Distilling Highly Reactive Potassium for a Dangerous and Unique Gift
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- In today's video I will try to distil the alkali metal potassium to make a large vial of the highly reactive metal. I have distilled rubidium and cesium before, but never potassium. I made an apparatus out of glass to distil the metal under vacuum.
If you don't want to miss Elias' video on potassium production, subscribe to his channel: / @eliasexperiments
Join my Patreon and support my projects! Your contribution means the world to me and helps bring my ideas to life. I truly appreciate your support! / advancedtinkering
Music: 'Artemis' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
I once visited an old decommissioned highschool chemistry lab (and when I say decommissioned, I mean they left all the chemicals and decommissioning didn't happen at all), and they still had a massive jar with more potassium than I have seen in my entire life - they had an ampule of mercury roughly the same size as the one you made in this video, but the mercury had mercury salt crystals floating in it 🙃
not to mention multiple kilos of different mesh size lead powder
Don’t be a pussy. I dare you to lick it.
Fun fun. om nom nom all the shinnies lol
That's just a shopping trip with extra steps?
Correct 😳😈
Those shots with the potassium condensing on the glass with the light box behind it were 👌
Thanks! It's actually just the bright sky I the background.
@@AdvancedTinkeringthe biggest lightbox of them all
Really is a beautiful thing.
It's called German forecast 😂
Distilling a metal has to be one of the coolest things ever!
Technically one of the hottest, since to distill it you have to heat it HEUHEUHEUHEUHEUHEUHEUHEU
I have a horrible attention span and watched every second of this, thank you for the treat.
Nicely done. Back when I was doing this sort of stuff in grad school, we routinely washed our glassware with acetone to remove bulk organics, distilled water to remove the acetone, an overnight soak in chromic acid (~ 90 g of Na2Cr2O7 in a liter of concentrated sulfuric acid) followed by 3X rinses with tap water, concentrated ammonia, tap water again and then distilled water followed by drying at 200C under high vacuum (~ 10-4 mbar). The folks in the lab next door (Klaus Theopold's group) used piranha solution (50/50 mix of concentrated sulfuric acid and 30% H2O2), instead of chromic acid until a post doc nearly killed herself when she dumped a batch of fresh (hot) piranha into a flask of acetone by mistake (we felt the floor jump next door and were deaf for a while). If Germany has a problem with nitric acid I imagine it won't be happy with either of these methods. The main point is to oxidize any residual organics or metals (which can then be washed out). Another method, which I used in an industrial setting, was to run the container (either glass or stainless steel) through an annealing oven at about 550C, which would burn off any organics (usually polymers in my case) followed by a blast of compressed air to remove any ash.
In professional settings and universities nitric and sulfuric acid are commonly used, but they are banned from free market sale to unlicensed individuals in all of europe due to anti terrorism laws, just as finely powdered aluminum
Since the still was annealed at around 550 °C all the organics are probably gone. But maybe some inorganic impuritys were still left inside the ampoule.
That distillation montage was absolutely mesmerizing. It's also amazing to see potassium in such a pure state.
What a fascinating video of such a basic process. I doubt I've ever seen, in person, that much potassium in one place.
Thank you!
The music during the shots of the potassium condensing was great. Great taste!
11:35 The condensation and the change of soundtrack are magical
Thank you!
The way the metal flows upwards in rivulets from the distillation flask is really uncanny, I thought the footage was reversed at first.
It does look unreal. So far I have only seen this with cesium and potassium.
I'm inclined to think it doesn't flow so much as it evaporates and immediately condenses slightly higher up.
@@bladdnun3016constant phase change
I think it is driven up with the flow of vapour that condenses further along. Same way that a diffusion pump will give up momentum to the gas against a pressure gradient here the potassium vapour diffusion pump is trying to move the condensed potassium against gravity.
I'm not a chemist but totally appreciate the knowledge and skill that goes into it. Just making the glassware yourself and then the huge block of potassium as big as a house brick made me subscribe. I have never seen such a large piece.
Absolutly impressive. i'm in awe of the scope of this channel.
Thanks! I appreciate it!
Beautiful. The colours and the fluidity is really engaging. Thanks for sharing :)
This video gets a solid 11/10 from me. Unreal!!!
Thank you! :)
The first time is ALWAYS a learning experience. Great job
Whenever I see potassium being cut, I have to imagine spreading it on a slice of bread.
Ah wooshhhhh 😅
I had a rush of excitement when I saw that apparatus!
One of the coolest distillations I've ever seen, thanks for sharing!
It was just a question of time until a chemistry youtuber would set up a Schlenk system... pretty awesome, and you definitely deserve it. You can't imagine how envy I am 🙂
(Außerdem, wenn ich das englische Wort "gift" im Rahmen von Chemie sehe, ich lache immer... 😛)
Love to see it! And love the application of what you've learned over the years and changed in your video style to topics you'd visited in the past. Great video :)
Thanks! I appreciate it!
I'd imagine that the potassium would've came out much better if you would've gone for another distillation round and BTW potassium is by far one of my favorite alkali metals along with rubidium and cesium due to its gorgeous shiny appearance and its low melting point like the other two plus it's a common source of radioactivity! 👍👍
I'd love to see if you can make a potassium sample so pure that it doesn't stick to the glass at all just like you did with the cesium sample a while back!
You can believe me when I tell you that I will definitely make a second attempt at making a perfect ampoule ;)
That ampoule looks gorgeous. As much as I really want one, I think I'm fine with my 10g ampoule since I don't really fancy living with such an explosion hazard 😂
One of the most amazing distillation I have ever seen! Be safe and cheers from McMurdo Station Antarctica.
Make sure you keep the snowmobiles gassed up. The alien always disables the chopper.
@unbuggable5943 lol, that's actually what I work on down here. I always keep a backup fueled and ready to roll just in case of an alien attack !!!! 🤣
What are you doing down there?
I just watched the Herzog documentary Encounters at the End of the World which features McMurdo Station, thank you for your service.
P.S.: yall got wifi in Antarctica? 🇦🇶
@@Jefferson-ly5qe home now , just a mechanic 😊
I think what would be a cool series for a Chemtuber to do would be a series of synthesizing "Obscure Explosives" like potassium superoxides and then igniting/blowing them up
Why do I love these videos. I read several chemistry books in prison and I think it's fascinating. It's how we have everything in our modern society, from being curious and mixing different things together and adding and subtracting ect. It's simple but so hard.
Gorgeous!
What an awesome video! I have only once cut a piece of 100g of potassium with such an horribly thick layer of oxides and after a few sparks and flames I decided to remove the layer chemically, because it was to scary. Beautiful distillation setup and nice shots!
Thank you! Yes chemically removing the oxide layer is the safer way.
Soft metals are very interesting. What a cool process
from one chemist to another, god damn was that beautiful. Well done!!! Awesome video, instant sub.
Thank you! I appreciate it!
That was facinating and beautiful. One perk of being from South Africa is that our regulations do allow some interesting home chemistry, problem is more obtaining materials and equipment than what you do with it. Would like to do something like this in the future.
Quick tip on scraping those per/superoxides… find yourself a bronze alloy knife. CS Unitec makes some beryllium bronze knives that are fairly hard, intrinsically safe and mostly non-magnetic. You never can tell how deep those oxide layers are. As a hazmat chemist, I’ve encountered a few “dry” pockets on the surfaces of alkali’s, and trust me, you do not want to experience that chain reaction occurring with a 500g chunk of alkali metal in your hand.
Dude, this rocked 😁 i appreciate you making these videos my guy. You’re an inspiration for sure.
As a borosilicate tinkerer myself, I highly respect this man's welds.
The most fascinating video about potassium I have ever seen. Also, I have never seen before so much potassium metal on one place and Elias` comment at 5:21 min is telling: "Absolutely safe". You can be proud of the great work. Fingers crossed that the parcel with arrive at its destination in one piece.
Thank you! I appreciate it! :)
That was so neat. Some of the glass looked kile a mirror when condensing.
In European Union Nitric acid is forbidden for private use - such big is the fear of politicians from its own citisens making explosives. Even communist governments in eastern Europe were not so scared. I remember experimenting with HNO3 as a kid.
Yeah, etching, ammo, bottle rockets, metal plating, cleaning... it's too useful to ban. I couldn't believe it when I tried to source some for etching. Nanny state stuff and only getting worse
They know they are unwanted. But "citizens" resorting to explosives instead of firearms is not that uncommon here.
Well, that doesn't seem to have made any kind of difference for the criminals. Stuff blow up at least once a week here in Sweden 🙄
This is insanely beautiful
Dope! Good work!
Thanks!
Would be good idea to have a tray under the apparatus in case something breaks
A big bucket of water 😁
So it won't catch fire :p
the idea is to NOT break something
That was cooler than polar bear toes!
Great Video! :D
14:54 Wow, that looked really cool
Great video!
cutest kalium that I have ever seen
hey, if you cant use nitric acid, you can do a plasma treatment 2 minutes of the glass, if possible under vaccum, it makes the glass unsticky exept to gallium for around 5 minutes before air untreat it. On other way is to heat the glass at 500 °C. Dusts also can do problems, they generally come from cloths and hair.
super video. I had too much respect for the peroxide layer years ago, so that I neutralized the whole thing with water. that was very entertaining. thank you!
I've svetty palms just vaching you perform zis delicate opurazon😂
Jokes aside, very clever manipulation of the contents and equipment❤❤
zenk juh! ;)
Our family originated from Altenbourg....
That's where the Kühn in Willacy-kuhn comes from...
My father studied electrical engineering and metallurgy...
Family moved to UK then to New Zealand where I now live with my son and grandson,
You have one of the best videos on utube in my opinion...
Thank you very much! I'm glad to hear that you like the videos!
Cleaning the Vial I would suggest 3.5 micron Cesium Oxide with 100% IPA to lubricate.
Use a bottle brush or a drill to spin a buffing cloth and paste inside the Vial.
Be aware that 3.5 micron is the target size for lung carcinogenicity, so use a HEPA Respirator.
this is like the discovery channel of chemistry, from those condensing shots
great video
awesome and dangerous
2:55 Forbidden cheese rind
Phenomenal footage. A joy to see.
Wenn die Butter in meinem Kühlschrank außen oxidiert, bearbeite ich sie, wie du den Kaliumblock xD
I had no idea metal evaporated like that. I love seeing weird properties like that. I remember watching a sodium/water video in slow mo and for just a frame, the initial reaction took on the shape of an electrical arc rather than the standard flame we come to expect. Perhaps worth some investigation. Makes me wonder about the nature of chemical reactions as a whole. Also, odd question. I always see people just casually cutting sodium and potassium with a knife. Do the alkali metals react with the steel at all? I can't imagine that there's no chemical interaction whatsoever between the alkali and the blade
Het mooiste wat ik ooit gezien heb.. Woah..
Thanks!
Aqua regia: you could use "poor man's aqua regia" (HCl + any nitrate salt).
Doesn't molten alkali metal attack glass? What type of glass are you using? Is it borosilicate?
Yes, I think I will test this method next time.
The still is made of borosilicate glass. At higher temperatures, potassium also slowly attacks the glass. The slight brown-golden discoloration in the glass comes from ion exchange, if I remember correctly.
But it is no comparison to lithium, which completely destroys the glass and is almost like a thermite reaction. I have also made a short video about this.
Wonderful work!!
That looked like a block of dry aged potassium
So satisfying watching Potassium Metal being sliced! Worthy of a sub and a Thumbs Up too! haha
The way to clean up that oxidized potassium is to put it into the oil like the other piece. Heat until all is melted. Add small quantities of alcohol to the oil. You did this. Just put the dirty potassium in. The crud can be removed & the potassium put in clean oil & repeated until it is clean.
Does molten potassium dissolve copper?
Very cool! Is the glassware cheap to replace? Looks like a destructive process!
Thanks! The glassware is completely self made. So the "cost" is mostly time. The actual glass tubes and round bottom flask is probably around 20 €.
You could probably reuse part of the still by attaching a new vial and a new side neck. But I wouldn't advise it. The integrity of the glass will suffer.
This is some advanced-ass tinkering.
Fantastic demonstration! Beautiful brilliant shiny K! Nobody else is making detailed video demonstrating the Schlenk and “inorganic synthesis” techniques like you. Please keep your editing exactly as you have been, and don’t be tempted to parse them down for brevity for the impatient short attention span dilettantes . It’s important to show your mistakes and tricks for this art-like science. Also…don’t be embarrassed about your spoken English. Your are easier to understand than many native speakers. Hopefully you can do the preparation of the n-BuLi or t-BuLi in a video someday.
Yes, it is really hard to find a middle ground in terms of the length of the videos and explanations. But you're right, I won't make the videos any shorter. Thanks for the compliment on my English!
In fact, I've already talked to Elias about doing a video on making t-BuLi. It might take a while, but there will be a video!
Thanks, very cool video.
...cant own nitric, but totally cool to ship 200g of K in the mail. lol. amazing.
I want a bite of the forbidden cheese 🤤🤤
nice video
Your glassblower should have a aqueous HF tank.....have him clean it after annealing.
Bravo! 👏🏻
So awesome! Beautiful work. You mentioned that HNO3 is verboten? Could I guess it has something to do with terrorism?
Thank you kindly for a beautiful video....alkalai metals are so cool....
Nah, just the fun police.
It's incredibly useful. Used to be common in metal plating processes too.
Very nice and I really love your presentation. Professional, precise, and your knowledge of chemistry is pretty awesome. Distilling a metal is a very cool preocedure. And I thought potassium was even more reactive? Handling it and exposing it to air and all that. But you showed that it it can be worked with easily. Great video!
2:22 forbidden cheese block
Forbidden butter
Metalic lava lamp when?
That's actually a great idea! Will be added to my project list!
That dirty K block looks like forbidden cheese...
18:52 it is so rediculus... all these governmental restrictions... on the other hand, can you get some license to operate with the restricted chemicals? if yes it could be a valid solution process-wise. Anyway thanks for quite an educative piece of content! Great video!
What's going on?! TH-cam started recommending me interesting videos all of a sudden. 🧐
Do you have a link for the scale you used? I have had a hard time finding an affordable scale with a decent weight capacity that reads to the 1/100th gram.
@7:43 nice
Is it bad that my first thought every time seeing someone cut potassium is "mmm danger cheese"
You have balls of steel.
You should get a thermal camera to show the different temperatures on the apparatus and process.
Great video. Thanks a lot. Chemtube is really getting awesome :)
Instead of recutting the K…simply transfer molded K via Syringe! You also can bypass the xtra cleaning steps
In the beginning of the video, What does the isopropyl alcohol do to the oxides/peroxides? All i can think of is the potassium itself reacting with it to make propanolate and h2
It can also react with the oxide
Clean the next one with hno3 off camera. Say you totally didn’t use nitric acid but strong h2o2 or something 😉 😉
That orange potassium block is a bit scary, I would not want to work with it.
Here's how you clean the receiver out with aqua regia in Germany- _turn the camera off..._
Potassium the gift that keeps on giving...3rd degree burns.
Newbie question - if the system is closed and you are pulling a vacuum, how does the gas flow from one vial to the next ? Unless there is some argon or other flow happening. IN the 70s I was able to play some with both sodium and potassium metal. i consider myself lucky to have all my digits and no burns. Be safe
Diffusion
Well, you cannot buy nitric acid. But you can of course synthesize it. The easiest way - if you do not want to build an Ostwald reactor - is to extract it from calcium ammonium nitrate containing fertilizer. But you will probably not be allowed to show the synthesis here.
Even the possession of HNO3 above a certain concentration is forbidden.
@@AdvancedTinkering I’m shocked and somewhat dismayed to hear that. What is the rationale - danger, drugs, or something else?
@@fburton8 Explosives and theirs precursors. They (the EU or EC) have pulled a lot of useful stuff under that regulation, e.g. H₂O₂ >12%. Although the European regulation provides the possibility for a private individual to buy, possess, and use such chemicals under a permit, my country decided not to implement the permit part of the regulation. The reasoning is that "normal person doesn't need them anyway".
@@shogoonn Thanks for the explanation. So the message seems to be that "normal people" are not meant to _do_ chemistry, or _be_ chemists or scientists. It's disappointing.
@@shogoonn They banned concentrated H2HO because of some idiots making organoperoxides and (mostly) blowing themselves up. So sad for everyone else. (Organoperoxides are typically not detected by nitrogen compound detecting explosives detectors. That's why some people risk their lives assing around with them.)
Why did you melt off the neck to the still? It had a stopper on it.
These stoppers are never completely vacuum tight. Especially when they get hot. And since the still was a one time use item anyway, I decided to melt it off.
@@AdvancedTinkering 😢Poor Still. Just seems like a waste of good glass.
GIFT translated to german is Poison 😂😂
I mean.. It's not allowed to own high-concentration nitric acid.. But I'm pretty sure you could get your hands on some low-concentration one and then slip and accidentally drop it into your conveniently placed distillation flask with sulfuric acid...
How can someone “be missing” such a large ampule of potassium? Did they misplace it or they would like to add one to their collection?
Haha, he did not misplace his large ampoule of potassium. "Missing" in the sense of "he did not have one".
@@AdvancedTinkering Phew 😥 😂
How did you send that gift? I know the mail has rules against shipping dangerous materials
Who said I sent it?
@@AdvancedTinkering good point 🤔 I forget Germany is a much smaller country and has much better public transportation the United States.
So unfair that chemists have access to shiny butter, and I'm not allowed to taste it
Aren’t etchers allowed to buy nitric acid in Germany?
Depends. If they have a registered business, they are allowed to. A privat person is not allowed to own it.
6:04 bite it like a fresh metal bagel
Mmmmm forbidden taffy...
The idea of distilling a metal as a liquid is so strange.
2:20 that's a block of cheese