Aluminium and hydrochloric acid - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: blackjames
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 06:13:13 am
content: Hi all, yesterday i found some hydrochloric acid in the garage. My mum used to use it for lead lighting (like stained glass). I decided to play around with some because i had already had expirience with it at school. I put screws and washers and other scaps of metal into some. Allwent to plan. It just removed the coatings and oxides. Next i tried lighting the resulting gases on fire. Then i tried aluminium...... Epic fail. I put a 10cm length of din rail. At first nothing happened, the it started bubbling and i smelt an awful gas. Turns out it was hydrogen, and quite a lot. Now im scared shit-less. Was that a health risk?

author: notsob
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 06:33:29 am
content: Quote from: blackjames on December 12, 2012, 06:13:13 am"already had experience with it" and "turns out it was hydrogen" AND 'scared shitless'YOU should BEYOU ARE AN ACCIDENT looking for a place to HAPPENnext time there will be an explosion, you will lose your eye sight and a lot of skin.There are far too many serious accidents as it is, AND there is the WEB, please do some serious homework and take safety precautions before you do anything like this again.On the other side, a questioning mind is a great thing to have, just do a little research first and do experimenting safely.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 06:40:00 am
content: What the fuck would possess you to light the gases on fire??Curiosity and experimenting - good. Lighting unknown gases on fire - make an example of yourself to others. Fire and unknown substances don't mix and you should know that.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 06:58:58 am
content: If it smelled terrible, it wasn't hydrogen. Probably HCl gas, liberated by the heat of the Al/Acid reaction.Breathing acid fumes isn't a great idea; some acids can settle in your lungs, redissolving in the moisture there and killing you by destroying the tissue from the inside out. HCl actually isn't too bad in this sense, but trying the same stunt with nitric acid could be fatal.Igniting significant quantities of hydrogen is also a bad idea.The hydrochloric acid you used in school had probably been pre-diluted to 5 or 10% concentration, while straight out of the bottle is usually 37% (as strong as it gets, limited by the solubility of HCl gas in water.)Here's a picture of my daughter's "science project." She wanted to test that meme about meat dissolving in soda overnight. It doesn't. We did 10, 20, and 30% Hydrochloric, Sulfuric, and Citric acids instead. This is what a piece of cooked turkey looks like after 24 hours in 30% HCl - nothing left but purple discoloration... (You have HCl in your stomach. It seems to be pretty good at digesting food!)

author: RCMR
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 07:04:08 am
content: When I was about 12 years old I had a bright idea.As a young lad, keen on all things associated with electricity, I had a collection of old lead-acid batteries that I used to charge up and use for many of my experiments.One day I thought I'd see how well hydrogen would burn...Chemistry told me that one of the gases released when a LA battery was charged -- was H2.So why not try to ignite the gases coming off the battery that was busy fizzing away on the charger?Over I went with a lighter, struck a flame and --- BANG!Yep, blew the side right out of the 6V motorcycle battery that was on charge.Now the resulting bang was scary enough -- but then I realised I was covered in acid -- my teeshirt was soaked in it and so was the top of my jeans.I hurried to the tap and washed the acid off my face -- then sprinted to the bathroom and jumped out of my wet clothes before diving under a (still) cold shower -- just as the stinging started.Fortunately, I suffered no real burns (battery acid is fairly weak) -- only a slight redness for a few days.However, even though spent quite a while rinsing the acid out of them, fell apart when my mother washed them -- she was perplexed as to why a perfectly good teeshirt and jeans should "self-destruct" after a few minutes washing.So... lesson learned. Don't try to light flammable gasses -- especially if they're semi-contained some kind of vessel so that pressure can build up rapidly when they burn.Sometimes I wonder how I ever made it to adulthood!

author: poodyp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 07:22:12 am
content: Quote from: RCMR on December 12, 2012, 07:04:08 amI think one thing we all have in common with our parents, grandparents, and a lot of our ancestors is we have stories that make us wonder how we made it as far as we have.

author: ftransform
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 10:26:02 am
content: research chemicals/high voltage/high current/high velocity/high anything before you play with it.You will feel better without the anxiety of did i give myself cancer/heart problems/dna damage/brain damage/permanent tissue damage/eye damage/ear damage etc, even if it was not dangerous.Typically playing with the above mentioned things takes some cash investment and research in order to do safely.Don't be a careless experimenter that gets things illegal please.You just huffed some nasty fumes and you will be alright. At least you are not posting about ringing ears, pcb contaminated oil third degree burns and a frozen turkey leg shard stuck in your thigh.

author: RCMR
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 07:50:40 pm
content: Quote from: poodyp on December 12, 2012, 07:22:12 amUnfortunately, I fear that today's kids won't have the ability to enjoy such reflections -- as so many "dangerous" activities, substances and information is now banned -- in the name of safety.How will Darwinism work if we can't mortally wound ourselves in the quest for knowledge and fun?I feel sorry for today's kids -- Nerfworld is a great place to visit but a damned boring place to live.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 10:01:52 pm
content: YouTube provides a way of doing this safely:To be safe, watch someone else do it.It also provides a lesson in what may happen if you get things wrong:In summary, follow the advice given above. Research things carefully before you try them out.

author: lewis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 10:30:40 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on December 12, 2012, 10:01:52 pmNah! Get in there! Play! Try! Like this guy:http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html. Health and safety is for pussies!(Although don't mix acetone and hair bleach)

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2012, 11:57:09 pm
content: I had a chemistry class in college where the prof HATED it when people pronounced aluminum as alumin-I-um. Now whenever I hear it pronounced that way, al-u-min-i-um, it sets off that damn flag in my brain that says something is wrong. Good thing I live in the USA I guess.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology(in case anyone was curious)

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2012, 08:29:37 pm
content: It's the floppy the clown symbol! The Heavy Metal chemistry teacher!

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2012, 11:27:59 pm
content: Quote from: Smokey on December 12, 2012, 11:57:09 pmI feel the same way but when I hear it spelt or pronounced alumiNUM... Whats next Uranum, robidum, cesum?

author: nitro2k01
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2012, 11:45:15 pm
content: Quote from: AlfBaz on December 22, 2012, 11:27:59 pmNo, but ferrum, stannum, plumbum, aurum, argentum and cuprum. I'll grant you that those names are Latin and not used with that spelling in English, but there's at least one element that is, platinum.

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 12:51:15 am
content: Just looked at the table of elements Platinum is about the only one I could see, nearly every element has ium at the end even.....Americium

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 01:06:56 am
content: I don't like when i hear it pronounced as if there's "o" in it and only one "i"... Aloo-min-umSounds like some sort of Indian curry.Should always be pronounced Al-u-mini-um

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 01:09:38 am
content: Quote from: Smokey on December 12, 2012, 11:57:09 pmA vast land where you can Sodder Aluminum is the happiest form of oblivion there can be!

author: lewis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 02:36:01 am
content: Quote from: Uncle Vernon on December 23, 2012, 01:09:38 amTook me ages to work out what a 'Soddering Iron' was...

author: cwalex
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 06:26:40 am
content: Quote from: AlfBaz on December 23, 2012, 12:51:15 amLOL

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 08:45:43 am
content: I once made a list of all the times I've nearly died. It's quite amusing. Now up to 15.Here's one of them. It's not at all the worst, though only a few others involve chemistry done wrong.6. The 'dynamite kids' weekend. While in high school, one of my friends lived at Menai. Which back then was still mostly bush. Their house was pretty isolated, with bush all around, that continued down to the river some Km away. He'd found an old carton of dynamite, plus some mercury fulminate detonators and fuse cord in his dad's old shed. He also had a .22 bolt action rifle and a pack of ammo. We thought it would be neat to go camping down by the river for a weekend, and blow & shoot stuff up. So we did. Neither of us knew much about dynamite.It was the old kind made mostly of sawdust and clay, soaked in nitroglycerin. The caps were small brass cylinders, open at one end. The idea was to push a length of fuse cord into the cap, push the cap into the end of a putty-like stick of dynamite, light and retire. We tried a cap & cord first, but the cord just shot out of it and the mercury fulminate jetted flame rather than detonating. Obviously the caps had to be crimped to the cord. We had pliers... So I crimped each cap onto the cord with pliers. Lucky streak #1 - none of the caps blew up in my hands due to deforming too much of the cap body.But worse, much worse... we noticed the sticks of dynamite had whitish-clear coating of crystals, sort of like crystallized sugar. We ignored it, and pushed a cap into a stick for each explosion. We blew up tree trunks, and various rocks. It was great fun.Some years later, I learned that the crystals were probably crystallized nitroglycerin, which is supposedly incredibly touch sensitive. Both of us (mostly me) were gripping these sticks in one hand while pushing a cap into the end of it. Not to mention lugging a box of it around in a backpack. We were half a day's walk from anywhere.I still find it astounding we both survived that.