in today's video we're testing if
diamonds really are forever what happens
if we try to burn one
[Music]
previously on this channel we've showed
you how to make liquid oxygen by taking
liquid nitrogen putting it in an
insulating container and letting it just
evaporate off what the liquid nitrogen
has boiled off you're left with a very
small amount of liquid oxygen which is a
very cold very pale blue substance we
should get a little bit in each of these
eight cups and we already set these up
to start letting the liquid nitrogen
boil away because it takes at least an
hour to do and we've gotten it to the
point where it's boiled down most of the
way but we've still got at least 30%
left I think hopefully over the next
15-20 minutes that will boil off and
we'll get that pale blue liquid Callie
was explaining about that should be
liquid oxygen and we should be able to
just combine that all into one cup once
we're done and hopefully do some cool
experiments with that and our three
forms of carbon that we have pencil
graphite charcoal and diamonds all three
of these types of carbon are things that
we see and use in our regular days and
they Hal have pretty different
properties charcoal of course comes from
burning wood in a low oxygen environment
and graphite and diamond are both
naturally occurring forms of carbon that
are mined from the ground
so while diamonds are still as far as we
know the hardest substance they're
actually weaker than graphite in one way
the atomic structure of a diamond is
formed in a three-dimensional lattice
whereas a graphite is actually formed
with it tightly bonded sheets now it's
actually kind of interesting because at
a chemical level graphite is stronger
however in practical use in size in a
way that we're going to run into you can
crumble graphite with your fingers you
can crush charcoal with your hands with
diamonds you're gonna need something
stronger I don't think I could crunch a
diamond no matter how hard I tried I
mean you could try and be entertaining
for all of us it's just not gonna go
anywhere so once our liquid oxygen is
finished forming we can start doing
experiments with our three forms of
carbon and that liquid oxygen to see how
they react here's the basic idea we have
three different types of carbon and we
want to see what happens if we burn them
in liquid oxygen all right guys time for
a quick update we had our cups full of
liquid nitrogen trying to extract oxygen
out of the air
and how much did we get out of that
calli that would be none zero like not
even a drip down at the bottom
absolutely none out of that so we
decided to scale up to a Sully more
industrial oxygen farming technique we
brought in our friend Alexander to show
us how about to do that Alexander tell
us just a little bit about your
experience in this field well I am
currently studying engineering at the
University of Utah and sometimes we do
demonstrations in which we might need
liquid oxygen and so the method that we
use is we use an industrial oxygen tank
and then a little bit of liquid nitrogen
it turns out that nitrogen boils at
about 77 Kelvin and oxygen boils at
about 90 Kelvin which means we can use
liquid nitrogen to condense oxygen gas
and form liquid oxygen so right here
we've got this is just a coil of copper
it was like 10 bucks at the hardware
store
we then wrapped it around a piece of PVC
pipe being very careful not to kink it
anywhere so there is still smooth flow
all the way down so it comes in through
this hose here and then travels all the
way down to the bottom coil here and
this part is submerged in the liquid is
correct yeah then this comes up back and
hooks and so we'll have liquid nitrogen
in this this gets submerged down into
the liquid nitrogen and you can see it's
just got a little fountain spout and
we're just gonna pour that right into
our Styrofoam cup so basically the idea
is oxygen gas comes in here this entire
length of copper tubing is going to cool
it down about 300 Kelvin and then right
at the bottom it's going to have the
right temperature that it will condense
into a liquid and the back pressure from
the oxygen gas will pour it out we'll
get a nice little fountain a very pale
blue liquid pouring down into our
Styrofoam cup and that's what we can
really start the fun so let's pour some
liquid nitrogen off and then turn on our
oxygen tank and get this fountain going
most of the bubbling has settled down I
mean there's still bubbles coming out of
it but it's settled down to the point
where it's not like exploding all over
which means our copper has now been
cooled down by quite a bit all right so
we're going to start the flow of oxygen
and then we should start to see in like
10 seconds a nice pale blue liquid
coming out of the spout just clearing
the the line I think yep so right now
we're cooling the oxygen down
300 Kelvin and then as soon as it gets
to that temperature and we get a
sufficient amount of it it will start
pouring out into the cup here okay so we
can start to see little bits of liquid
oxygen oh my gosh and now we're starting
to get a more consistent flow you can
see as the oxygen makes contact with the
copper here the frost recedes back
because it's actively cooling it again
so one milliliter of liquid oxygen
expands to about 860 milliliters of
oxygen gas at room temperature what
you're seeing here once we've filled up
this cup is really quite a significant
quantity so I a quarter teaspoon of it
would provide enough oxygen gas to fill
like a two-liter bottle or one liter
bottle yeah check this out we now have a
big old cup full of liquid oxygen it's a
nice pale blue shade I stick my finger
in it real quick it's gonna freeze my
glove pretty much the same way liquid
nitrogen does it's also significantly
more dangerous than liquid nitrogen so
liquid nitrogen basically the worst it
can do is freeze your skin and give you
cryogenic burns liquid oxygen can do
that as well but it can also help things
become extremely flammable so oxygen gas
itself is not flammable that's a pretty
common misconception things like propane
hydrogen those are flammable oxygen gas
is important in sustaining fire though
and right here we have a cup of very
very concentrated oxygen the oxygen in
the air around us is about 21% obviously
the air isn't very dense this is about
as dense as water and it is 100 percent
oxygen which means that it will allow us
to make things that aren't normally
considered very flammable burn extremely
well we've got some liquid nitrogen here
we've got a clear cup and I think we
want to use the clear cup to do this and
so we can see things a little bit better
but we don't want to lose too much of
our liquid oxygen so we're gonna use the
nitrogen to cool this down before we put
the liquid oxygen into the cup
[Music]
so pretty
yep it's a beautiful pale blue color
because it absorbs all of the red
wavelengths from the atmosphere Wow
yeah so the quantum notation for that is
a triplet Sigma gerado oxygen molecule
goes with added to the product of
Planck's constant and the wavelength
that you're going to absorb then goes to
a singlet Delta gerado
oxygen molecule you lost me at triple
singlet stigmata this is charcoal
charcoal is almost entirely carbon it's
not going to be a hundred percent pure
there's gonna be residue left from the
wood gas and stuff like that but it's
mostly carbon so we're gonna do is we're
gonna get this burning and then drop
that down into our pure liquid oxygen
and it's not going to explode no it
shouldn't explode the oxygen is going to
be stoichiometrically in a very high
excess so it should burn very readily
and very brightly but it shouldn't
explode all right here goes we're
trusting you Alexander just gonna hit
this little tiny piece of charcoal with
a blowtorch
here goes yep so you can see even though
it's currently sitting in a cryogenic
liquid it is still burning very very
brightly and that's because there's lots
and lots of heat being formed and that
charcoal is currently being converted
and has now been all converted into
carbon dioxide gas since it's acting in
a pure oxygen environment there's going
to be nothing left but gas that's
amazing yeah by the way the super
awesome slow-mo footage we've got today
is courtesy of kuma films this is
amazing so oh look at this even just
right as it was falling in like at when
it was at the top of the cup first
falling in for the first time it was
pretty dull by the time it reached the
surface it was already glowing brighter
so you can see it's just in the higher
oxygen environment it hasn't even hit
the liquid yet and then it does hit the
liquid and just goes
the balance yeah and then all the sparks
become off it's like a personal firework
show fireworks in a cuddler next up we
have our slightly more ordered form of
carbon
this is graphite that's been pressed
together into the shape of a pencil core
we broke a piece out we're going to try
and burn this drop it into the liquid
oxygen and see if there's anything
different about it than the charcoal
[Music]
maybe it wasn't hot enough it's it's not
stopping though it's still reacting but
only the part that's outside yeah yeah
yeah went out
[Music]
we didn't get any reaction out of the
graphite and it's possible that our
torch wasn't hot enough it's possible
that the configuration of graphite we
pulled out of a pencil is maybe a little
bit the wrong formula but there is one
more type of carbon that we want to try
Dimond that's right so we have some
diamonds
Kalli where's our diamonds okay look I
believe total I was wearing an eighth of
a carat an eighth of a carat of very low
grade but still diamond so glowing
orange as are the tip of my forceps what
happened to our last diamond Nate what
did you do to it I burned it up so I was
using these forceps and they were very
cheap and my torch actually started just
melting them so I was having a really
hard time holding onto the diamond and I
kept dropping it and then one of the
times I dropped it there was just
nothing left to pick back up here you go
try not to burn this one up until I drop
it into the liquid oxygen at which point
I hope it brings up spectacularly oh my
yeah there we go
it took some doing but it started and
actually burnt shine bright like a
diamond it's yes new meaning of that
turn
[Music]
that's so much cooler of an ending than
most diamonds are gonna get can you
destroy diamonds you can destroy
diamonds innumerable many ways but this
is probably the most fun we're just go
I'm not actually gonna drop this in I'm
just gonna hold it just right over the
top just that oxygen-rich environment
that's just charcoal burning at its
fullest
[Music]
this has been really cool Alexander
thank you for your expertise
come on films thank you so much for the
amazing slow-mo shots that we got today
beautiful amazing guys kuma films
they've got really cool stuff on their
channel go check that out guys thanks
for watching click up there to check out
our last video we'll see in the next one
talk to you then