Turning Vinegar into Acetic Acid using stuff from Walmart
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- In this video we use chemistry to isolate glacial acetic acid from vinegar. pure acetic acid is a useful chemical in many chemical reactions
as always please don't try this at home
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Wow i still cant believe how much this video blew up. Thanks to everyone for 1000 subscribers!
Keep it up 👍
@@picobytesweet! A new chem tuber
So can this just be done with pure acetic acid I can get that ?
Wow! Educational, entertaining, and easy-to-understand chemistry content is rare to come across. Great vid! Your work will definitely pay off one day.
Thanks, just checked out your channel and it looks pretty cool as well.
You channel are so entertaining and informative as well, I especially like your chemistry content!
Interesting video!
Fun fact about acetic acid / vinegar for anyone in the UK. Usually in Fish & Chip Shops, the "vinegar" you get when you ask for salt and vinegar is actually something called "non-brewed condiment", and it's made by diluting concentrated acetic acid. Colours and flavours are then added to make it closer to traditional vinegar.
Yeah I should have explained but in the US they sell apple cider vinegar which is natural but the vinegar I used is cleaning vinegar which is just water and acetic acid.
Do they do it because it's cheaper or because of the flavour?
@@jimmybautis976 Pretty sure it's done because it's cheaper to manufacture. Plus it can be shipped as a concentrate and diluted at the destination
Just hopefully the restaurants/shops/whatever remember to dilute the stuff least they cause injury (and suffering from super intense flavor XD )
@@lewis4200 Yeah, the transport costs are the main factor.
I just got recommended this video, didn't even look at the subscribers, and brother was I surprised to see under 500k. Keep on grinding, very good content, definitely going to explode at some point!
Thanks for the compliment really appreciate it!
Scary wording though!
Yea he makes amazing content
I will say that at 0:30, the boiling point disparity isn't the issue-it's the tangent pinch formed when distilling acetic acid and water mixtures; it makes it incredibly difficult to distill dilute acetic acid solutions by significantly increasing the theoretical plates necessary to separate the pure water out.
Nonetheless, great video demonstrating the way to get around it and make some spicy glacial acetic acid!
You are NOT KIDDING about the smell. Have (had) a big bottle of glacial acetic acid out in the garage that had the lid get damaged during the winter. Didn't even think about it maybe being an issue until spring rolled around and everything got good and warm. Went to the garage to grab something and about fell to my knees from that overpowering stench. Avoided that place for months until it calmed down (or the acetic acid finished evaporating, never bothered to look for the bottle).
Great video, nice and clear content.
It might be interesting to cool your glacial below 16'C as a way of roughly judging purity as it should solidify.
Yea, I bought some "99% Glacial Acetic Acid" recently. which I put in the fridge (did not freeze). I took a Sharpie and marked out the "Glacial" lol.
I can’t believe you only have ~500 subs. This is fantastic content, keep it up!
An absolutely brilliant way to show people chemistry. Good job, subscribed
Just wanted to comment for the algorithm and to tell you how great this vid was, crazily underrated channel
very nice video! Love to see these that explain the chemistry behind it in detail, helps out new people :)
If you use the hydroxide instead of the bicarbonate it doesn't do the threatening foaming bit. I believe it's also cheaper.
Love this! Great video, I appreciate specially that you show and explain the reactions.
I'm so glad I'm early here. This just got recommended to me after watching a different chemistry video and I have to say, there is definitely a lot of (electric xd) potential in this channel. As a chem student myself, I have to say I love it! Keep up with the great work ❤❤
The editing style is simple but hilarious at the same time. I would never expect to see you walk out from behind the Vinegar like that.
Super underrated channel! Keep up the dope videos. Subbed
I can’t believe that Walmart actually sell sulfuric acid
Yeah its pretty wild, that stuff is like 90% pure acid.
Sure does and hydrochloric!
@@trinitro5968no nitric tho 😢
There are a few things I envy Americans for, and this is one of them.
@@Tunkkis meh , I'm german, but been here forever lol, where are at?
Very cool, so pumped for a new channel. Yes.
Glad I found you channel, and interestingly enough it is from my own video analytics!
Love you content! I hope you can also showcase the process of distilling sulfuric acid perhaps in some future videos.
Fun experience from myself boiling off water from sodium acetate many years ago, I messed up the ratio a little bit, and ended up with too much vinegar, hence boiling the solution is literally making sour tear gas in the room!
Just checked out your channel. Really impressive editing, and pretty funny as well.
@@ChemicalDistractions Thanks
You should provide some warnings that keeping this stuff in an enclosed area without proper ventilation ca lead to a build up of very hazardous corrosive fumes, and smelling this straight can actually chemically remove your olfactory sense.
i love the editing! another chem channel to add to my subs lol
great video xD I love the inspirations and the creativity
Glad i found this channel. I just watched all your videos xD. Keep it up
Thank you wee man for sharing your chemistry insight. May the Lords of the Algo bless this chan with a plethora of subs!
Distillation I always found to be a pain in the ass due to burning etc. A way to produce Glacial Acetic acid can be done using Dichloromethan( DCM) as it mixes perfectly with the AA, you can add Magnesium Sulfate to dry it, filter then boil off the DCM( or collect it for reuse) . The end result is much easier distillation that does not require heating acting and pure Glacial Acetic acid in the end. I used this method a while back to purify Glacial acetic acid made from Nitric acid oxidation of Ethanol.
That vsauce bg music was on point for that explanation
Yeah thanks lol I thought it'd be funny
Awesome channel, keep it going!
Great video. Please note, that you should post precautions on what you are doing. Some young kid could try this and get burned. I can testify that what happened to me. Not with what you did here. In the late 60's I wanted to make Sodium. Looked it up how it was made. No warnings. Melted Sodium Hydroxide and used electricity. Yes I made Sodium and it exploded. The result multiple burns on my arm from the Sodium reacting with the air and splattering molten hydroxide.
Most likely it's gonna be dickheads like me trying to avoid buying AA to make heroin 😂
I LOVE THE VSAUCE MUSIC IN THE VIDEO!
Incredibly concise and interesting video :D
Thank you! I try to make it palletable that means alot!
really underrated channel 🔥
Thanks really appreciate it!
Wow less than a thousand! Algorithm did good I'll watch everything you put out.
For a layperson like me, this helped me connect some dots! Thanks! Could you explain or do a video on freeze "distillation" of vinegar to increase concentration? I'm looking for 20-30% as a weed killer.
Yeah i was probably gonna do a vid on that at some point. Glad the vid makes sense, It's a complicated topic but I try my best to make it simple
To freeze distill chill to about 12F and remove any ice. Should work.
Thanks for the educational video !
Of course it will bubble over. Haven’t you ever made a volcano when you were a kid?
Can you tell me what chemicals I need to dissolve a 68 kg rat I found
Lots and lots of acid!!!
Lots of lye would work even better than acid
Look up resomation.
They definitely don't use acid in the medical industry. Alkaline digestion destroys everything. Lots of bad things can live thru acidification and still infect.
With weight of 68 kg...... I don't know weather it's rat or human
This is Amazing! INSTANT SUBSCRIBE🌻 keep it up!
The laboratory toaster oven😂 one of the best purchases I have ever made
Great vid! Would've loved if you showed off the "glacial" property :)
Honestly i didn't even realize why it was called "glacial" until i looked it up just now
You can also use copper sulphate to to make copper carbonate, then convert rhat to copper acetate (forms really nice crystals, but are very short lived as they readily switch back to its carbonate in air).
This could save so many lives
I thought you were wearing a cape when you came out from behind the vinegar. Was really bummed when I realized you, in fact, weren't wearing a cape.
Yeah no probably just my shoddy green screen lol
@@ChemicalDistractions yeah, it was. You should consider a cape, for future videos 😅
If you have concentrated sulfuric acid, why stop there? You can go on to make acetic anhydride. I don't know what the pear flavoring's about, but guessing it's an acetate ester, I bet you could form more efficiently with acetic anhydride than with glacial acetic acid.
On the other hand, if you don't need high efficiency, you can form esters even in a very watery mixture, and then use a continuous distillation process to recover the product. I know the ester formation will go even with a lot of water at low temperature, because of work with chromatography fluid made of n-butanol (Or was it isoamyl?) and acetic acid in water; if you let it sit around too long, it gets contaminated with enough ester to smell flowery, which is amazing.
You can get 30% vinegar at many hardware stores.
damn... your right?!?! i just checked one of my local Walmarts has 30% lol
May your channel be successful.
Thanks really appreciate it!
LOL! I was searching for a way to turn a $2.50 gallon of 5% Vinegar into a $28.00 a gallon 30% vinegar. I don't think this will pan out for me. Very Good Video Though! Thumbs Up!
Uh.... Vinegar *is* acetic acid.
Did you just mean you were going to concentrate it?
That have not sense because you vinegar and soda create sodium acetate. Sodium acetate and sulphuric acid create again acetic acid. Soda and sulphuric acid is for nothing. Is he want to have pure acetic acid he just must put vinegar to freezer and all acetic acid crystalyzed next he must remove water and he have very pure solid dehydrated acetic acid
Wow what a coincidence, I just went to Wal-Mart yesterday!
Just a thought, you could also use those reusable hot packs foe a sodium acetate source.
good bideo hope you get lots of subs :)
What my socks smell like after work
Great videos!
Thanks!
The one thing that I do know about pure acetic acid is that it freezes at about 68 degrees Fahrenheit and that flask was still liquid.
I should have tried to freeze it as a test. It was probably 75 is in my lab at the time though. I'll be the first to admit there probably was some water in it, idk how much exactly.
Liked subscribed and here's a comment
can you use sodium bisulphate as a sulphuric acid substitute here.
i work with Acetic Acid (99.5%) every day.. gallons upon gallons of it.. and trust me, it does not take long before you get imune to the smell :)
hey dude, try to mix some sulfuric acid with potassium permanganete, sugar and potassium nitrate. I appreciate your videos, hugs from Brazil.
Thanks, not really sure what that does but it sounds like it would be pretty energetic.
@@ChemicalDistractionspretty sure the latter is a recipe for solid rocket propellant; since sulfuric acid + potassium permanganate is, iirc, a firestarter mix, the above combination would make auto-igniting auto-oxidizing rocket fuel?
depending on how fast the reaction occurred it might even be explosive? sounds dangerous either way
I wish I wouldn't have skipped school sometimes..
Don't worry. They didn't teach anything like this
If I ever run out of stop bath or can't find it for sale (ie; for processing film) I guess I can do this...
The Vsauce drop, lol.
hey, enjoyed the video. what does it mean when they say "glacial"?
Honestly I didn't even realize until after this video released but it's called that because it freezes at only 62°f
Make sure the vinegar is the cleaning type because otherwise the sodium acetate will be brown and impure
Great in all, but sulfuric acid is harder to come by than acetic acid.
You could take this one step further and continue to utilise the sodium sulfate by reacting it with magnesium nitrate to make nitric acid.
Would love a method that involves more accessible reagents.
For some people that's true, but for most of the US at least, you can buy concentrated sulfuric acid at most any big box or hardware store in the form of drain cleaner. It's cheap and readily available here, whereas concentrated acetic acid can be bought online but not over the counter. You don't get more accessible than "from Walmart."
I'm not so silly as to not understand that the US isn't the world and that things are different elsewhere, to be clear, but if, for example, an Australian made a video about making a chemical with things "from Bunnings" then it would be silly for an American to complain that the ingredients aren't what is readily available in the US, wouldn't it? I'm not saying that asking for a video using different chemicals is inappropriate, but without knowing what you do have access to, there's no way for Chemical Distractions to know what is available to use.
Go buy battery acid and distill it.
Now time to grow some poppies!!
Learn how to tie a sliding loop.
feel like ive been put on a watch list
'Feel' like?
@Picklemedia well know I can say I am, fbi agent.
@@gavenmace7779 _"I am, FBI agent"_
*-gavenmace7779*
For gaa? Please.
You can get BETTER sulfuric acid (practically PURE, no inhibitors) at hardware stores for around $25/gal, which I think is still a rip-off: around half of the total volume of chemicals produced in the US is...sulfuric acid! There's a lot of it around!
Nice experiment, but holy shit it was a LOT of work.
Did you try fractional distillation? You probably have to go slowly, but at least it should be on autopilot at some point.
Honestly hadn't tried it but people online where saying it really didn't work well.
The fine line between science and drug dealing.
Baking soda to test purity yes?
Claiming my 435th subscriber seat right now
I would love to be able to do experiments like this. But where do people get their equipment?
Anywhere i see that selling new is really expensive. Kinda hard to justify.
I used Ebay to get all my equipment. I will say though I wouldn't advise doing chemistry at home until you get a good understanding of what you're doing. it can be dangerous
So that's why powdered vinegar is so expensive
Now add 35% H2O2 and you have an industrial sanitizing agent.
We use that in the brewery! Good ol PAA
Great video
Can you extract pure dog pee into tnt. Help me 😂
Stinks like crazy,yup! I tried simple distill,no way,fractional distill,nope failed too.they say fractional freezing but tried that with h202 and failed too.learning chem is 🥵
I have never heard a chemist call a reaction exploit😂😂😂😂
1:08 there is no sodium acetate in the vinegar prior to adding the baking soda.The sodium bicarb trades it's sodium for the ACETIC ACID hydrogen, not a sodium acetate, which is what you said. You've got it mixed up between 1:05 and 1:20.
ahh yeah your right.... slip of the tong
So you got all your chemistry breakers, tubes, stirrers and heaters at Walmart? What aisle is that?
😂 yeah sorry just the chemicals are from Walmart. Technically you could use glassware and pots and pans from Walmart I guess 🤔
I don’t get why the US sells every single industrial chemical at walmart, but is also super angry against home chemists because of meth
Companies at Walmart aren't welcome to advertise their products as chemistry reagents but some of them I think are pandering to that market. They advertise things like "sulfuric acid" or "100% pure lye" on the front of the bottle.
When I used to work in a hoapital they had acetic acid and it has a disgusting smell.
I really like doing stuff just because it's possible 👍
The more dangerous to freak people up the better 😆
Can we use hydrochloric acid instead of sulfuric acid?
Hmm, sorta but no it will make acetic acid but since hydrochloric acid is mostly water you're effectively adding water back into the mix.. Technically you can use any acid stronger than acetic acid and it will work, but you can't have water in your acid or it'll be in the final product. That's why I distill the water off of my sulfuric acid.
Hope that helps
I've considered trying citric acid. It's a solid but I think it might work
Thanks, it worked. They didn't react when they were in solid state, but 1 drop of water was enough for the reaction to start, the reaction was quite slow, but about 1 day later there was a fairly intense acetic acid smell, I don't know exactly its purity, but judging by the smell, it was quite high.
Hey I tried using citric acid myself to make a video on and my distillate came out yellow for some reason. When you did this did you get yellow acetic acid?
I just wanted to know the benefits of apple cider vinegar how did I get here😭
What exactly makes the acetic acid "glacial"?
The fact that the freezing point is 17°C, put it in the fridge and it will freeze solid.
@@robertcorbin464Huh. Neat.
So I can make either glacial acetic acid OR acetone with that regent ya? Ahh wait no, I'm confusing sodium acetate with calcium acetate..
Good video, but one question. Why don't you just have some of these mixtures already done so you can showcase the final product of that step without waiting for it to finish?
Not sure I get what you mean? You want me to show a sample of what I'm making and then make it?
@@ChemicalDistractionsyeah, that's what it sounds like they want you to do. Like you have jars and jars of this stuff just lying around to highlight for us lol.
@@ChemicalDistractionsmaybe he means like the cooking show tv slot on morning news where they just show you process and then pull out a premade cake or pie.
wow that's cool. i probably learned this in school....... or not
Actually probably not... Most of this is second year college for a chemistry degree so if its difficult to understand i tried my best to keep it simple 😅
@@ChemicalDistractions i'm in 3rd year of high school and we're just repeating 7-8th grade elementary:(
Theres some fun stuff in highschool i'm sure you'll enjoy 👍 unfortunately though alot of the cool stuff is locked behind the college DLC
I thought vinegar WAS acetic acid?????? 😂
God that title is awful😂
Nice vid
Molecular sieves
moleculaR SIEVES anyone??
I actually have molecular sieves and i was going to use them but with some research i found that acid actually destroys them. plus you would need alot to remove 95% of the water.
LIKE
☝️ *promosm*
Turning Vinegar into Acetic Acid using stuff from Walmart ??? Should change your title to "Turning Vinegar into Acetic Acid using stuff from Walmart if you already have a $1000 distillation apparatus and commercial fume hood" Inaccurate titles really make web searches painfully pointless.
I just buy my 45%+ acetic acid online lol
Vinegar is acetic acid