Generon Filter Supplement

I recently had a tremendous opportunity to test out some cool technology on my channel: a nitrogen membrane filter by Generon. You can see that video here: Testing the Generon Nitrogen Membrane Filter. You might want to watch the video first, to give context to the discussion below.

I got a lot of great comments on that video, and one in particular brought up some really great points that I wanted to take the time to address. Here's the full comment by piranha031091:

Let's address both of those points with some exciting... math!

Golden Rain

This post is the video companion to this video.

This experiment is hands-down the most beautiful chemistry demonstration I've ever seen. I'll be synthesizing lead(II) iodide, which has a beautiful golden yellow color. This experiment is especially striking because this bright yellow solid is produced from two water-clear solutions.

Materials

• 1.0 g Potassium Iodide, KI
• 0.8 g Lead Nitrate, Pb(NO₃)₂
• 500 mL Distilled Water

Reaction

Pb(NO₃)₂ (aq) + 2KI (aq) --> 2KNO₃ (aq) + PbI₂ (s)

Oil of Wintergreen

This post is the video companion to this video.

Today's experiment will be making a minty-scented oil for the winter time: methyl salicylate, or oil of wintergreen. This can be made simply from two very common and easy to obtain chemicals, and with a very simple procedure. This is also one of my first forays into organic chemistry!

Materials

• 13.0 g aspirin, C9H8O4 (the actual tablets will weigh more!)
• 60 mL methanol, CH3OH
• 8 mL concentrated sulfuric acid, H2SO4
• Distilled water 

Reaction

1 mol aspirin + 2 mol methanol --> 1 mol methyl acetate + 1 mol methyl salicylate

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.

Potassium Iodide and Radiation

This old post serves as the Video Companion to my Potassium Iodide video, linked at the bottom to make sure you read the post first!

This is another rather long post, but I feel it is warranted because of the importance of the content.

Because of the recent earthquake and tsunami tragedy in Japan, there's been a lot of interest recently in an otherwise ordinary chemical compound called potassium iodide. I'll get to that in a minute, but first a brief summary of the situation.

Experiment: Mercury Beating Heart

This old post serves as the Video Companion to  this video.

This is an extremely cool demonstration of electrochemistry involving one of my favorite elements - mercury. It's a shame that it's so toxic, otherwise it would be incredibly fun to play with. The setup for this experiment is simple, but very difficult to get it to work in practice. A droplet of elemental mercury is placed in a solution of an electrolyte and a strong oxidizer. Next a piece of iron is brought near the drop, which then starts to oscillate and looks like a beating heart.

Experiment: Silicon Dioxide Thermite

This old post serves as the Video Companion to  this video. This reaction was done some time before the video was shot, so some conditions here were a bit different (e.g. the ignition method).

This one was one of my favorite experiments to date. The silicon dioxide I used was common beach sand. I picked it up off the ground from Panama City Beach, ground it down to a finer powder in a mortar and pestile, and mixed it into thermite. This composition is extremely hard to ignite, so I added sulfur as well. This sets up a helper reaction between sulfur and aluminum that burns hot enough to sustain the rest of the thermite. The ratio I used was 9:12:10 SiO2:S:Al. This experiment was done when I was trying out different ignition methods, so here I used "thermite ignition mixture" from www.unitednuclear.com (my favorite science supplier), which was ignited with an M-80 fuse.

Experiment: Manganese Dioxide Thermite

This old post serves as the Video Companion to  this video.

For this experiment, I used manganese dioxide and a much finer aluminum powder than in my other thermites, at a ratio of 2.42:1 MnO2:Al by weight (40g total). I've done this reaction before (but forgot to photograph it), and using my normal aluminum it produced a reaction similar to the iron thermite. It was a little brighter and produced more sparks. With the finer powder, things went a little differently. The small flower pot erupted in a pillar of flame about 6 feet high, with the sound of a rocket engine and heat that was felt a good 15 feet away. This is a great demonstration of the importance of particle size in thermite and most other reactions. I plan on posting a direct comparison, complete with pictures, sometime in the future.