hey welcome to Beals Science i'm Craig Beals. Today we're going to look at three different
experiments for making carbon snakes. This is a decomposition reaction that leaves a bunch of
carbon behind and makes these crazy structures! But we're going to do it in three different ways,
each one of them is special. One of them you can try at home the other two you should never
ever try, but they're also the really cool ones! So stick with me. Today, carbon snakes!
We're gonna start with one carbon snake that's reasonably safe to do at home. You'll need sugar,
you'll need fuel, I'm gonna use methanol and baking soda. I'm gonna start with about a one
to five ratio, one-ish gram of baking soda, and about five grams of sugar. I'm gonna take the
fuel and I'm going put it in the sand, I'm using dirt here, you can use sand or whatever else.
I've got an evaporating dish that can withstand the heat. I'm just going to dump that
sugar baking soda mixture in the middle and then light the fuel as it evaporates out of
the sand. Now watch what happens. Let me tell you, this is over the course of 15 minutes.
So, if you're expecting this crazy reaction to happen really fast at home it's not going to.
But it's still really cool! Look at how that sugar has dehydrated
and how the carbon is left behind! I mean it smells wonderful, like burnt marshmallows,
and if we look at the reaction we can see that sucrose combusts with the oxygen in the air to
produce carbon dioxide water, and a whole bunch of heat, that's that delta H number over there.
For our second version of the carbon snake we're going to use concentrated
sulfuric acid which makes this one a really bad experiment to try so don't try it.
I mean the acid vapors coming off of this are just choking. But i'm going to use a hundred grams
of powdered sugar so I'm measuring out 50 grams 2 times because that's what my balance can handle.
Next up is concentrated sulfuric acid. This stuff is nasty it's wicked nasty so we gotta
be careful. We're doing it outside. This is not to try at home this stuff, it will just
melt you! We're gonna do 100 milliliters. Here goes nothing dump it in give it a mix.
We can see it's starting to decompose.
It's dehydrating which means the water's coming off. There we go!
Look at all that steam coming off of there! That is hot!
Can you hear that? It's almost solid! As this cools down it's going to get a rigid,
nice solid structure. There we go! Carbon snake with sulfuric acid! This one's a good one.
If you're wondering about the chemistry you can see how the sugar and the sulfuric acid interact
to produce carbon and the carbon dioxide water vapor and that yellow smoke, the sulfur dioxide.
But ultimately down there at the bottom you can see we're producing carbon, water vapor, and a
whole lot of heat! It's a nice carbon structure. You could probably carve that into something!
That probably could use a little work but there you go we just made really crude sidewalk chalk!
Of all the ways I'm going to show you how to make a carbon snake, this is the one I'm most
excited about. Usually, the ones that I show you on YouTube and teach about are ones that
I've been doing and practicing. But this time you get to be the first! I've never seen it in person.
I'm gonna call this one the carbon cobra snake and I think you'll find out why! This one uses, get
ready for some organic chemistry, p-nitroaniline or 4 nitroaniline, and then we're going to use the
concentrated sulfuric acid that we used before. Again this is not a try at home one. It looks like
carbon, almost like graphite but it's not, it's much more complex. I've measured out
five grams and I'm going to add one milliliter of sulfuric acid and then we're gonna heat this up.
Okay, now we wait. That's going to heat up, it's going to start to liquefy
that way the sulfuric acid and the 4 nitroaniline can start to mix together and...here we go!
*Laughing*
Oh, look at it! Isn't that incredible?! Look at how light this is! It's, it's just feather light!
It's this perfect form... I can't even talk I'm so excited! This perfect foam just forms like that!
You can see the yellow from the sulfuric acid combining, reacting. This is an incredibly complex
reaction. I'm going to add some information on my website at bealscience.com, you can look down
in the description, and I want to show you this amazing reaction one more time, but before I do, I
want to say thank you to Mel Science. Mel Science has sponsored several of my videos lately because
we have a shared vision that science should be fun, it should be accessible, and it should
inspire young people or all people to explore their interests and explore their curiosity! So,
thank you to Mel Science! My kids have been doing Mel Science activities as they get shipped to us
month by month and they've been enjoying every minute of it. And if you go to Mel Science or down
there in the description right now, you can find a link so that you can sign up and have science
sent directly to your house where it's all laid out nice and easy and super safe and you can be
wowed right in your own home! And, as promised, one more time. But this time in a beaker so we
can watch the reaction happen. There we go! You can see the sulfur compounds coming off the top!
You can see beginning to boil and then...
It's like a genie erupting out of the bottle!
*Laughing, clapping*
Oh, thank you!
Isn't that awesome?! There you go - several ways to make a carbon snake! So, if you like chemistry,
if you like these kinds of experiments, again thanks to Mel Science for sponsoring the video.
Go over there check it out they actually have an experiment like this that you can safely
do at home. I appreciate you watching! Hit the like button! Maybe hit the subscribe button! Both
would be fantastic! I would greatly appreciate it! And the reason I do all of these is to remind you
to Keep on Learning! And thanks for watching! I'm gonna take my new foam pillow and go home...