Titanium metal from a thermite reaction has been one of my goals for a long time. I needed it for my element collection, and this thermite is particularly interesting because of the surprising chemicals it uses. The formulation I am using was developed by a fellow blogger and colleague on the Science Madness forum, Gert Meyers. His blog post on the subject can be found here. The following will talk about my efforts to obtain good quality titanium metal from the thermite reaction he lays out. This is a re-post of the info I shared on Science Madness, including many pictures and 3 unlisted Youtube videos never before seen by the general public!
Friday, September 14, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Chemophobia: An Era of Discouraging Scientific Curiosity
In doing research for my experiments, I often run across articles in the news about police raiding suspected "home meth labs" or "amateur bomb making facilities." These are very often people's homes, which the authorities, for one reason or another, suspect are conducting illicit activity. Now I'm not against the police taking down such operations, on the contrary it's a good thing that these people get taken off the streets. However, in many cases they go overboard and barge in on amateur scientists like myself, who have no intention or capability of producing drugs or explosives at all, let alone in any sizable or dangerous quantity. If such search and seizures are to be conducted, those responsible need to have a damn good reason for doing so! It's quite clear if someone is engaging in drug production or explosives manufacturing vs someone who simply has an interest in science.