Hey guys! This is not a clickbait this is that very first video about the strongest acid in the world on YouTube
FluoroantImonic acid!
In this video we will bust all the myths about this chemical and find the answers to such questions as:
- What will happen if this acid gets on your skin?
- Can it really be stored in a Teflon container only?
- Does it explode on contact with water?
- How does it react with strong bases?
- Is that true that it dissolves glass quickly?
And, starting with the last one, I’ll tell you that it doesn’t.
In fact, it dissolves glass so slow, that, instead of my special Teflon spoon, I actually used glass pipettes
in most of the cases, and nothing really happened to them. An ordinary hydrofluoric acid reacts much better.
Some people in the comments got confused about the acid being stored in a metal can.
Well guys, many reagents are packed in this kind of cans to make them more safe to transport and to store.
However, there’s one more can inside the one you see, that contains the reagent itself.
Well, it’s time to open this can!
So, guys, one of the viewers on my channel got the point when he told that,
if you need instructions on how to open a can, you’d better stay away from chemical reagents forever.
The fume that came out of the can tells us that the reagent is not packed properly, so we need to be even more careful now.
Fluoroantimonic acid inside the can is packed in the same material the can itself was, when I got it
There’s a styrofoam collar on the bottom.
Although it seems there’s some kind of damage, everything’s actually in good condition,
and the package, that fluoroantimonic acid was placed in, is air-tight and filled with inert gas
And it’s the only thing we’ve left to open this package to get to the superacid.
Look at this guys! This is the world's strongest acid
Fluoroantimonic acid is the strongest acid in the world and it can be contained exclusively in teflon material.
However, as we can see, in this case it’s stored in the container made of some different material.
This material is called Perfluoroalkoxy alkane.
It is the copolymer of tetrafluoroethylene and perfluoroether, where R is a perfluorinated group such as trifluoromethyl or pentafluoroethyl or such.
The properties of these polymers are similar to those of polytetrafluoroethylene.
Introducing perfluorinated group into perfluorinated chain gives thermoplastic properties to the polymer,
which makes it possible to be used both in manufacturing of beakers, funnels and flasks, and for storing aggressive substances, such as this acid.
It also gives the polymer a semi-transparent look, which makes fluoroantimonic acid seem like it opalesces
Right after I open the container with the superacid, I’ll place it in a special, prearranged air-tight teflon container for further storing.
So, guys, now we need to figure out, what material the gloves should be made of to use the strongest acid for the upcoming experiments
Actually, it would be nice to use Silver Shield gloves 4H,
and maybe one day I’ll tell you about them, but now I prepared the most widespread types of gloves for the test,
which are vinyl, acid resistant rubber, fabric gloves, nitrile and latex.
When superacid interacts with vinyl gloves, they blacken and bubble. Maybe it’s not the type of gloves one should use to operate with it.
Now we’ll test how truly resistant acid resistant gloves are under the supercacid.
It seems they don’t get damaged that severely, but the color change is quiet unsettling. Let’s move on to the other types.
So, these are cotton gloves with polyvinyl chloride dots.
These gloves are good for holding anything, except fluoroantimonc acid.
They are 80% cotton, and fluoroantimonc acid acts very aggressively when it comes to cotton. By the way, it also burns through paper in a blink.
And here’s how it reacts with sawdust
Now let’s test the durability of nitrile gloves
It seems they are resistant to the effects of the superacid.
Oh, never mind, they’re not
Fuming nitric acid is able to set latex gloves on fire. But what fuming fluoroantimonic acid can do with them?
A longtime contact results in the color change, which clearly tells there’s a chemical reaction with latex.
However, unlike nitrile gloves, latex gloves turned out to be quiet durable when being stretched.
So, two pairs of latex gloves must be enough to protect your hands from accidental contact with fluoroantimonic acid.
Now let’s see how the strongest acid in the world reacts with flesh. I’ll use a chicken leg, like you asked
Chicken skin is quite similar to human skin in terms of properties,
so you might say the consequences of getting the superacid on an unprotected section of your body would be the same
Now it’s time for the meat and for the bone.
Now we’ll see how dangerous it is to add this acid in water
In chemistry, there’s such thing called magic acid. It’s a mixture of Fluorosulfuric acid and antimony pentafluoride.
The name “magic acid” originated after a Christmas party in 1966, when a member of the Olah lab placed a paraffin candle into the acid,
and found that it dissolved quite rapidly. That’s why some people in the comments asked to dissolve a candle,
expecting that fluoroantimonic acid is capable of producing the same effect. Well, I did try to dissolve a candle, so let’s see how this played out
A paraffin candle turned out to be resistant, despite fluoroantimonic acid being much stronger than magic acid
Actually, acid strength (ability to donate a proton to another molecule) doesn’t always correlate with its corrosiveness,
that is the ability of consuming materials
Fluoroantimonic acid is so incredibly strong it can even protonate methane.
With the help of fluoroantimonic acid it’s possible to complete direct benzene alkylation with methane into toluene in one step
I didn’t come up with any other way to demonstrate this property, so I’ll do it with the help of decoloration of potassium permanganate solution.
Many of you know, that benzene is not oxidized by potassium permanganate solution, unlike its homologues, that oxidize to benzoic acid in acid environment.
I looked up some articles on this topic and found out, that, despite its proceeding with toluene forming,
the reaction with methane has a very low yield. However, reaching to isopentane in the homologous series of alkanes, we can see an almost-10% yield.
So I took dry, freshly distilled benzene and added some fluoroantimonic acid to it.
We can see yellow color forming right away. This precipitate is diphenyltetrafluoroantimonic acid
If we add the mixture we got, to potassium permanganate solution, we won’t notice any changes.
If we add isopentane or the mixture of isopentane and benzene, nothing really changes either
But now I’ll put the mixture of isopentane and benzene with fluoroantimonic acid in the center testtube,
and we’ll find out whether the color of potassium permanganate solution will change in this case.
To be honest, I expected to see either no reaction at all or the discoloring of the solution, so I was surprised by a quick change from a pink to yellow-orange color.
Nevertheless, it indicates the reaction of isopentane with benzene in the presence of fluoroantimonic acid,
as no other combinations of these reagents had any result
Now let’s see how fluoroantimonic acid reacts with active metals.
The first one will be magnesium
As we can see, magnesium reacts with fluoroantimonic acid, producing hydrogen in the process.
Let’s drop some acid on a sodium surface.
And here’s some on a potassium surface.
Sometimes it happens that you need to buy a some chemical reagent that must be stored at low temperature.
In this case supplier companies pack them in thermal boxes made of styrofoam,
and some gel refrigerant packs are laid around them in order to maintain low temperatures.
So, let's take look at this
still cold
Well, I have two such reagents right now. We won’t need the first one today,
I’ll make a separate video about it in the future. But we do need this one right now.
This box contains a very strong base - tert-butyllithium. And, as you might notice, it’s also packed into cans.
One
two
three
and four
Well, guys, now we’ll try to add a very strong base to a very strong acid.
Tert-butyllithium is a pyrophoric substance, and I’ll show you, how extremely dangerous it is, in a separate video,
but for now, let’s take our reagent out of the can.
As you might notice, it’s packed inside in the same material fluoroantimonic acid was, and there’s also an additional pack with a protective atmosphere.
Tert-butyllithium fills a hundred-milliliter bottle by one quarter, the rest of it is occupied by inert gas. It’s done for a safer reagent collecting.
A syringe with this reagent is filled through a specific long needle, that, unfortunately, I couldn’t prepare for the shooting, so I’ll use a regular one.
Tert-butyllithium must always be collected only either in an inert gas flow or in a special glovebox.
I’ll make three holes in this white self-sealing silicone membrane.
Two holes will be used for argon circulation, and I will use the third one to collect one milliliter of the Tert-butyllithium solution in pentane.
If nothing ignites while you’re filling a syringe with the tert-butyllithium solution, you’re doing everything right
So let's mix strong base and extremely strong acid
I don't actually like base anymore
And here comes another strong base and an extremely strong alkali. This is caesium hydroxide!
And here's one more quite interesting experiment!
Roughly speaking, the sodium in liquid ammonia solution carries free electrons,
and if we assume that, on the other hand, fluoroantimonic acid carries free protons
and mix sodium in liquid ammonia solution with fluoroantimonic acid, we should get the reaction between electrons and protons,
that will supposedly lead to hydrogen forming. Well, let's find out if that's what really happens.
The wooden splint went out. What do you think this gas was? Was it hydrogen or hydrogen fluoride or ammonia or something else?
Sorry, guys, I can’t let you go without showing you this lovely explosive reaction between this acid and a strong base,
which is… sodium hydride
So guys, I hope I satisfied your curiosity about this chemical. Please do not mistake acid strength with its corrosiveness.
They do match in some cases as well as they don’t in some others.
So, hope you really enjoyed, leave a comment, thumbs up, patreon maybe If you want to help me buy chemicals and equipments
and don't forget to subscribe to the channel to see more videos about exotic chemicals and really cool chemical reactions.
See you in the next video