what's up guys welcome back to the king
of random labs where I've got a little
experiment cooking up for a today now
the inspiration for this experiment
today goes back to the video where we
made the pull-tab smoke grenade you
might remember I cooked up a huge batch
of this rocket fuel to the point where
it was spilling over the edges and
almost making contact with the burner
itself that made me a little bit nervous
because there was a chance the whole
thing could go up in my face at one so
the purpose of this experiment is to
find out just that how much heat can
this mix your take before it will
spontaneously burst into flames oh and
we're going to test gunpowder too now if
you ever stop to read the labels of any
pyrotechnic composition including
fireworks you'll probably see the basket
to store it in a cool dry place away
from any flames heat or sparks but the
question really is how hot is too hot I
mean say you have this stuff sitting in
your garage in the middle of summer and
gets incredibly hot in there at what
temperature can we reasonably expect
this stuff will go up not really sure
let's find out and the other question my
mind is what exactly happens to
gunpowder when you put on the stove does
it melt together does it go off in
flames or to sit there and do nothing
let's get cooking and find out so here's
what we're working with today I've got a
20 gram mix of our rocket fuel because
when this goes off it's going to
generate a lot of smoke and I want to
limit it to 20 grand batch we've also
got some pyro decks muzzleloading
propellant as well as some green dot
smokeless gunpowder for reloading
cartridges let's start off with the
rocket fuel first we'll throw this white
powder in a pan heat it up until it
caramelizes it and keep cooking it until
it burns too Chris I've also got an
infrared thermometer so we can keep
track of the temperature as well as an
IR camera so we can actually see the
heat changes taking place now that's
going to take just a minute for this to
start to warm up if I use a spatula we
can help disperse the heat a little more
evenly what's interesting is this starts
off as a white powder but the sugar
begins to caramelize and turn it into a
syrup and observe the potassium nitrate
into it and what the hits that
consistency we just back away slowly and
let it cook electricity buzzing bring
out our temperature gauge here we're
starting off at about 76 degrees
Fahrenheit that's about room temperature
right now if we go over the burner
showing about 74 as well so the heat is
just coming on to that all right so it's
in about forty-five seconds we're up to
85 degrees Fahrenheit the burner is now
at once there
too so we're definitely on the right
looking good infrared cameras rolling at
this point we just buckle down and watch
but there's usually about the point
where I start getting nervous because
when I see the stuff burning it makes me
feel like it is going to burst into
flames alright we're up to 350 now
there's quite a bit of smoke coming off
of this right now a lot of little black
spots where you can see everything's
been charged and it almost looks like
this composition is cooking and drying
out the bubbling is starting to reduce
now the burner itself is over 500
degrees so it shows there is still quite
a bit of heat that can go into that pot
so I think we still have a chance for
getting this to go off here oh we're up
to 400 now the temperature is starting
to rise you can see all the bubbling
stopped it's not gooey and bubbly like
it was before it's pretty much flattened
out for the most part looks like a burnt
oatmeal cookies now I've never played
with rocket fuel that was hot before
there's a chance that this could combust
very vigorously if it starts from the
bottom it could actually explode out of
the pot and spew rocket fuel all over my
workshop might be a good time to put on
the lab jacket checking what the
temperature gauge it seems to have
leveled off around four hundred and
twenty degrees Fahrenheit it's not
climbing much more than that but this
whole thing is nearly black at this
point black and very burnt brown there's
no bubbling there's no movement there's
no hissing it's just sitting there
stagnating and starting to wonder if
exceeding even go off at all of course
if it doesn't that would be the best
thing that could happen to us because we
don't want this stuff going off lower
cooking it doing so you know what I'm
going to do is grab a fork and let's
poke this thing and flip it over like a
pancake and cook both side oh wow very
late and crispy almost like a meringue
so interesting update guys it's been
about 15 minutes we've been cooking this
thing on high heat we've got up to 430
degrees Fahrenheit and instead of
combusting in the giant ball of flames
instead of birth itself into a black ash
and at this point I'm not even sure if
it's still on wall so why don't we take
a spoonful of it and apply it directly
to the burner itself
all right here we go
Oh giggle off a little bit interesting
ok so Wow and come look at the residue
here it's got kind of son victims gummy
syrupy residue I'll look up in the
ceiling you can actually see all the
smoke clouds lingering in the ceiling
here now we got this mixture up to 400
degrees Fahrenheit and it would not go
off but when we applied it directly to
the burner it did go off relatively
quickly the difference is the burner is
720 degrees Fahrenheit well the pot
itself was just 400 the auto-ignition
temperature must be somewhere in between
that I guess the lesson to learn from
this is if you're cooking this stuff
make sure it doesn't fall on the burn
all right so just for fun let's go ahead
and pour the rest sweet look at the
smoker role in feeling interesting
update guys the syrupy stuff stuck to
the burner isn't a sugar composition at
all it's actually molten potassium
nitrate we can tell that because we use
something like a paper towel to wipe it
up it instantly begins to combust all
right guys we got our workstation
cleaned up and we did learn a few things
but I'm still not entirely satisfied I
want to see the stuff burst into flames
as the temperatures still rising so this
time I'm gonna make a new batch a little
bit smaller and this time I'm going to
build it directly on the burner itself
it's amazing that haven't gone off
820 degrees Fahrenheit I didn't know the
burners get that hug
there goes oh wow that was amazing that
was amazing we got up to eight hundred
and thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit and
then it spontaneously combusted that one
off really fast it's like sitting all
these little fireballs in every
different direction and that went off so
fast I really wasn't expecting it by
this point I was almost giving up on it
actually happening and then boom there
goes I have to admit that did take me a
little bit off guard lots of fun lots of
fireballs lots of smoke that's really
cool that was amazing who got up to
eight hundred and thirty-five degrees
Fahrenheit and then it spontaneously
combusted that one off really really
fast and look at the black ash residue
if you look closely you can still see
the coals are glowing red down there
what do that if I blow on it that is
some of the glowing carbon left over
from that sugar now that's up to
temperature let's put it on a little bit
more and see if we have the same
reaction
interesting that's very encouraging guys
we actually had to max out this burner
get up to eight hundred and thirty
degrees Fahrenheit before the
composition actually went off so it
makes me a lot more confidence during
this thing up because you really
shouldn't be going over about 200-250 at
most there's a really nice wide range of
butter there when cooking up our Rockets
cool so now it makes me wonder how would
gunpowder react let's play up this
workbench and try that next for our
second experiment here we're going to
try pyro decks I've got my burner back
down to 420 degrees Fahrenheit right now
I'm not sure if that's too hot or not so
I'm just going to take a small spoonful
of this sprinkle a few grains in the
center do it happen it's already
starting to smoke a little bit 590
Fahrenheit we're at 660 Fahrenheit and
climbing it's smoking pretty good though
isn't it feel like that's got to go off
in an instant any minute now 670 so this
is the pyrotechnics we've maxed out at
about 900 degrees Fahrenheit which is
way higher than this thermometer can go
and apparently is as high as this can go
now in looking at the powder it's no
longer a powder it's much down and
turned into some kind of a sludge a
black sludge I don't know if it's still
flammable or not so to kill this stuff
off I'm going to take a plan from a BBQ
matter and a field still at night here
we go well more truth
yep still works still works apparently
our pyrotechnics will not light off even
at 800 to 850 degrees Fahrenheit we had
to go to the flame to get that to work
next up smokeless gunpowder same routine
as before we're starting the burner at
five hundred and eighty degrees
Fahrenheit and working our way up so
we're actually down to about 530
Fahrenheit here let's see how this works
out a bit of powder in the middle and
there goes wow that was instant and
notice there is no smoke that is
smokeless that's actually really cool so
smokeless gunpowder apparently will take
off a lot faster boom and look no smoke
no smoke no residue just turn and burn
and I could do this all day long so just
from this small experiment so far I'd
say that smokeless gunpowder is a lot
bigger fire hazard than any of the other
compositions we've played with so far so
I let our burner cool down to two
hundred eighty degrees Fahrenheit so we
can add a small pile of smokeless
gunpowder to the center of the burner
and then bring up the temperature I want
to find out exactly what temperature
this stuff goes off at all right let's
turn up the heat my guess is this is
going to go out somewhere around 3 90
and 400 and here's what we're looking at
work early 280 degrees Fahrenheit and
started to climb 400 420 430 there you
go 430 degrees Fahrenheit 430 degrees
Fahrenheit that's pretty cool case we're
back down to 410 Fahrenheit and the
verdict is
it's still work there's nothing there
enough residual heat so i would say
anywhere between about 390 fahrenheit in
about 430 is where the stuff is going to
go off interesting let's turn off the
burner and talk about what we just
learned here today we entered this
experiment with the purpose to find out
what temperature our solid state rocket
fuel would go off if it accidentally
came in contact with the burner from our
experiments here today we saw that it
would not auto ignite in the pot itself
but instead burn to a crisp and grind
down into a fine black ash but we also
saw that when we transfer that ash onto
the hot plate itself it would still
ignite so we tried an experiment making
a new batch of rocket fuel and running
it right on the burner itself and found
that it would auto tonight somewhere
around eight hundred and thirty degrees
Fahrenheit next we try to commercial
pyro decks muzzleloading propellant and
put it directly under the burner where
we maxed out the heat maxed out the
thermometer and had no successful
auto-ignition instead of turn into some
kind of a gloopy black page but we found
that it still would ignite with a lick
from a BBQ plan last but not least we
tried smokeless gunpowder putting that
directly on the hot plate we found that
went up in an instant if we cooled the
burner down to around 280 degrees and
slowly warm it up from there where it
auto ignited around 430 degrees
Fahrenheit we can come to the conclusion
that the highest risk material for
spontaneous combustion in your garage
would be smokeless gunpowder although
the chances of your garage getting up to
400 Fahrenheit aren't very high well
that is it for this set of experiments
today guys thanks for hanging out I'll
be looking for you the next video
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