but its cool seeing them develop.
Mexi Chemia The problem with electrolysis is you need to have very pure material. You absolutely could make your gold chloride, but it would be even more expensive. Because the nitric acid you would need is very expensive. I can buy gold chloride plating solution easily, already mixed and ready, much cheaper than straight gold chloride. Or if you needed to, you could easily make cyanide plating solution that works much better. However, for a big corporation, they want safe and cheap. So pre bought acid based solution is the only reality. hahaha
why does he keep saying its microscopic...if you would do this for a few days straight wouldn't it eventually grow to the size of a quarter or so?? I'm not trying to be a smart ass just trying to see if anyone knows.
I've only seen 3 videos from this guy so far. Is there any particular reason he uses a filter for his voice other than to hide his identity for some reason.
He's a real life Doc Brown (see my other comment!). But seriously, it is silly to disguise your voice just by changing the pitch. Anyone with basic audio software can change it back to any other pitch. So if someone were really looking for him, they'd find him. Or her!
dude i take my hat off to you, i look through all these videos, and am am not only learning but you take it to the next level, by explaining the process in a well informed way. cheers from australia :)
Five plus minutes of my life, very well spent! Your video's are some of my most satisfying and enjoyable subscribed to content on UA-cam and I can only have wished that you were the professor that had taught me 'O' chem back when I was still in school. Thank You again.
Crystal growing really fascinates me, thanks a lot for the video, i am studying chemical civil engineering and one of the reasons i am studying that is your awesome videos, thanks again
Even though I do not understand the things you talk about in your videos but I love every single one of them, please make more! :) I will never understand science but ive alway been fascinated by all the amazing thing science has uncovered and created. You are so awesome!
This was a fantastic vid. I love every one of these NurdRage videos and this one was top notch. Thank you for taking the time to make these videos and posting them here. Please don't ever stop rockin'!!
@insaneperson7766 no, we're not making silver from nothing. The silver came from the anode and the silver nitrate solution. So the total amount of silver is always the same. Elements cannot be made chemically, only converted between forms.
@CoNiGMa yeah, the silver is coming out of the silver nitrate solution and the silver metal anode (off camera). While i could melt it down afterward, if i really wanted to do that i'd just melt silver bars directly, far cheaper than going through this slow process of electrochemical crystallization.
Awesome video, I've seen pictures of this quality in my textbooks but never on video, whenever you do a crystallization from now on you gotta do this, it's so awesome!
@Whopzer no, we're not making silver from nothing. The silver came from the anode and the silver nitrate solution. So the total amount of silver is always the same.
I love watching how the difference in current changes how the crystals grow. I would like to see this same experiment performed, but instead of a static resistor, placing a variable resistor or potentiometer into the chain, and then throttling the resistance to impede or accelerate the growth.
that was a beautiful demonstration! I agree - prob, no, make that DEFINITELY my fav subscribed content, along with periodic and sixty. Nurdrage, you're a legend!!! :)
@ninjanerd8 The total amount of silver in the experiment is always constant. so we're not making silver, no matter how expensive silver gets this experiment will never be a viable a source of silver because all we're really doing is converting silver wire into silver crystal.
It's really nice to see, I like. Indeed most people don't have the requiered equipement... so thanks for sharing your video, it's great. Crystals of any materials are always beautiful to look : )
dear god if this isn't beauty in it's purest form I don't know what is. thank you again nerdrage for absolutely enthralling me in one of your elplorations into the amazing things that happen around us every day. :D
When you say "charge density" I think it would be more accurate to say "current density". I did this would a resistor or microscope and with copper sulfate. It worked but yours looks better. As usual. Excellent Vid.
@rovhatree Yes actually, using the gold salt its possible to grow gold crystals. It costs a lot but perhaps someday when i have the money i might do it.
@Nurdrage: To grow gold crystals does the catode and anode would have to be gold as well and apply current in the disolved gold salt? or which procedure do you suggest? Many thanks
@Amana09 laser crystals are usually non-conductive, this process can only make crystals from conductive materials and even then it only really works with metals... which are opaque and definetly not usable for lasers.
Fantastic! I am SO impressed! Where chem and physics meet. I can't wait to try this for m class. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and making it quite clear (I think) on how to do this ourselves. cheers!
@rainbowsalads nothing, the price of silver is mostly reflective of demand and the cost of refining. The cost of refining itself is based on labor and chemicals. The cost of energy for the whole process is actually very small. So unlimited energy would probably have a very minor effect compared to natural market fluctuations of supply and demand. An energy intensive commodity, like aluminum metal, is more linked to energy prices.
i tried this with a .0141 molar solution of silver nitrate and i also a different anode and a different cathode. My anode was zinc wire and my cathode was iron wire. It worked even without the silver wires.
I was watching a nova video about fractals and when the current was used without the resister, you could totally see the crystals forming like fractals. I am sure that slowly grown silver was grown in fractals manner as well, but it is harder to see with larger structures.
I've always wanted to watch one of these timelapsed for sometjing like say, copper refining where you have impire copper and use electrical separation to remove the impurities, just a timelapsed reduction of the anode.
@Athiril Investing *is* demand. When the investor purchases silver they are demanding a quantity of metal. Even though it's all dressed up in shares, stocks and other market instruments, they are still essentially buying and owning a piece of real metal even though they may or may not physically handle it. That's still demand. Investors don't determine the price by saying "Today let's make it higher". They drive the price by trading financial instruments that link to the real metal.
In a way, the crystals are following the maximum charge density not just through the existing crystals, but also the solution. As it a result, the crystals look like solid silver lightning bolts.
Wonderful footage. You should try some other crystallisations with other chemicals like potassium permanganate, not necessarily by electrochem. I didn't see a lot of crystallisation at this small scale during my degree. I'd do it myself but I lack a decent camera/microscope!
you should do this again, now using a potentiometer to control the current, and do something like slowly increase it! Just an idea... great video, man :)
I'm actually running a silver refining cell, using a the same method. I heard adding copper nitrate will make larger crystals grow. Seems to be true because as my solution gets more copper nitrate in it from the impure silver, the crystals seem to be growing larger and less spindley.
As a Geologist, its great to see mineral growth in action, thanks so much for the demonstration.
This has got to be one of the most coolest things I've ever seen.
this reminds me of fractals, its beautiful !
Because it is a fractal..
I fell in love with chemistry because i didn't have a hard time making a mental image of what happens during a chemical reaction. Now when i can visually see the beauty i'm happy i decided for chemistry. You inspire me NurdRage.
With proper comtrol of this process you can make tiny pure-silver coral jewelery :D
Probably the coolest nurdrage I've seen so far. Fascinating!
05:30 Reminds me of some plants in starbound found in volcanic planets with dangerously high temperature =p
That was beautiful! Couldn't take my eyes off the screen!
*As crystals grow, T-1000 theme plays in head
sorta
kinda
I could literally watch you play with this all day.
Could you please do a bigger one so we can see it with our bear eyes please ! :)
BEST CHEMICAL VIDEO I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!
I'm sure that these are the same things God says when he makes things. "Wow, look at that - isn't it amazing!"
Thank you for showing how incredible even very small things can be.
+Quality Silver Bullion god is the one who hid things like this from us you dumb fuck
+Zak K says the dumb
But humans are the ones who chose to cut off connection with God.
Zak K Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.
That has got to be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
lol would be nice if it was possible to do this on a larger scale to grow silver at home...haha
And what exactly stops us from doing it on larger scale?
@@AstralTraveler cost of materials its probably cheaper to just buy silver than grow it in any significant amount...Also time...time is money...If it was cheaper to make silver than buy it people would be doing just that :)
@@cutlerylover Actually just so happens that I have around 50kg of electric contactors - copper with silver patine and contacts made of pure silver with addition of iridium and paladium... This will be probaqbly my first step in the process of extraction/rafinstion... :)
The only issue is the NO2 - do you know if there is some kind of air filter to prevent the deadly pollution of my neighbourhood?
@@AstralTraveler well the silver crystal growth here is through a microscope or at least loupe so id imagine you would need to replicate what was done here 1000+ times? maybe 100,000 times? to maybe get 1ozt silver currently worth $23..is that profitable? thats for you to decide lol
@@cutlerylover I guess that it's possible to adjust the speed of crystal growth by increasing the amperage of electric current. Besides, extracting silver is only the first step. What I'm mostly interested in are the "leftovers" of electrolyse - mostly platinum, iridium and palladium. Compared to them, silver is just a mere byproduct. .. I mightt soon become quite rich (at least compared to my current standard of life) :)
I'm speechless, this is really beautiful! Such a simple reaction too.
Is it possible to grow gold crystals??
Rory O no, there is no chemical that will do this with gold, it is just too dense, also this isn't making silver, it is just crystalyzing it
If you find the right chemicals, yep. It exist, but isn't really easy to get since gold is extremely resistant to chemical attacks.
monkeyemperor12 Its possibile with gold cyanide. Cody did a gpld platin video. If things can be gold plated why do you think that gold crystals cant be grown?
Yes. You absolutely can. If you can plate something with it, you can grow crystals with it. Gold would behave almost the exact same way. You could use gold chloride, or gold cyanide solution. Density, chemical resistance, or mercury have nothing to do with this. Gold chloride is a commonly used compound, and its very easy to get your hands on. As long as you have the money, because I believe its somewhere around 240 dollars a gram. As a jeweler and goldsmith, electroplating is one of the things I have to do all the time. We use a solution of rhodium sulfate and sulfuric acid for rhodium plating. A solution of gold chloride for gold plating. Nickle chloride for nickle. and copper nitrate for copper. In our setup, we have a platinized titanium anode, and a gold cathode. The cathode is some gold wire with four hooks soldered to it. I love when we clean the cathodes off, because you can watch the rhodium metal slowly crystallize onto the hook. It takes months, but its cool seeing them develop.
Mexi Chemia The problem with electrolysis is you need to have very pure material. You absolutely could make your gold chloride, but it would be even more expensive. Because the nitric acid you would need is very expensive. I can buy gold chloride plating solution easily, already mixed and ready, much cheaper than straight gold chloride. Or if you needed to, you could easily make cyanide plating solution that works much better. However, for a big corporation, they want safe and cheap. So pre bought acid based solution is the only reality. hahaha
you are a genius. And i love it that you put this online for people to watch.
why does he keep saying its microscopic...if you would do this for a few days straight wouldn't it eventually grow to the size of a quarter or so?? I'm not trying to be a smart ass just trying to see if anyone knows.
Zachary Wech the crystals wouldn't grow that large because they would kinda branch off just like that high current run
I'd really like to know how to do this on a larger scale. Amazingly beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Now I can tell my mother the silver DOES grow on trees! XD
Interesting, very interesting. I've seen sugar crystals grow but this is the first time I've seen metal crystals growing.
I've only seen 3 videos from this guy so far. Is there any particular reason he uses a filter for his voice other than to hide his identity for some reason.
He's a real life Doc Brown (see my other comment!). But seriously, it is silly to disguise your voice just by changing the pitch. Anyone with basic audio software can change it back to any other pitch. So if someone were really looking for him, they'd find him. Or her!
he said one time he doesn't use a voice changer.
im not sure when though
Saul Bishop I bet he's just accidentally editing his videos at a slightly slower rate.
dude i take my hat off to you, i look through all these videos, and am am not only learning but you take it to the next level, by explaining the process in a well informed way. cheers from australia :)
Alchemy .-.
Rebornshadows false
Five plus minutes of my life, very well spent! Your video's are some of my most satisfying and enjoyable subscribed to content on UA-cam and I can only have wished that you were the professor that had taught me 'O' chem back when I was still in school. Thank You again.
Crystal growing really fascinates me, thanks a lot for the video, i am studying chemical civil engineering and one of the reasons i am studying that is your awesome videos, thanks again
I have to sincerely thank you for making this video. That was very fascinating and one of the most amazing things I've seen in my lifetime.
Awesome! i might try it too!
In all my life, that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
Extremely cool! I did the same thing a few years ago with Copper.
Thanks Dr. Lithium!
The world has more beautiful things than we people will ever see, and this is a good example of it.
Thank you for taking the time to make this! I thoroughly enjoyed it!!! Probably the coolest video EVAR!
Even though I do not understand the things you talk about in your videos but I love every single one of them, please make more! :) I will never understand science but ive alway been fascinated by all the amazing thing science has uncovered and created. You are so awesome!
The high current process makes Lichtenberg figures! Cool!
This is the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.
This was a fantastic vid. I love every one of these NurdRage videos and this one was top notch. Thank you for taking the time to make these videos and posting them here. Please don't ever stop rockin'!!
Oh I've seen this done before, looks really amazing.
Fractalicious!
@insaneperson7766 no, we're not making silver from nothing. The silver came from the anode and the silver nitrate solution. So the total amount of silver is always the same. Elements cannot be made chemically, only converted between forms.
@CoNiGMa yeah, the silver is coming out of the silver nitrate solution and the silver metal anode (off camera). While i could melt it down afterward, if i really wanted to do that i'd just melt silver bars directly, far cheaper than going through this slow process of electrochemical crystallization.
this is one of the best things i saw on youtube hope you make more of this
Who need Netflix or HBO, if we can see this beautiful experiments in UA-cam and also enrich our scientific culture ?. Haha. Great Channel.
Very unique !!! I'd say you did a great job capturing all this on film!
Thank you....
Awesome video, I've seen pictures of this quality in my textbooks but never on video, whenever you do a crystallization from now on you gotta do this, it's so awesome!
it's 4:39 am here in monterrey mexico... i'm still up because of this awesome channel :)
Not gonna lie. These videos are probably another reason i'm going for a chemistry major next year.
keep making videos!
Very awesome video, I think this is one of the few videos that really took my breath away as I watched the reactions. Love what you do, keep it up!
Mr. NerdRage,
This was one of your coolest videos! Thanks for teaching me all about chemistry!!
That's about one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Thanks NR!
@Whopzer no, we're not making silver from nothing. The silver came from the anode and the silver nitrate solution. So the total amount of silver is always the same.
How does this video not have a million views. This is incredible. I think you need to rename it to attract more viewers.
A+ as always thanks for taking the time to post and discuss the process as we observe it, also thanks for posting in HD the details are just awsome
Awesome video. Just started electro chemistry at uni. Hope I'll be making some of those funky silver crystals in the labs soon.
When the silver branches it looks so similar to Julia set fractals - amazing!
I love watching how the difference in current changes how the crystals grow. I would like to see this same experiment performed, but instead of a static resistor, placing a variable resistor or potentiometer into the chain, and then throttling the resistance to impede or accelerate the growth.
Last night I was thinking about metal plants. Now, WOW!!! Silver Plant!!!!!!!
that was a beautiful demonstration! I agree - prob, no, make that DEFINITELY my fav subscribed content, along with periodic and sixty. Nurdrage, you're a legend!!! :)
@ninjanerd8 The total amount of silver in the experiment is always constant. so we're not making silver, no matter how expensive silver gets this experiment will never be a viable a source of silver because all we're really doing is converting silver wire into silver crystal.
It's really nice to see, I like. Indeed most people don't have the requiered equipement... so thanks for sharing your video, it's great.
Crystals of any materials are always beautiful to look : )
I love when you talk technical to me
dear god if this isn't beauty in it's purest form I don't know what is. thank you again nerdrage for absolutely enthralling me in one of your elplorations into the amazing things that happen around us every day. :D
I didn't know awesome and beautiful electrochemistry figured among Bane's hobbies.
I love a good fantasy/sci-fi story, but stuff like this just proves that no created world will ever be as amazing or intricate as the one we live in.
When you say "charge density" I think it would be more accurate to say "current density".
I did this would a resistor or microscope and with copper sulfate. It worked but yours looks better. As usual. Excellent Vid.
@rovhatree Yes actually, using the gold salt its possible to grow gold crystals.
It costs a lot but perhaps someday when i have the money i might do it.
@Nurdrage: To grow gold crystals does the catode and anode would have to be gold as well and apply current in the disolved gold salt? or which procedure do you suggest?
Many thanks
@FluxoTacho interesting! any particular counter ion? tin chloride? or something else?
this was really amazing to watch. thank you!
I remember doing this in high school inside a test tube using silver nitrate. FUN STUFF!
Wow, this is beautiful :)
I love watching your videos!
@Amana09 laser crystals are usually non-conductive, this process can only make crystals from conductive materials and even then it only really works with metals... which are opaque and definetly not usable for lasers.
Yes actually. this process is used to make extremely pure "electrolytic silver" for analytical chemistry applications.
Fantastic! I am SO impressed! Where chem and physics meet. I can't wait to try this for m class. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and making it quite clear (I think) on how to do this ourselves. cheers!
Those crystals were beautiful. I am not kidding.
its looks like a giant peice of silver covered in diamonds this is so cool
@rainbowsalads nothing, the price of silver is mostly reflective of demand and the cost of refining. The cost of refining itself is based on labor and chemicals. The cost of energy for the whole process is actually very small.
So unlimited energy would probably have a very minor effect compared to natural market fluctuations of supply and demand.
An energy intensive commodity, like aluminum metal, is more linked to energy prices.
i tried this with a .0141 molar solution of silver nitrate and i also a different anode and a different cathode. My anode was zinc wire and my cathode was iron wire. It worked even without the silver wires.
I was watching a nova video about fractals and when the current was used without the resister, you could totally see the crystals forming like fractals. I am sure that slowly grown silver was grown in fractals manner as well, but it is harder to see with larger structures.
Wooooow. That was spectacular.
Some results looks, not surprisingly, as a Brownian tree fractals.
thanks!
I've always wanted to watch one of these timelapsed for sometjing like say, copper refining where you have impire copper and use electrical separation to remove the impurities, just a timelapsed reduction of the anode.
Brilliant! I am going to try this once I get a better microscope.
@Athiril Investing *is* demand. When the investor purchases silver they are demanding a quantity of metal. Even though it's all dressed up in shares, stocks and other market instruments, they are still essentially buying and owning a piece of real metal even though they may or may not physically handle it.
That's still demand.
Investors don't determine the price by saying "Today let's make it higher". They drive the price by trading financial instruments that link to the real metal.
this was one of the best videos i evre seen
It's like growing a bunch of silver trees! So breathtakingly beautiful. :')
Wow, that is just plain awesome. Thank you so much for showing me, I might have to try this myself....
Nice fireworks. Reminds me of those crystal grow kits.
this is why i like nurdrage: things that you cant (or are hard for a normal person) to do.
ty
Did this once in chemistry. Made myself a nice christmas ornament
In a way, the crystals are following the maximum charge density not just through the existing crystals, but also the solution. As it a result, the crystals look like solid silver lightning bolts.
The microscope i have has a special attachement that you can screw a camera onto. A lot of professional microscopes have them nowadays
yes, although you'll need the corresponding metal salts
Excellent, safe and easy to try. Thanks for sharing.
Very nice and good video . Great speech and fantastic video
Wonderful footage. You should try some other crystallisations with other chemicals like potassium permanganate, not necessarily by electrochem. I didn't see a lot of crystallisation at this small scale during my degree. I'd do it myself but I lack a decent camera/microscope!
you should do this again, now using a potentiometer to control the current, and do something like slowly increase it! Just an idea...
great video, man :)
very nice, this is why I love being a geek....
That is exceptionally beautiful.
Should have gotten a video time-lapse of the anode too. That would be interesting to see.
I'm actually running a silver refining cell, using a the same method. I heard adding copper nitrate will make larger crystals grow. Seems to be true because as my solution gets more copper nitrate in it from the impure silver, the crystals seem to be growing larger and less spindley.
@MasonicEyes no nothing is being "created", the silver is merely plating out of solution.