Hey, guys! In this video I will show you a few very cool reactions with acetylene.
There will be photochemical reactions, liquid gases and fire and explosions and you’ll see them all in slow-mo.
Just the way you like it
So, in this video we will have some reactions with solid acetylene.
If we add a few pieces of it into potassium permanganate solution,
we can see the solution discolor due to the oxidation of acetylene to oxalic acid.
Now I’ll show you a photochemical reaction of acetylene and chlorine.
To perform the reaction we’ll need ordinary chlorine bleach,
and we will add a little bit of hydrochloric acid to it.
As a result of this reaction, the mixture is quickly turning yellow-green and chlorine gas is forming
Calcium carbide reacts with water, which produces gaseous acetylene
Now, for chlorine to react with acetylene, I’ll point a UV-light to our reaction beaker.
Look at the initiation of this reaction by a UV-light in slowmo.
Now take a look at the photochemical reaction of chlorine and hydrogen.
In order to get hydrogen, I used a reaction of lithium hydride with water
Then I just poured some liquid chlorine and pointed a UV-light beam to the reaction flask.
See how a cloudy flask becomes transparent
as the reaction results in yellow-green chlorine turning into colorless hydrogen chloride,
which then starts to fume in air.
Let’s take a look at this experiment once again, only this time we’ll try to stopper the flask
Unlike gaseous acetylene,
solid acetylene combusts instantaneously on contact with chlorine
Let's take a look at this in slow-mo
And now let’s see what will happen if I drop the pieces of solid acetylene in liquid chlorine.
I’ll cool down a watch glass to make chlorine vaporize more slowly
If we pour some liquid oxygen to burning acetylene, it will only enhance acetylene combustion
The contact of liquid oxygen with acetylene provokes no reaction
unless we add a fire source to it
It’s quite interesting that we can see a similar explosion with other acetylene derivatives
like phenylacetylene, for example.
But everything is going to be completely different if oxygen contains ozone.
Acetylene reacts explosively on contact with ozone.
If we bring the test-tube with liquid ozonated oxygen to solid acetylene,
ozone vapor will cause acetylene to flare up.
The fire-temperature of acetylene in ozone is much higher than that of acetylene in oxygen.
A watch glass can’t withstand it and, thus, shutters in a blink
However, there will be no flare like the one we had with chlorine, if we add liquid ozonated oxygen to solid acetylene.
Instead, the reaction with ozone will result in an explosion.
Now let’s drop a few pieces of frozen acetylene in liquid ozonated oxygen and see what will happen.
Unlike pale blue liquid oxygen, liquid ozonated oxygen is bright blue
Oxygen starts boiling at much lower temperature than ozone does,
which makes it faster to vaporize from the ozone/oxygen mixture,
and the color gradually changes from bright blue to purple as the vaporization occurs.
Actually, unstable liquid ozone is likely to play a bigger part in this experiment explosion-wise, than acetylene does.
Do you remember the reaction of acetylene with chlorine I showed you at the beginning of this video?
Well, now let’s repeat this experiment, this time using an additional component:
ozone.
Let’s compare these two reactions one more time.
As you might notice, this reaction resulted in a far less amount of soot,
since it oxidized to carbon dioxide in the ozone/oxygen mixture.
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