4 ms·
I've been doing something similar since I was, like, 10? Put some aluminium in water, add lye, and you got hydrogen. For me it worked because it was faster than
by lvxferre 5y ago
I've been doing something similar since I was, like, 10? Put some aluminium in water, add lye, and you got hydrogen. For me it worked because it was faster than electrolysis, enough to fill balloons with. [inb4 yes, my childhood was weird and I got access to lye.]
As another user mentioned however this is more expensive than making hydrogen the "old" way. You're better off recycling the aluminium.
- xkcd-sucks 5y agoYeah I was going to say, when I was a preteen, would mix lye (in principle, sustainably produced via leaching wood ash) with aluminum (not sustainably produced, but readily available), fill up garbage bags with H2 and torch them for lols. A bit scary when the pot got hot enough to boil. Generally stopped blowing things up after sex, drugs, appreciation for injury all started to seem more important
- pengaru 5y agoOne of my childhood neighbors had an in-ground pool which gave him access to all sorts of pool cleaning chemicals... many an "hcl bomb" were made from 2-liter bottles and aluminum foil scraps.
- litoE 5y agoBack in grad school we would put lye, water and aluminum foil in an empty wine bottle, tie a (unused) condom around the neck of the bottle, wait for it to inflate and then light it up with a match tied to a very long stick.
- djmips 5y agoLye is fairly common. In my childhood you could even buy, as a child, things like potassium nitrate at the drug store.
- dghughes 5y ago> yes, my childhood was weird and I got access to lye. I used to make gunpowder. Sulphur and potassium nitrate at the local pharmacy and charcoal from the BBQ. I wasn't very successful because it all has to be ground really fine without killing yourself. I just lit it never made anything with it more for the science than anything. The Radioactive Boy Scout was ten years later but if I had been aware of him and of Americium (I probably was) I bet I would have tried that too. I was a nerdy kid on my own but a 75% range (C) student in school. Weird is good but it seems to be frowned upon these days. Too often it's seen as dangerous to even just ask about certain things.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoHrhrhr. I did pipe-bombs with it with which I've torn down brick walls of abandoned buildings which where already rotten. Water bombs also, with electrical ignition via very thin wires and flashbulbs. I don't get the 'without killing yourself' though. Black powder isn't like the potassium chlorate you have when messing around with fertilizer. You can grind every constituent of it all day like you want. And then mix the grinds together. Maybe avoid static electricity. But that's what cotton clothing is for, isn't it?
- fuzzfactor 5y agoLye, aka the industrial commodity Caustic Soda. I advise people to stop young, by the time I grew up it was shiploads. Nobody's fault but mine.