Hey, guys! Today I’m going to show you a peculiar experiment with gallium.
I think you know that the melting point of gallium is lower than the temperature of a
human body, which makes this metal easy to melt even in
hand.
It is also easy to fill a syringe with, and so that’s what I did.
If you aim a jet of molten selenium at cold water, it will form granules that look like
red blood cells.
And now I will retry the experiment with gallium, pushing it out of the syringe into cold water.
When the jet gets into the water, lots of small gallium balls start forming.
They are able to merge into one big drop.
Let’s see this process occur both at a very close range and in slow motion.
And then I became curious about what happens, if I aim a jet of molten gallium at liquid nitrogen
But before I show you the result, I’ll drip just a single drop of gallium onto liquid nitrogen
Hitting the surface of a petri dish, the gallium drop squashes and sets solid.
However, if hot gallium is dripped onto a regular solid surface, there is no consolidation occurring,
and the drop stays liquid for a pretty long time.
If gallium isn’t that hot, it may form a little pyramid,
as the surface tension depends on the temperature,
and, in this case, it doesn’t let the drop to smear.
Take a look at this process in slow motion.
Well, now I’m pushing a jet of molten gallium out of the syringe into liquid nitrogen.
In this case, gallium forms a thin thread.
Look how it froze to the wall
Well, guys, all of the processes we’ve been observing so far were more physical, rather
than chemical,
so it’s time to move on to chemistry
I’m filling a petri dish with bromine and adding a little bit of liquid gallium from
the syringe in it.
Reacting with bromine, gallium forms gallium tribromide.
You can see its crust on the surface of a gallium drop.
Now I’m adding some water to dissolve the crust and reveal the gallium surface.
A clean gallium surface like this one is very sensitive to bromine vapors.
Note how the drop starts to slip away from bromine vapors, as soon as I take them closer
to its surface.
Take a look at these macro shots of the gallium surface pulsations.
And now take a look at a slow-motion footage of bromine vapors contacting the surface of
the gallium drop.
Of course, you noticed a number of some drops running on the surface of the gallium drop.
But still, here’s a better view of them in slow-mo.
So, please, share your thoughts on this effect and why it occurs in the comments.
One more time, look. On the right, you can see a watch glass with the gallium drop, that
we got the way I showed in the video.
On the left, we have another watch glass, that I’m dripping a fresh drop of gallium
from the syringe on.
Now, if I take bromine vapors to this drop, it will not react to them the way the drop
on the right did.
Now I’m adding some water and a few drops of bromine,
and I’m removing the liquid around it with a syringe.
And now, if I take bromine vapors to this drop again, gallium starts to slip away from
them just like the drop on the right did.
Do you think there’s an analogy for gallium or mercury beating heart?
Let’s discuss this effect in the comments!
Thanks for watching guys! Ans special huge thanks to my patrons.
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Seeya