Hello my friends we're back in the lab today and we are here for this experiment because of Nishit Dua
who posted a comment asking what would happen if we added food coloring to liquid nitrogen
would it actually color the liquid or would the pigment just freeze?
and this is a comment thats been gaining quite a bit of popularity in the comments lately and thats why we are doing it today.
So here's the setup we've got guys, I've got a Styrofoam cup filled with liquid nitrogen
you can see that's getting frosty, and I've got a fairly dirty drinking glass.
and this experiment really is as simple as it sounds
we're going to pour liquid nitrogen into the glass, squirt in some food coloring and observe what happens.
This is the glass we used from the firecracker, you can tell from the battle wounds right there
its like spewing off like fireworks look at the top here can you see that?
oh I can hear the glass cracking
right here
It's cracking right there but I think we're still going to get it to work.
Now I went down to the grocery store and picked up a variety of food colorings
I got the regular kind and I also got the neon kind which theoretically should fluoresce under UV light.
Now you already know that if we squirt food coloring into a glass of water the food coloring mixes with the water disperses and makes a very spectacular show
and from that point it's very very difficult to get the color out of the liquid.
it is possible, but very tricky.
So here we are guys we've got our liquid nitrogen successfully transferred into our cup
The cup has had a chance to cool down, and it has cracked but it looks like its holding together.
So we're gonna go ahead and try the experiment anyway.
and I think I'm going to use red because its a little bit more stark contrast and should show up a little more visibly.
So here's your chance to make your prediction down in the comments below
when I squirt the red food coloring into the liquid nitrogen will the nitrogen change color or will the food coloring just freeze
You've got five seconds to leave your comment and then we begin.
Rather than just dripping it in, I think I'm going to start off with a large squirt. Here we go.
Oh and it still comes out in little beads.
okay lets quickly stir that around. Stir it, stir it, stir it.
and what is happening? It's stuck to my popsicle stick.
It actually looks like a popsicle. and what we've got here are little beads of food coloring dye.
They've cooled down completely. Interesting.
Our glass is still holding up, that's a good sign.
Alright so maybe I need to start stirring it up faster because even with only a second the food coloring froze solid
and you can see that nitrogen hasn't changed color at all, so I'm going to do another big squirt and this time we'll do it as I'm stirring
Here we go, in 3,2,1
Oooh a cloud of mysterious smoke, can't see anything
just gonna put tons, we're gonna put it all in there.
and would you look at that.
everything's settling down now and even stirring as quickly as I could we've just made giant frozen globs of food coloring.
The nitrogen itself hasn't changed color at all, it still looks like crystal clear water, very very cold water
now we have cryogenic food coloring
Okay so even with stirring the nitrogen as quickly as I could and dumping an entire bottle of red food coloring in it, we still were not able to color liquid nitrogen.
All that really happened was I think the food coloring was sucked into the middle and froze to itself and now we've got giant red globs of cryogenic coloring.
interesting
My thermos is creaking
So we can already see here that the nitrogen is not going to be affected by the food coloring
So were you right? if you were give yourself a pat on the back.
In the meantime I'm going to grab three more of these containers of food coloring and dump them all at once.
Here comes the big squirt in 3,2,1
Aww nice
Get em all get em all
its like milking a cow
so we can get that top one
Moooo
Alright greens down, yellows next, there goes yellow
Blue
Lets see what kind of colorful mess we've got here.
Almost out of nitrogen
So thats crazy, the food coloring was actually so hot compared to the liquid nitrogen that it boiled off most of the nitrogen
and now we're just left with this really crazy looking glob that kinda looks like melted wax crayons that just congealed together
very cold and very crispy even a little bit shiny look at that.
That right there is frozen food coloring if you ever wanted to know.
It's very interesting
It all kind of globed together then froze, didn't it?
Wonder if I tap that if I can break it.
Oh yep there it goes.
Inside, we've got different layers of colours...
And little caves. Looks like there are air bubbles or air pockets inside there.
You know that would be really cool?
If we filled up a glass with really really hot water and dumped this all in at once.
Let's try that next.
So here we are guys, nice big, hot glass of water,
big chunk of frozen food colouring. Let's make the drop.
Look how fast it sinks! Like, the colour drops to the bottom of the glass.
And it started off individual colours. I saw red, green, a little bit of yellow, some blue in there.
And then it just dropped. And now the whole thing has turned black.
Look at that. Looks like we've still got a big chunk of food colouring.
It's kind of "globbier" on the sides. Although now its exposed to the air and its re-freezing.
But it looks like there's some air bubbles in there
preventing that from sinking, so it just floats on the top.
Oh, and look in here! We've got little food colouring Dippin' Dots.
An assortment of colors. Look at how quickly they frost over.
Now you can't tell what colour they are.
Let's go for a little dip.
In and out.
Very cool.
Now just for fun and because we're feeling a little bit crazy, I'm going to take the rest of this
food colouring and nitrogen, and pour it into the glass.
It's gonna be messy... So gonna do it kinda slowly here.
That's cool.
Gotta love liquid nitrogen, man.
Oh, look at that on top! Looks beautiful. It almost looks drinkable.
Like candy.
That liquid is looking really syrupy right now.
What would happen if we put our glass in there? You think we could thermally shock it?
Oh, it's gonna spill over...
Huh, it didn't crack. That's surprising.
It just kinda coloured the edges a little bit.
That's a little disappointing.
We're gonna make it crack!
The King of Random freezie hoard.
So guys, I think we successfully answered the question: What does food colouring do when you drop it in liquid
nitrogen? Does it colour the nitrogen? Or does it freeze solid? You now know the answer!
And a big thanks to Nishit Dua for posting this suggestion down in the comments.
Nishit, you can go check your YouTube inbox: I'm sending you twenty-five bucks.
Well that is it for this experiment, guys. I think our work here is done.
Thanks for joining me for this video, and I'll be looking for you in the next one. Talk to you then.
Gotta pick up all these little pieces before they melt and stain my workbench.