Make a Chemical Garden From Cat Litter, Drain Opener, and Root Killer
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- In this video we're going to use silica in crystal cat litter, sodium hydroxide in drain opener, and copper sulfate in root killer to make the famous chemical garden experiment.
Get 60g of silica gel based cat litter. This is often called "crystal cat litter". Add to it 30g of sodium hydroxide and 100mL of water. The reaction will get hot so be careful. This reaction forms sodium silicate. You may have to leave it overnight if it goes slowly. But few grains of leftover cat litter is acceptable.
Dilute the mixture by adding another 800mL of water. This cannot be added earlier as the mixture must be highly concentrated to successfully make sodium silicate.
Thoroughly mix the solution.
Now drop in a dozen large crystals of copper sulfate (around 1-2cm size). It's recommended to separate them for best looking results.
Over the course of two days the crystals will seem to sprout and grow as the reaction progresses.
What's happening is quite fascinating. As soon as you drop the crystals in, the surface of the copper sulfate dissolves but immediately reacts with the sodium silicate solution to form solid copper silicate. This coats the crystal so it's encased in a layer of copper silicate. But the silicate layer isn't perfectly impervious or rigid, water can still diffuse in. As it diffuses in it dissolves the copper sulfate underneath and forms a solution. This concentrated solution pushes out as the water continues to diffuse in and increases in pressure. The copper silicate membrane bulges out but eventually it can't contain the pressure and ruptures. The copper sulfate solution rushes out of the rupture and instantly reacts with sodium silicate solution to form another layer of copper silicate.
This layer is newer and weaker so as the pressure builds again it too will rupture and the process repeats. This gives the appearance of a growing structure. It grows upward because the density of the copper sulfate solution is lower than that of the sodium silicate.
Overall this looks like a growing stalagmite of copper silicate.
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Holy shit. At 6:58 to 6:59 you can actually see a double helix forming ! The two strands used each other as a support structure like a vine going up a tree.
Rock-creature evolution is imminent.
Holy shit you have some good eyes.
how the heck did you see that
WOW! good eye, thats so cool.
Yeah saw that. It was pretty cool
I always wondered why those chemical gardens grew upwards. Great choice of topic.
Do not worry about my lab situation, plenty of chemistry can still be done even without one. And i've got some old unedited video i might cut together as "lab notes" as they're not complete enough for full videos.
Even without a lab, you can make videos just as educational and entertaining as always
Wait, what happened to the lab? I must have missed it.
@nurdRage Can you siphon out he aqueous solution and replace it with a polymer resin?
@Garbled User : Yes, you have to be VERY careful and inevitably there will be some breakage. But i've seen some amazing art pieces done by professional artists using the same technique.
Thank you!
Very cool. I love how even though you're doing more of this 'home chemistry', you're still going into just as much detail and the results look just as good.
Hope you get a lab back soon.
I always get excited when NurdRage uploads!! NR is the OG chemistry channel...
It's so sad that he's getting fucked over by YT this much while NileRed is exploding. Not that I don't agree with NileRed getting so much traction but as someone who watches both channels I don't see where the huge disparity comes from.
@@KacKLaPPeN23 I mean NileRed is good, it's not like a good channel doesn't deserve to grow just because another is not
it's ok - both are owned by the same person anyway - note the initials??
actually it's really similar if you listen - just slowed down/digitally altered ... similar cadence ... the use of 'anyways' a lot
KacKLaPPeN23 Yeah, NileRed is a good channel, if aimed towards a different audience (NurdRage is obviously aimed more towards people who already know some chemistry, while NileRed is more for laymen), but NurdRage shouldn’t be getting screwed over like this.
You brought me back 45 years - I remember having the kits several times as a kid.
In 1979 I bought a chemistry set with $5.00 I had gotten for my birthday. The first experiment I did was the chemical garden. Thank you for bringing back that Memory of my childhood.
I must add - it's best to use fresh cat litter.
This is a pretty little experiment, and it really spoils the effect when there is a cat turd floating around on the top.
I remember doing this experiment as a kid. I used ‘water glass’ or isinglass, (sold as an egg preservative, IIRC) as the silicate.
I used copper and ferrous sulphates and cobalt chloride as the ‘seeds’
It’s nice to see some ‘home chemistry’ experiments on YT again. I used to watch an old channel ‘TheHomeScientist’ which is well worth a look for anyone into this kind of thing.
You can still get some of these crystal gardens from some craft stores.
Also, i would suggest thst if you want to strengthen and preserve the crystals, you can add a layer of clear epoxy to the top, while simultaneously syphoning out the reaction mixture from the bottom. That way the crystals are coated and supported as you remkve the liquid.
Using a large excess of copper sulfate, evaporating off the excess water and slowly filling up it with epoxy would make a really cool chemists art!
the safety concerns wouldn't be such a big problem if the idea of parental supervision hadn't been completely abandoned
I remember these! So cool. Thank you for the actual science and history.
A kid friendly alternative from when I was a child is a washing soda solution over a fish bowl filled with charcoal briquettes - "alien landscape" - : )
Fun. I may try this with some impressionable minds over the holiday.
This is the kind of thing that inspires aspiring chemists to keep on experimenting: a great TH-camr making quality content even with extremely limited resources. Keep up the great work!
You got forced out of your comfort zone and still created a great video. Bravo!
I gotta say nurdrage is definitely an experienced person pulling his weight over a decade
Yeah I do remember when they used to sell these in little packets and they had a little jar that had a mermaid or something on it and I would sit there for hours watching it grow I also had a crystal kit and a sea monkey kit I don't see the sing garden kit in stores anymore
I noticed at 6:58 one of the Cobalt Silicate structures formed a helical spiral as it progressed, looked cool :D
I like the idea of using the heat of the sodium hydroxide dissolving in the water, instead of heating the mixture externally.
I love the idea of a new "Bathroom Chemistry" series of videos
For home chemistry of entrepreneurial value, I suggest the Akabori reaction of alanine with benzaldehyde into phenylpropanolamine. There was a big ScienceMadness thread on that way back in the day, but I never really followed it to know if it panned out or not.
bonus points if you investigate any of their interesting reductions of phenylalanine.
Who would've thought this was going to be so dang interesting!?!?! I love it :)
yay back to the basics
That's great. I'm going to order some stuff off Amazon and replicate this. It's oddly beautiful.
I remember those kits as a kid. Had a half a dozen different salts for different colors. I guess we just had enough common sense to not eat the stuff. We were also probably age 10+ also. Still a fascinating experiment.
*IMPRESSIVE GROWTH*
I hosted a workshop for my younger schoolmates using a more concentrated solution. The gardens grew much faster. They looked good initially. After taking mine back home, it broke completely and looked more like a landfill than a garden.
As usual TH-cam doesn’t notify me when it’s actually posted
Check your bell status. If it's not a ringing bell, you don't get EVERY video as notification.
Very cool . I will be sure to make one for my office and decorate it will a garden path and little gnome reading a book . I will use a large plastic water bottle that I can drain from drilling hole in bottom in order to not disturb my fragile forest . I may even add some copper sulphate crystal to a string for a boundary hedge 👍🏻
Cool and beautiful...
Great video! Even without a lab your chemistry videos are of very good quality.
I forgot about 3 liters of copper sulphate solution months ago I planed to use for lage ammounts of Schweizers Reagent. Got some HUGE crystals out that had just minor defects in them. The largest one was almost 9 cm large! Glad that I didn't pulverize all of the "small" ones yet. Must look great with over 8mm large ones!
Just a note to let you know that your absence is noted. I hope you can return to making videos soon.
This reminds me of that story of "fish tank dope " or the other name for it was "gun blue dope" sounds just like it
Best chemical garden!!
Damn. I was working on this exact video lol. That's ok, you're able to explain things better anyway haha. Ive been following your channel for a decade now and still love the content.
Awesome video
I was gonna say I remember getting these as a kid , I believe they were called magic rocks
This already looks pretty neat.
That was simple but awesome!
Don't they sell pre-made sodium silicate solutions at the hardware store? It's called water glass.
I remember doing this in my parents kitchen as a kid. Fun stuff :)
I remember growing these from a kit back in the 1970s. As I recall, they were mostly blue/green like these copper sulphate, but had some other colors, too, but those had far fewer growths. I'm guessing the copper sulphate was the cheapest metal salt available, so they just used a few little pieces of the more expensive ingredients.
Vermiculite, if you can find it, dissolves in sulfuric acid. Apparently the silica sheets are protonated not digested. Interesting to react it with Waterglass, or do a crystal garden.
Where are your new videos:/
Would love to see a synthesis of perchlorates. It’s been a while since you posted some fun pyro style chemistry experiments.
Also, Oleum... & white fuming nitric acid . The real stuff. I have read up on it and it seems extremely difficult but I would love to see you make it :). Your channel has been the reason I have become fascinated with chemistry and overall science. Thank you for that
I grew a nice chemical garden using solution of Sodium Carbonate (1.5 molar) that I added a few crystals of MnCl2 to, CaCl2 might work too. I got the recipe from a 1911 book by Stéphane Leduc, The mechanism of life.
Thank you! Amazing. That came right on time
Cool man!
I know it might be boring but calcium chloride might do something neat. Wollastanite, a naturally occurring calcium metasilicate, has some interesting crystal habits. Although water glass is more of a sodium bisilicate than metasilicate.
Probably a bad idea, because who knows what reactions you'd get, but different color crystals in the same bath would be colorful and fun if it can be done safe
Actually Ilan Ramon, the only Israeli astronaut has done the experiment in space and the results were that the crystals grew to all directions in a sphere like shape.
oh this is a great experiment! Ive actually got all the ingredients for once lol. thanks nerdrage
I would not say it got little to do with the way cells form nowadays when considering that currently what is happening in your experiment is considered the proto-stage of life it self - a simple chemical process that gives rise to a more complex structure that acts as a membrane for life.
Not with the same chemicals of course, but this is one of the most likely candidates for how the first cells (viruses and bacteria mostly) formed.
I remember the ones I bought as a kid half a million years ago it seems there there was a few diff colours
The blue crystals in the cat litter can be any one of several different chemicals. In the cheap stuff it's usually just dyes, really expensive ones have cobalt chloride as a moisture indicator. I recently made a big batch without removing them and ended up with a light brown suspension that slowly settled out over some weeks - Iron compound? Anyway, I'd recommend removing the blue crystals to get a more consistent result.
I will definitely try this! I remember getting these "toys" when I was a child. What would happen if you were to put the copper sulfate crystals in the concentrated solution? Thank you for the video 😁
Me: go to bed early, because tomorrow is lots of stuff to do!
TH-cam: hey, buddy, watch a video about how to make a chemical garden with household shit!
Me: k
that was cool.
Iron sulfate will give a nice green and isn't too hard to get or make (iron plus copper sulfate gives iron sulfate solution + copper).
amazing, maybe using silica gel from the lab can give a similar result as cat litter
Is there anything stopping us from using a combination of salts (to produce different colors)?
Also, could we add a food dye color to the water to give the solution a background color?
I might actually try the above ideas. Thank you for the video!
Petition to ask nurd rage to inhale sulfur hexafluoride
i accidentally made something like this while playing with household chemicals in my childhood, Got scared .... i thought i created some kind of alien or something.... Little did i know....... Love this ... like for science! and Chemistry..
You shouldn't play with chemicals if you don't know what you're doing
@@vivimannequin and that's why I'm an Engineer today! Curiosity drives the interest! Alright bruh?
I knew that toilet was like Chekhov's famous gun...
6:30 mmmmm I've never thought about tasting it until now
I remember 4 or 5 colored crystals in the original retail kits. What were the chemicals?
I think the periodic table channel has a video about this that shows several crystals used
lohphat in mine I remember copper sulfate (blue), cobalt chloride (purple), and iron sulfate (greenish). The yellow and the white ones I can’t remember but may have been another iron salt for the yellow and could have been alum for the white.
LOL you're making malachite!
I have a jug of engine seize (sodium silicate 50%) can I just use that and skip step one? Cool video!
You'll need to dilute it down to the proper concentration. But yes. It'll work.
Saying that CuSO4 is toxic may sound scary, but well, it is toxic only in high amounts, so no reason to be scared
I remember having one of those when I was little to
Well, at least in the event of an unintentional rapid oxidisation of a compound (aka, a sudden loud bang), at least you're next to the crapper to clean up the mess... :P
Oh, so that's how you get rid of your chemicals, you flush them down the toilet!
3:49 the crystal got excited
I was thinking, a video on making an antibiotic might be interesting to people right about this time
What happens if you put in multiple different salts?
How can I make biodegradable plastic what should I mix with polyurethane and polyester to makes them biodegradable..thanks
This sounds like fun ?
Do you have nerve agent production video
Cat litter that has an exothermic reaction with water? I guess that's one way to keep your cat warm
No it's the NAOH that made it hot
You are doing a reacting that consumes SiO2 in a glass container (glass being mostly SiO2). What am I missing here?
Nice bathroom
Just call it water glass
hey man
how are you? Long time no video
i bet silica gel works better because its, well, a gel
Woahhhhh i forgot about you! God i missed this channel lol
So does contamination hurt this reaction? got some used cat litter to get rid of...
Probably won't hurt the reaction, your nose on the other hand....
Does tjis work with potassiumsilicate?
Tasty
If people lived on mars, would aluminum be illegal to use considering the planet's surface is made up of oxidized iron?
What happened to his lab?
What happened to your lab?
"Thanks" (flush) 😎👍
Lol you funny brother
Can you change it's color? like I get that coppersulfate is blue, but you rock at chemistry.
yes, using other salts that form insoluble silicates
Is copper sulfate the same chemical they call Snail Bait?
Could you make hydrochloroquine?
Please do a colab with NileRed!
Screw the lab, home chemistry ftw
I wanna see more