Extracting strontium with a microwave
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- čas přidán 6. 03. 2023
- We destroy something beautiful in order to extract some delightful strontium ions. Twitter: / explosions_fire
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Paper: Direct conversion of celestine to SrS by microwave heating
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Music taken from the Aphex Twin Soundcloud dump that happened..... several years ago now I think. I hate to think about the passing of time lol - Věda a technologie
I see Tom got bored of the ice cream maker. Time to move onto an appliance that can do some chemistry
Bold of you to suggest I won’t end up using the ice cream machine for chemistry
@@ExtractionsAndIre Hydrazine synthesis in the ice-cream machine!
@@ExtractionsAndIre remember that salt tasting episode you've made? How about making ice creams with non-toxic/poisonous substances?
@@saladyn1000 do a nile red and synthesize artificial flavours
@@ExtractionsAndIre Two words, explosive icecream
I was so mentally stuck on kitchen appliances that when you said you were going to add CO2 to the solution, I jumped straight to "yes, put it in a sodastream you madman"
DAMN THATS A GOOD IDEA
@@ExtractionsAndIre I mean, as pressurized CO2 sources go, it's widely available, but that's likely a hellaciously expensive route to go here. The machine is interesting, but get an adapter, and use a refillable bottle (like you can get for paintball guns...), and you can get them refilled for hella cheap.
I'm imagining Hamilton seeing the elaborate CO2 bubbling setup, seeing this comment and just going "HA!"
@@andrewamann2821 given their abundance, a bunch of people just use the Sodastream bottles with an adaptor for a CO2 source
@@ExtractionsAndIre could you not just add vinegar to the hydroxide then decomposed the acetate to carbonate with heat
You roaming the wilderness for carbon is like an Australian wizard trying to find supplies for their potion.
Its exactly that
Secret of Evermore ass
Clearly you missed the hydrogen sulfide video, this is a potion-making channel now
That mattress carbon just hits different
Snakes, the mortal enemy of every aussie wizard
Haha, I'm a ceramic glaze designer and was literally sitting here editing Strontium glazes as this video came up. Its amazing in glazes, with great textures and color reactions. It functions as one of the two fluxes used in ceramic glazes, so they are still alumino-silicate glasses, but the Alkaline Earth contributions dictate the specific crystal structures in matte glazes and the color reactions. That said, Strontium is not that popular in my field, but I like it a lot.
"i genuinely forget how fun this is"
congratulations tom, you just discovered humanity's favorite ancient passtime: smashing rocks together!
That "Aw, hell yeah!" gave me a solid smile.
...and to all the rest of you out there, the secret is to... bang the rocks together guys! (HHGTG quote, David Bowie)
It "sparks joy".
*Ooga Booga intensifies*
Dopamine go brrr
Rusty hammer crystals and matress carbon. This is the kind of production quality that keeps me coming back.
As a non-chemist, i've been wracking my brain wondering where i know of uses for strontium from, because i knew it wasn't the fireworks example. It took me 30 minutes of going through all the chemistry youtube videos i've watched over the years to finally remember.
Eve online. It's starbase fuel in eve online.
I love how Tom could 100% just check the maximum possible heat stress (whatever you call it) numbers online and know if porcelain is actually suitable for this use, but he just choose not
This is even funnier knowing he's working on a physics phd
I love this channel (and E&F) because its like how we'd have to do science in a post apocalyptic settings without access to any good tools.
Broke chemistry.
its worth mentioning that I got the microwave for free from the side of the road lol
Similar to Cody at this point but from the other side of the world.
@@Mis73rRand0m Cody is chaotic good, E&F is chaotic neutral
@@Phriedah nile is lawful evil
Feral science where one ghathers their wicked magic ingredients from the wild and uses abstract utensil to create magic rocks is my favourite genre
Definitely the same genre as the candle+charcoal+sulfur alchemy video.
obsessed with how you spelled gathers, with the h, is that a regional thing?
@@stardeki no, I just can't spell lmao
Loved the phrase “feral science” and am going to add that to my hoard of favorites!
Shades of Cpt. Kirk vs. the Gorn.
People come to this channel to think its a chemistry channel, but they couldnt be more wrong! Today i learned of geology of Madagascar, I learned of the wild habitats of australia's snakes, we went on an adventure to the outbacks to mine for the ancient reagent called Carbon, learned a lot about kitchen appliances, learned about pottery and its limits, as well as a life lesson to not frown when things dont go your way all the time. Tom, i think you can single handedly teach all high school subjects, and half of the college majors available from just one video!
He's like the father we all could've used ❤
When you were microwaving the powder and its just fracturing the pottery, all I could think of was the old youtube series "Is it a good idea to microwave this?" and that time they almost died with the Airbag.
Ah an old classic!
There's chemicals in airbags that generate the gas needed to inflate them in what's basically a (relatively slow) explosion, and Thoisoi's hand learned this lesson the hard way when he tried to break an airbag apart for a video, gave up on prying it, and went into the charge with an angle grinder.
I reckon all this backyard chemistry is useful for identifying deadly smells out and about. When theres a deadly refrigerant leak at the grocery store you can be the one that says "Hey I know that smell. We have about 4 minutes."
Yeah, now i can expertly identify the smell of ammonia in local store and why does it hangs around fridges so much.
I would think smelling the differences between acetone , methyl ethyl ketone, and dioxane would be more useful.
Four minutes to get our, right? Right?
@@Kenionatus better not linger or you can precisely measure time required for fatal exposure...
@@quint3ssent1a go on, do it. Put elemental iodine in there
I don’t understand basically any of the chemistry on this channel, but the way Tom explains it makes me feel like I do
Yeah same. Then I tried watching Nile red and had absolutely no idea what was going on.
As I've said before to similar comments:
Keep watching chemistry content even if you don't fully understand because eventually you will understand it.
@Grand Dawggy this is true. I started off watching Cody's lab years ago religiously (and still do) knowing nothing at all, and now I can watch all these videos with a basic understanding of what's
Going on* idk why it sent before I was done writing lol
@@daspleen2617 👍 definitely similar here I used to love Cody's metal refinement series.
As a materials scientist I shed a small tear watching Tom smash up some nice looking crystals. But the processing steps, abuse of a kitchen microwave and brilliant red flame test more than made up for it. Nice work! I'm starting to think of what minerals are near me that you could get something interesting out of. And indeed there is; a nearby town has deposits of scheelite - a source of tungsten. Maybe that'll be a summer project.
He's like me... I would have divided the samples as well and kept the one while destroying the other for the tiny amount of desired product as well. The places we find these reagents are as diverse as the reagents themselves, sometimes something that has other value has to eat it for this to happen 🤣
I did a similar thing, lower "stake" lol... with road flares, overall converting and isolating nitrate to chloride using the sodium carbonate method. Not because strontium chloride is hard to get or any sort of cost concern... Could get 500g of the stuff here for 20 bucks shipped... there's no fun in that... it's the ride we want 🤣
There's something majestic about testing what you think you know and seeing the final outcome prove it to be valid, right in front of your face.
It's why I like the channel... whatever happens, happens, and there's always something to use from all of them even if they don't appear to directly apply to something I'm doing.
@@MadScientist267 100% agree!
I collect mineral specimens. It hurt. It is what it is though.
That's the smallest ball media I've ever seen used in a mill. 3-4x that size would work much better for you.
Thank you! I’ll get bigger media. Surprised you didn’t roast my microwave furnace attempts, I should have learned from you better before trying this!
@@ExtractionsAndIre I think old ceramic junk is the best for this kind of thing. The only part I might have done differently is put a firebrick or some other insulator under your crucible so the plates stop shattering. Really clever method in any case. You got me thinking about other reactions that might work in this way
Why not a graphite crucible? That was what i was thinking the whole time
@@ericscholem6629 graphite is conductive. I have a feeling that even in this case that isn't a good idea
1010 use ceramic media😂 especialy for bp and shit
As a geologist, I do enjoy ore extraction videos.
As a chemist and doomsday prep theorist, I too get excited about what we can liberate from the ground!
you know codyslab then, right?
@@Ass_of_Amalek Yep
I too am a geologist who enjoys this channel a great deal.
I have a cool Obsidian knife to show you Guys!
Fun Fact, the exact procedure of adding moisture to a mix of powders in a ball mill that you used on accident is used in fireworks to produce the granulated fireworks stars used in fireworks rockets and big fireworks effect charges.
That is NOT the exact procedure. Milling stars is done in an open rolling container, using non-flammable cores such as mustard seeds onto which the powder is slowly added and misted.
Trying to make firework stars with the process he shows in the video is a MASSIVE risk of fire and/or explosion, as you would be exposing flammable (albeit wet) powders to many many colliding steel balls. Steel media is never used in conjunction with completed (oxidizer and fuel together) powders.
@@TheFyroPyro oh yea you're totally right its usually glass or stainless right? I was just trying to refer to the adding moisture to charcoal/black powder part
@@TheFyroPyro that is total BS. The industrial method puts the mixture in glass bottles, then gives those bottles to the oldest worker with Parkinson's there, after his fourth cup of coffee, to walk across rhw factory with.
The potassium contamination almost certainly came from your free reagent. The word “potassium” literally derived from “pot”+”ash”+”-ium”. Burning wood and then washing the charcoal with water is literally how we got the name for the element.
Thanks for these diversions into a process. The Ire channel is tops. Knowing what you are capable of with proper equipment, but limiting yourself to K-Mart.... brilliant. Cheers on your PHD progress.
As a glass nerd, THANK YOU so much for mentioning strontium carbonate as a raw material for crt screen production. The strontium ions also prevented browning, i.e. the actual decoloration of the glass by the radiation ... 🤓
It’s a cool fact! Such an interesting problem to have, that you emit so much radiation… but you can’t avoid it so you just build the shielding in as part of the class and it’s safe for consumers to sit in front of for hours!
@@ExtractionsAndIre "Safe"
@@ExtractionsAndIre its wild we were putting a particle accelerator in peoples homes for a long time before LCD was invented
Tutorial: How to go crazy making a red flame....😎
Wait, i remember one old TV that has a really brown-ish image, does that imply that I got a free XRay every time I watched the Saturday morning cartoons?
Microwave based processes are an area of recent research in mineral processing. A friend did a PhD on using microwaves for the calcination and acid baking of spodumene (lithium-aluminium silicate). Microwave assisted grinding is a thing too - different minerals heat up differently on microwave irradiation and the different degrees of expansion lead to microfractures at grain boundaries, reducing the amount of energy needed for grinding and improving the degree of separation in downstream beneficiation processes.
How feasible is using microwaves on a large scale to make populations more susceptible to hypnotic suggestion through digital media? I'm sure if it's possible, they will definitely be doing it... MKUltra now being 70 years old, and no longer a conspiracy theory...
Whoa, microwave grinding?? That's super interesting!
Wow that's super cool (well hot) to read what people are researching with microwaves!
@@emilyrln microwave assisted grinding. The ore is hit with a microwave before going into the grinding mill, and the microfractures from the microwave pre-treatment cause it to break apart more easily in the grinding mill.
@@roriegilligan8134 Very neat! Thanks for the info :)
I love how you constantly oscillate between being an advanced chemist and acting like you have no idea what you're about to do or how you got here.
"acting"
16:45
ah yes a chemist’s most trusty tool. A stick
One niche use of strontium is as an additive in cast aluminium alloys, adding small amounts improves the grain structure.
It's also used in fireworks
@@ez45 Wait. No way. Is it actually?
You can add some to lead to moderate the sulfate deposit on the cathode of lead batteries. It works a bit better than calcium for this purpose.
I really enjoyed how we went from cheap cracking ceramic and an old janky microwave to a beautiful fancy glassware setup. It's really cool seeing how you work through these problems
And then he breaks out a fiber spectrometer just to remind us that he uses more than stuff from a fire pit
This was my first video of yours I've watched and i really enjoyed it. I have no history in chemistry and all of this but am starting to learn about it. Thanks for the boost of inspiration !
Glad you liked it mate!
I have no prior interest in chemistry either but I think the algorithm blessed me with this channel due to the ice cream episode (since i watch like 80% cooking content on yt lmao)
This is a great channel. The raw OFW seals it 🤣
I did a run extracting strontium from road flares and completely skipped the filtering of the carbonate and used wash/settle/decant instead as a "lessons learned" from this video. Because strontium is so heavy, although the carbonate is extremely fine, it settles fairly quickly. Just wash it repeatedly. Much less frustration than a filter.
Not sure what that is in there with it, I hate trying to work with more than one insoluble lol. Strontium carbonate might be one of the whitest whites I've ever seen.
@@ExtractionsAndIreYou rock man. Keep em coming.
@@muadddibCooking is just edible chemistry 😉
Truly the most hinged chemistry youtuber
The level of skill Tom have and yet he decided to make it look like an old meth lab that have decided to go corporate and make useful reagents.
Such a big fan. Glad to see a video from you again.
I love how when testing the temperature of your 150 degree crucible you went for the hand test before the thermometer to see if it was hot
"What crucible should we use?" Buys a tea set.this guynis awesome.
I find it very wholesome that your father incorporated your work and content into his life enough to make a yellow joke. Even if it was a bit of a roast.
Yellow has become a pretty big part of the community and how we express ourselves in our chemistry exploits (judging by the discord that is) and to see him express similarly feels like he's getting in on the fun too. ~Hi Explosions&Father~
If my understanding of Australian chemistry is correct, the porcelain would have held together better if you said "she'll be right".
I surely said that at least 8 times off camera
The potassium contamination might be because of you using firewood coal. Wood ashes are mostly potassium carbonate. Ideally you should have washed the charcoal with copious amounts of water first. Looks good otherwise, I had hoped to see you make some strontium nitrate though to confirm its typical red flame.
I did wash it, but I suppose it was not copious enough. Hate to think how bad it would have been had I not washed it at all- which I thought about doing!
I came to the comments to suggest this as well. Potassium salts was known as pot ash and was collected by soaking the ashes from burnt wood. No idea where the sodium came from, though, given how careful he was to avoid it.
For demonstrating the richest red Sr flame, I'd opt for either strontium chloride, strontium chlorate or strontium perchlorate. In red pyrotechnic compostions, none of the aforementioned Sr salts are commonly used, as they are hygroscopic or deliquescent. Rather, Sr nitrate or Sr carbonate are commonly used, in combination with a chlorine donor (e.g. PVC powder or chlorinated rubber) to enhance the red. The non-hygroscopic oxidisers potassium perchlorate (or, far less commonly: potassium chlorate) are also used in combination with Sr nitrate or Sr carbonate for red pyro compositions; these oxidising potassium salts also act as chlorine donors.
@@EoganachtaMoralso wood ashes, hard woods produce mainly K and soft woods produce mainly Na. The more you know! Lol
@@jacobcasmus1882 ah, that might explain the sodium peak. Nice catch.
I think the temperature cycling as you checked the progress is what did in your ceramics. If you had been able to just leave it cooking the ceramics might have fared better.
Always awesome to see your experiments! 🙂
That was my thought
I work as a material scientist and we do actually use scandium as an alloying element which helps reduce grain size
The switch from a specialized ceramic in the paper to regular porcelain for you at ~ 18:00 reminds me of my basic electronics course in high school.
A classmate of mine had read about this special ink that had been developed that you could draw on a copper blank, UV treat it, and then put it in the acid bath. Afterwards, the areas you drew on would be left intact.
The kid that read about it brought it up to the teacher and asked if he could try it out with just regular sharpies and tossing them into the UV kiln in the woodshop just behind us, so we ran a full experiment, including a set of UV treated and untreated boards with the full gamut of sharpie sizes.
Well, as it would turn out, you didn't need a special ink or even the UV treatment. Just a regular sharpie of any size above ultra fine works, so you can draw whatever you want on there and it's (somehow) protected from the acid bath.
Folks have been doing this for decades. Sharpies make a fine acid-resist for etching PCBs. For more precise boards, toner-transfer works well. Print out a mirrored version of your design on glossy paper with a laser printer, use an iron (or laminator if you're feeling fancy) to heat-transfer the toner to the board, then etch as usual.
you can do some cool microwave cyclization reactions with strontium salts
Well I have microwaves and I have strontium… I’ll look into it mate, thanks!
2 questions:
- Are you going to try to run the harder stuff that you thought had most of the actual strontium in it through any purification process?
-Have you considered a sodastream for the carbonation step?
(Great video btw!)
"We're gonna pause it at two minutes, just to let it.... think about it." i love this method. the insinuation that sometimes the chemistry is a personality and you have to see if it will want to work with you or not
I’ve seen a lot of comments mentioning Strontium-90 here. I’m old enough to remember having my baby teeth collected for a study on fallout from above-ground nuclear testing. The half-life is 28.8 years, so there probably isn’t much left in my adult teeth.
I love Tom’s videos because of the combination of good chemistry, solving non-textbook problems (e.g. starting with a mineral instead of refined powder from Sigma-Aldrich), and the variety of comments from other viewers.
Plus, there is the excitement of always wondering whether the chemistry is going to go Yellow, or all the way to Tar!
In Australia, a similar survey was conducted - the femurs of around 22,000 babies, children and teenagers were collected to analyse their Sr-90 levels, between 1957 and 1978.
This was done without the knowledge or consent of the families involved. And the data wasn't even used for Australian science, the bone char was shipped to the UK for analysis by their scientists.
The nuclear testing here was done by the UK, in areas of Australia that were sparsely inhabited (but not completely uninhabited). And the fallout was carried over most of our major cities.
(Source: Maralinga: , Frank Walker, 2014)
@@davidadams4801 were they alive still.
@@davidadams4801 thats the cost of being a colony
And you get to be nuked too. @@your-mom-irl
Honestly these refining sorts of videos are super underrated. There's so much disconnect between where we get all of our industrial chemicals from as a society or where precious elements really come from. As a mineral collector, smashing up that specimen kind of hurt my soul, it looks like some nice Madagascar stuff, though I'm happy you kept the nicer one! Worth it for the educational content though.
First step: Making Bismuth tea in an ultrasonic bath
Second step: Crush nature’s art
Third step: Painstakingly retrieving the crushed ore from the dirty bucket with a “plastic beaker”
…
Anyway thank you for this upload, splendid as always!
My favorite channel to listen to while I'm at work or to have on in the background while I make my CZcams videos.
Always informative, funny, and down-to-earth. Great work man, keep it up. (:
Actually scandium is not an useless element. Yes it's not very rare but it's very dispersed and doesn't form ores so its extraction is not straightforward. And it is useful in aluminum superalloys (hint: supersonic jet fighters are made of aluminum-scandium alloys). According to wikipedia, the world demand for scandium is about 50% higher than world production, making it quite expensive too.
Ok that’s interesting that demand is higher than supply!
Thulium or lutetium are probably the least useful elements, though they may be in low enough abundance to not be the uselessest by that metric. Come to think of it, thallium might be a contender as well, not so much because of usefulness (it has a modest number of known/studied/useful reactions, I think?), but because it's so goddamned toxic no one wants to work with it. (Kinda see also mercury, but it's decidedly on the "fucking awful but just worth the trouble" side of that balance.)
Despite the applications, scandium might still be a contender; production is in the 100s tonnes/year IIRC. As far as industry's concerned, it might as well not exist at that rate. Definitely something, to be clear, but you only reach for it when you need the absolute, posolute best. (IIRC, its use in aluminum alloys is equivalent to similar elements like titanium, it's just that _tiny_ bit better at it.)
@@T3sl4 Lutetium is not useless at all, at least for me. In the form of LYSO (lutetium yttrium oxyorthosilicate) crystals, it is a very useful gamma radiation detector. All the PET scanners (positron emission tomography) use them. What is even more interesting is that the LYSO crystals contain their own internal calibration source because 2.5% of natural lutetium is 176-Lu which is radioactive and has two very distinct gamma energy peaks at 202 and 306 keV.
@@ExtractionsAndIre Yeah. It's actually more expensive than gold.
@@stamasd8500 Oh yeah, good one!
"The balls are not clean" Story of my life.
Jesus Crust
Love the high tech fully scientific sample mixing/stirring apparatus aka "a stick"! Very Australian. Glad to see you're keeping it real :-)
NileRed: I bought a nuclear enrichment plant
Explosions&Fire: let's see if an espresso cup works as a crucible
Lanthanum is used in lanthanated tungsten TIG electrodes and sputtering targets so not completely useless.
And scandium is used as a steel additive that makes for some really good steel
Also a deoxidant for steelmaking, and a grain refiner for ductile cast iron. :)
Most of the Lanthanum research for TIG is because people started realizing "This Thorium stuff probably isn't good for us, huh..."
@@alexanderharrison7421 OR: "hey, we got this rare earth metal that no one has a use for it. What could we try to use it for?" "Ooow! I know, TIG welding rods!"
FWIW: I do TIG welding & have Lanthanum doped TIG rods.
A tip for heating stuff -- if you don't have [or can't be arsed to go out and buy] fire bricks (the styrofoam-like insulating kind) or ceramic wool (not the glass/rock wool kind that melts at red heat), try a large microwave-safe container filled with clean white sand, and embed the crucible in that. Stoneware is better than porcelain for the crucible but it's probably going to crack all the same, so having sand fill to back up up will keep it together, while insulating it better than open air. Better than sand, consider perlite or vermiculite (gardening aisle). May want to crush them up a bit or pack tightly since they tend to be fairly coarse and loose.
You definitely need to get it hot; alkaline earth sulfides are quite refractory. 1000C is yellow hot -- if it were that hot on the top it would illuminate the microwave interior! It would also take more power than the microwave can supply, so it needs to be well insulated.
The powdered charge is rather self-insulating already, and it seems you did indeed get some reduction in the center! That probably accounts for most of the low yield. Upside: just keep cooking the filtered junk, all the carbon and sulfate is still in there! Maybe top up the carbon from time to time.
Speaking of fire, can cook out the yellow from the product by roasting it at red heat, probably -- maybe put it on a steel sheet or can next time you have a bonfire or something. (Char the sheet before use, get a nice crisp oxide layer on it, don't want paint residue gooping it up!)
Worth mentioning perlite at least might have other additives so check ingredients. I'm sure a chemist would, but just fyi for anybody out there
Also I was wracking my brain to figure out where I knew strontium because it wasn't fireworks for me. Then the filtered strontium carbonate started drying and I realized: STRONTIUM ALUMINATE is the best of the glow in the dark paint types.
It's the reason glow in the dark 3D printing filament eats brass 3D printer nozzles.
Yes but then you also need Europium and Dysprosium to create pits for the higher order valence electrons to be trapped within when excited, otherwise their orbits decay too Quickly
I have always admired the excellent BGM choices on this channel.
Even when done in jokes, I appreciate the original efforts!
“I might get bitten by a snake, but yknow…that’s just something you deal with every day of your life”
Everyone living outside of Australia: “No Tom…..no it really isn’t…”
Searched for that comment xD
southern usa would like to talk to you 😂
Where I live there is like NO threat from snakes so I was really confused before I remembered right… Australia.
The emission spectrum of strontium is really pretty. It's three lines, one red, one orange, one yellow.
I’m so happy I found this second channel, I was about to run out of Explosions & Fire videos and then I see there’s ALL THESE here and they’re even more in depth??? It’s like Christmas up in here
Honestly I don't know anything about chemistry or most of what is going on in your videos, but the reactions and commentary during the recording is so comical that it is fairly addictive. Thanks for being awesome and keep doing whatever voodoo it is that you are doing :)
I believe Sr90 is used as a contrast compound in CT scans and other radioactive imaging techniques. Thanks for another video Tom my ADHD was in need of some sketchy science
The science isn't sketchy, just the scientist lol 😂
@@zyebormthe science that a sketchy scientist does is sketchy by association lol
Sr90 is also one of the primary fallout isotopes in low-yield nuclear weapons (I believe the ones that use plutonium... Could be wrong?)
i was wondering why i thought of 90 as soon as Strontium was mentioned. I spend too much time researching radioactive stuff
WON'T YOU CRAWL OUT THROUGH THE FALLOUT BACK TO MEEEEEE
"everyone says strontium is used for fireworks for some reason"
"my end goal for this project is to burn it to produce a colour i like"
I am part of the everyone
I love hearing these old Aphex tracks from the huge track dump again, and you've made good use of them. I remember what is now like 7 or some years ago when they were first released, blasting these tracks on repeat out of my brand new studio speakers at my parents house lol
So great to see you back. Love your videos. I know CZcams is tough and I wish it wasn't that way. Finding your videos has definitely reinvigorated my love of chemistry and taught me a lot. I'm on a HazMat team and I actually have used information from your videos in the field. If only I had paid more attention in Orgo 2 in college...
This is probably the best home chemistry channel. Usually others have reagents like t-butyllithium that are almost impossible for an amateur to acquire
Ah yes, the flammenwerfer meets markiplier jumpscare
You might have better results using unglazed porcelain (ie. terracotta flowerpot). The ceramic glazing will absorb a lot of microwaves, that you really want the carbon to absorb.
Terracotta contains iron
An unglazed porcelain crucible would be the best bet due to having an absurdly high melting point and being relatively hardened against most thermal shocks.
"Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it." 😂
> You're thinking "strontium, ah that's used in fireworks"
Actually I was thinking back to the days of going into siege mode in my Naglfar.
21:39
I've done stuff like this quite a bit before, trying to get barium carbonate. So I suggest putting an MDF board, or a silicone mat if you can. Their pretty common in the kitchen for baking, so I trust you'll be able to find them. If you use the MDF board, it'll get carbonised at the high temperatures, but your glass microwave base will survive.
And for the crucible, if you want, aluminium oxide crucibles are pretty cheap online (and come with a lid most of the time). The ceramic doesn't survive because sometimes there's still a tiny bit of water left in there that boils in the heat. I'm amazed the coffee mug manage to survive so much
I'm surprised there could manage to be any water left in the ceramic considering they get baked at like 1162-1240 Celsius for hours for the initial firing and up to almost 1400 for the glazes
@@noodlelynoodle. True. Either that, or the expansion from the heat was too much for it to handle
@@thehyperscientist1961 yeah who really knows it could be from taking them out/opening actually which let's them cool faster than is safe for the material and slowly stresses it till it cracks if it's anything like glass
Tom, I've learnt way more from your channel than all of the 4 years of high school science I did in the 90s. I have no interest in chemistry whatsoever and yet for some reason I've watched all of your videos.
Tom, you made us wait until 11:28 for some cool music! I thought you'd grown out of it or something silly like that. Awesome to see you're back with E&I!👍
I had to Google is Strontium a metal?
A soft, silvery metal that burns in air and reacts with water.
Metal + Microwave = Marvelous Idea.
Geology student and general mineral enthusiast here, good choice not to use that other sample, it is indeed quite a nice specimen!
Also, FYI: if you ever need to crush rocks in the future (like you did with the hammer), wrap it in some cloth or a towel- that'll prevent the shards from going absolutely everywhere. I'd still recommend a face shield just in case, though.
Glad to see another enthusiast breathing a sigh of relief there lol
I am just entertained by this mans passion. At this point I no longer think too hard about what he is doing like I used to...
This is so fantastic. It's so much fun to watch you do this stuff.
I enjoy this so much! Amazing content, best wishes to you and your future projects! 🌻
1:00 Strontium in automotive industry is added in traces to Aluminum as defects marker, to help in Xray defect inspection stage. As other user here said, it also improves the alloy a bit.
OMG, a new chemistry video! 20 seconds in, and I am already asking myself how long it will take to turn yellow 😁
Edit: 26 minutes! And only a little bit yellow! Nice 😊
Watching this channel has made the other channel's videos much more nerve racking. I appreciate your content, all
That was AWESOME!!!!! I LOVE the longer videos just because it gives you a little tatse of how much effort goes into making your videos...plus you make more jokes :)
I know that there are induction crucibles specifically made for home microwaves. They are usually advertised for making glass beads at home. Seems like they get over 1000°c without much trouble, or enough to melt sand. I've been meaning to pick one up from the usual sources.
Strontium aluminate is used in glow-in-the-dark 3D printer filament :)
Props for listening to aphex twin
" 'Microwave safe', we'll be testing that to the limit"
😂
Woohoo. I am going to love this one!
Pity I have to work right now. Tack it on to the watch list.
Thanks Tom - you are an inspiration.
Thanks as always mate! Hope you are doing well!!
A post card of yours is still definitely in the lab btw, I don’t think the camera ever sees it and it’s pretty dusty these days but it’s there haha
I'm really impressed how long the microwave's glass turntable held on before cracking. The pretty red flame was quite gratifying to see at the end.
X&F: **very Aussie** ball mill
Closed Captions: bowl meal
Ya know wot a bison is royt? The thing ya wosh ya hends an fice in!
@@InservioLetum LMAO
7:26 Little things like this are why I love your editing
The primitive technology channel of a dystopian future, great project !
I’m not sure it’s dystopian if you have time to cobble together random material to make things, and have a spectrometer handy to confirm your results.
I’ve never seen Tom pay taxes either, so evidence is accumulating that he is an early adopter of a utopian future!
hey now australian isnt that bad, haha
Love how the camera quality has moved to 4k but the equiptment is still the same its brilliant. Now we can see all your mistakes in 4k
Great video. I always look forward to your posts.
Thanks for sharing. I've been researching Strontium Carbonate as it is one of the materials used to coat the cathodes of the old thermionic valves (vacuum tubes here in Canada) which reduces the work function of the underlying metal. It seems to be commonly found as a pottery glaze. Quite cheap as well since it goes for 10 Canadian pesos per kilo, and the datasheet states > 95% purity.
You know, if you're ever out of milk but need calcium -> strontium-90 is an ideal replacement (your body thinks so already)
I would disagree, but if my body is okay with it I suppose there's no harm.
I trust in my biology. It wouldn’t have evolved to do things that cause itself harm, that’s obvious
@@ExtractionsAndIre I wouldn't go so far as "trust" since I recently suffered a cytokine storm which tried to dissolve my vital organs!!!
One alkali earth cation is just the same as any other right?
Well your calcium transporters think so apparently. Silly billies.
Oof.
Some aphex twin and (slightly) yellow chem in the australian sun makes me kinda nostalgic. Great to see you back making videos, thankful as always.
I learned about spectrometers and each element having its own signature, allowing us to determine a planets atmosphere (like if it has oxygen, carbon etc.) based on the missing corresponding lines on the spectrometer that graphs the light coming to us from a star behind the planet being observed.
To be a lil more advanced with it, based on the shift of light (red or blue shifted) allows us to determine whether the planet we are observing is moving towards us or away from us, and how fast too! Kind of like music from a car being distorted based on how fast the car is moving away or towards you (doppler effect) instead try to think light as opposed to sound. But its in astronomical units. Literally.
Very interesting to see this applied to observing the spectrum the flame produces while burning the element you extracted and are identifying.
love your content.
loved the video mate, never get bored of this stuff
I am so very delighted to see more extractions and ire, thanks for the stront update.
you put your hotplate over the gas burner you can reach 900. all you need to do then is stack another hotplate and lower the heat on it to 150c.
this joke sounded waaay funnier in my head i swear
It’s hotplates all the way down…
Infinite heat duplication glitch
Bloody beautiful. Love the PhD energy you bring, as a PhD it is so much fun to watch.
Good to see ya back on the channel
I read a paper from a university in India that was using microwaves to 'heal' the inclusions in rubies. Basically it would melt the ruby and allow the interior cracks to melt back together. So using a microwave to get superheated plasma, yeah makes sense
You must be at peak PhD procrastination... two videos in a week xD
4:52 I never thought I'd see "Smash or Pass" Extractions & Ire Edition. But, here we are.
I miss the times when I did microwave extractions. You pour in a sample, some HF and other chemicals, shake, bake, neutralise and a crystal clear liquid is ready to run on your ICP.