Chevreul's Salt

This post is the Video Companion to this video.

Chevreul's Salt is a little-known copper compound that is quite easy to prepare, and has a few very interesting properties. In this post, I'll go over in detail what I did.

This experiment only requires two materials: copper sulfate and sodium metabisulfite. The former is sold at hardware stores as root killer for plumbing, and the latter is commonly found on eBay (since it is used by gold recovery people).

Potassium Chlorate from Bleach

This post serves as the Video Companion to this video.

This experiment was also featured on Hack a Day!

In this simple experiment you can create potassium chlorate, a powerful oxidizer that finds use in amateur rocketry, a convenient source of oxygen, and the famous "screaming gummy bear" demo (among other things), from common household items with a minimum of effort. The tradeoff is that it's a very inefficient process and yields tend to be very low. Electrolysis is a far superior method, and is something I plan on trying out in the future.

'Video Companion' Posts

Recently I read a comment thread elsewhere on the 'net where people were arguing the pros and cons of conveying information by video vs. by text. Some prefer video because you actually get to see what's going on, and some prefer text because they can peruse it at their own pace and it is in an easily searchable format. I think it's at least partially a case of visual learners vs. reading-writing preference learners, but I digress.

While I presonally prefer video format (as you may have guessed from there being much more content on my YouTube page) I can understand the points of both sides, and have decided to write blog posts here that I will call "Video Companions". These posts will include a basic write up of the experiment shown in one of my videos, to include things like procedures, formulas, necessary calculations, and any other observations I didn't point out in the video. I think these posts will help to reach a wider audience, enable people to explore the science more, and hopefully take away more from my experiments. I'll try to do this for all my new videos from here on out, and also add posts for older videos (probably progressing in order of their popularity). You can easily search for these types of posts by clicking the tag in the Categories side bar to the right.

So if you prefer text, rejoice and stay tuned for more! If you prefer video, feel free to stick to YouTube, but I encouorage you to visit here occasionally if you have any questions.

The Element Display: LED Control Circuitry

This post will describe the electronics I used to drive and control the LEDs for my element display. These were designed by my good friend and very skilled electrical engineer Bill Porter (www.billporter.info) and built by him and myself. To read about the project as a whole, see the introductory post.

I’m not an electrical engineer, but I will try to describe what I can here. Bill has a much deeper knowledge of this sort of thing, and has posted a much more in-depth article about how all this works on his website, which he has dubbed the Elemental Illuminator.

The Element Display: LED Lighting

This post will describe the LED lighting scheme I used to illuminate my element display, including where I sourced the LEDs, how they are attached to the backboard, and the table’s overall color scheme. To read about the project as a whole, see the introductory post.

The Element Display: Acrylic Shelves

This post will go into detail on how I assembled the individual acrylic shelves for my element display, including where I ordered the plastic and the process of attaching 240 shelf pins to the 120 shelves. To read about the project as a whole, see the introductory post.

The Element Display: Backboard Construction

This post will go into detail on how I constructed the backboard for my element display, including cutting it into sections to make it transportable, drilling the required 360 holes, and attaching the sections together in the final configuration. To read about the project as a whole, see the introduction post.