Elemental Extractions #2: Helium
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- It took way longer than I wanted it to, but finally the second installment of the series is live. It took a while to receive all the pieces of my apparatus and a bit of trial and error, but I think the result is an interesting experiment. I originally planned on making all the noble gases into one video, but I had the idea for this experiment and had to try it. I think it makes for a more interesting video than just talking about the gas and showing an empty-looking ampoule!
Here's a link to a video on the % of O2 in the air experiment: • Finding the percentage...
"Helium is a real escape artist!"
Just wait until Bromine.
+Connor Steppie Oh definitely, I went over that a little in my electrolytic bromine video. Br will escape anything. About the only permanent solution there is to flame seal it in ampoules.
He should of pulled instead of pushed. Pulling would only possibly bring some oxygen pushing pushes helium out
one thing you can do to check the percentage of oxygen is to measure the masses of copper pieces at the start and at the end. Measure the initial mass of copper using a sensitive scale and then measure the final mass after the experiment. The added mass will be obviously due to oxygen. Calculate the millimoles of oxygen. Then cross check it with your volume change observed by using gas equations (PV=nRT) (ideal gas equation should work since it is a small quantity). compare the values of moles from both calculation. Then you can even calculate the error of that apparatus. I guess this will work better for bigger apparatuses.
The Hindenburg was designed to use helium too, but the US wasn't selling it to anyone in the world at that time.
I'm thinking get some fish tank tubing, fill it full with water, no bubbles inside, then push out the water with helium, just as a way to know when to stop so you don't waste any.
Then stretch it out vertically, leave it for a long time, shouldn't all the helium push the oxygen down, settling?
But a better way take a large container that is flexible and can take the proper amount of heat. If you fill it full of copper, probably be even better but then you can't squeeze it.
So not completely full but so full that you barely have just enough squeezing room to completely fill the container it's being collected in. And then use induction heating to heat it all up evenly. And then shake it around a bit while at proper temperature, equivalent of plungers.
Tell me if you like this idea better?
Actually I read somewhere that balloon grade Helium is about 50-60% Helium only. So your experiment may be actually pretty spot on.
Did you weigh the copper before and after the experiment to figure out how much oxygen it sequestered?
Damn! That would have been a great idea. Can't believe I didn't think of that. That's worth another trial!
This video is incredible. definitely dont think anyones even attempted a diy gas phase purification video.
Thank you very much!
Its so great for you to be back :D
+yay468 Thanks! I tend to take a while between videos, but I'll get there eventually :)
I'd like to see the weight difference of an air filled test tube and a helium filled test tube.
Your voice gets deeper if you breathe xenon for the same reason. And there's an anesthetic effect which is a bonus.
Can't wait for some more extractions
Very cool, the only way I could think to make it a more gas tight system would be to use a little grease on the fittings and plungers. I'm not sure if it would stand up to heat but vacuum grease would be great as it doesn't tend to release any gasses of its own. Thank's for sharing!
+Nick Moore I did try greasing a syringe with silicone grease, but that made the plunger very hard to move. Didn't seem to help with the leaking issues either, unfortunately. Thanks for the comment!
Hmm, weird. I would have thought it would act as both a lube and seal.
It is interesting that there is so much 'other' gas mixed in with, I had noticed that the last time I inhaled some to get munchkin voice I didn't get the associated head rush.
+Nick Moore silicon grease is very sticky when in a thin film. At the thickness required for movement you would have a hard time retaining the He.
These are really great! Thank you for sharing these with us, it is much appreciated. =) Keep up the good work.
Hey, I was hearing the thing about changing the way sound travels. I feel like I heard the helium makes your vocal cords change or something liek
That idk.
If the oxegen reaacted with the copper causing it to oxidize wouldnt there be other gases released by the oxidation? Just following Einstein's theory of mass.
I am confused why we had to push the Oxygen and Helium air mixture through the copper in order to separate it. Isn't the Helium and Oxygen already separated in the balloon? Since the Helium is lighter simply hold the filled balloon upright and let the gases inside settle. The Oxygen should be in the lower 1/3 of the balloon's volume. With the balloon upright simply bleed off the bottom of the balloon and wouldn't you have a near perfect Helium containment?
Shane Bennee Gases don't work like liquids; all gases are infinitely miscible with each other, regardless of density differences. You might have a slightly higher concentration of He at the top, but it won't be a perfect layer like water and oil. I kind of doubt even a slight concentration difference, otherwise that's how they'd separate all gases. I've mixed helium (5x lighter than air) and sulfur hexafluoride (5x heavier than air) together and they didn't separate at all as far as I could tell.
thanks for the quick reply. You did give me another idea however. Each of the 2 gases liquifys at different temperatures: Oxygen Liquify temperature
-361.8°F
-218.8°C
Helium Liquify temperature
-458°F
-272.2°C
Couldn't you simply cool the gas to -219°C and remove the liquid Oxygen?
If you consider cooling things to -219 C "simple", then sure. Most people don't have access to liquid nitrogen, though, so this method is far more accessible for the ameteur. I do have a local liquid nitrogen supplier, so this would be neat to try.
Also, liquid oxygen liquifies at -183 C; what you quoted is the freezing temperature. -183 C is achievable with liquid nitrogen ( which is at -196 C).
you didnt count the lost in the tube with copper, i guess...
Can you make video how to seal that helium ?
Interesting, using copper as a getter, i imagine you could use lithium metal to remove any other gases and it would do so w/o heat and w/ less passing the gas back and fourth
Lithium is a good idea! It'd take some careful planning to get it finely divided enough and keep it under inert atmosphere while loading it into that tube. But you're right it should scavenge nitrogen and CO2 as well as oxygen.
Maybe try to put an extension in the shape of a bracket on the ends of the plungers. Then put the butane pot on a roller (like used for camera shots that roll). You'll put a plate on it
raise the copper tube Higher, Have a rod extend through the brackets like a cross that connects all three objects.
Connect it to one slider, so instead of running back and forth, just move the slider that will have all 3 arms connected.
I thought balloon grade helium does actually have a relatively high oxygen content, because of kids breathing it.(Not 40% though lol)
Try using heat shrink tubing rather than electrical tape. That should work a lot better.
i have an hourglass with mercury in it that i made. i sealed it with hot glue.
could i break the hourglass in half and flame seal the broken end?
this is regular glass, not silica borate glass used in ampoules.
i want to try it, but i don't want to crack the glass from thermal expansion.
+Elements & Science I'd be pretty worried doing that without knowing the type of glass. It's probably soda lime glass, which doesn't stand up too well to heat. I would practice first on an empty hourglass, and if you've never flame sealed anything before definitely practice on empty ampoules or test tubes to get the technique down. You also don't want to heat anywhere near the mercury, otherwise it will release a lot of toxic fumes.
mrhomescientist thanks.
I will practice on another hourglass of the same type
I believe that must, if not most, of the Helium in the universe is in the form of Helium-3. The isotope Helium-4 is, as you said, an alpha partical.
copper oxide wont form until around 800 or 900 degrees Celsius, and liquefies at around 1050. when it purifies with too much heat, thats the copper melting. I love how copper is getting melted in a glass tube.
use double O-ring fittings and syringes to prevent leaks
Wet the syringe or use some king of vacuum grease to prevent leaks at least from the syringe.. what do you think?
Any chance of doing another splint test with the oxygen free helium?
Love the videos by the way!
+motsu35 That would have been a good idea! Didn't even think of it at the time, for some reason.
couldn't you also submerge the Ballon in liquid nitrogen, thus liquefy the oxygen and purify the mix?
+Chefianf Also a great idea a few others have suggested. If I get my hands on some LN2 I'll have to give it a shot!
Could you also just put the balloon helium in a container with finely divided iron and just wait for all the oxygen to react?
+Magneto! Yeah someone else pointed out that hand warmers should work pretty well, and that's a good idea!
I was expecting more of a diy way to get helium from household stuff, like that guy who made hydrogen by splitting the water molecule to its base atoms, instead of buying straight up hydrogen in a gas container or balloon like you did with your helium...
When it comes to He/H2 generators its a lot easier to make a homemade hydrogen generator. Process of electrolysis is easy enough to use for such generator. However its dangerous as it is quite unstable compared to the helium.
When you put that match/flame inside the chamber at the start, would that not taken the O2 out and you would have been left close to pure?
It would remove the O2, but replace it with CO2 and water!
@@mrhomescientist Just curious, I'm very new with this type of thing, my understanding is the C02 and water are heavier and may fall out the bottom, and if a cleaner burn was used may help? Or would this still be contaminated? I do see issue with what im thinking as then again, may need to tip off and there is no visual indicators to show where each gas starts.
@@bh7538 Gases aren't really that simple. They don't settle out into distinct layers like liquids would. You might get more CO2 near the bottom, but there would still be plenty mixed in. Especially since it was created by combustion: being hot, it wants to rise and mix even more. Plus you're right that it would be hard to tell since everything is invisible!
@@mrhomescientist Appreciate the response, keep up the great videos, I have been enjoying them a lot.
@@bh7538 Thank you very much! It's hard to find time to work on videos lately, but I'm still around.
Hi - fascinating video - thank you. How would you remove nitrogen from the sample? What if the factory was just cheap and added in regular air instead of pure oxygen? How could you test to see if you had a pure sample? I get the test for oxygen with a lit piece of wood - but after that what can you do to test whether you have nitrogen compared to helium? Both would put out the fire... thanks
i think you could just cool everythink with liquid nitrogen. oxigen and nitrogen would go liquid with the rest of whatever is there, as helium has the lowest boiling point so you would be left with helium alone.
+Laharl Krichevskoy That's a really great idea! If I ever get access to LN2 again I'll have to give that a try. It's also probably worth calling the manufacturer to really look into what they actually add.
If you put air instead if helium in this thing, would you get relativly pure nitrogen or would the nitrogen react with the copper??
BiG ᗷOSS Agar.io You're correct: nitrogen wouldn't react in this case. What you describe is exactly the experiment I based this one on! They react away the oxygen to determine its percent in air. You'd still have the other minor contaminants in air but yes it would be reasonably pure N2.
The sun burns hydrogen and as a result emits helium 3 gas, so I don't see why you can't just make hydrogen gas through electrolysis of water and burn off the hydrogen to collect the helium.
Bags instead of plungers maybe. Careful of the hot gas causing melts. Maybe recool it at the ends before it reenters the bags or balloons.
Why don't you put the helium in the tube upside down and since oxygen is heavier then that should be an easier since it would sink and you can keep adding helium just in case then put it in the container. Only reason I would do this if the balloon grade helium was a oxygen-helium compound.
While it is true that their densities are different, it's not that simple with gases. They don't separate cleanly like liquids; All gases are infinitely miscible, regardless of density. Also, the fact that gases are made up of essentially free-flying atoms means that even if there's a large difference in density they still mix pretty effectively. You might get a small degree of separation by density but I doubt it'd be very much. If you want a pure gas sample, you need to do some sort of purification.
Very cool info on the creation of He. Thanks for sharing...
+Fred Miller Yeah, thanks! I think it's pretty amazing. It's the second most abundant element in the universe, but pretty rare on Earth since it escapes so easily.
Couldn't you bubble it through a lot of hot water? The oxygens would dissolve and the helium would just bubble through very fast before much dissolved
+Science post Not a bad idea, since helium has the lowest solubility of all gases. I imagine it would still take a while, though, with many passes through water, but it does sound simple at least. Also you'd want to use cold water, since gases dissolve better in cold solution.
+mrhomescientist my mistake i confused it with salts. Also depending on its solubility in alcohols you could add some to make like a 20-30% alcohol solution which you can get to even colder temperatures or if you could design an apparatus you could even use liquid nitrogen and have it bubble through that and you could even get 100% purity.
my idea is to fill a latex balloon with gas mixture and then submerge in water use a funnel to direct the He into a collection container. The He will flow through the balloon traping the impurities while the water will control the flow of the gas and absorb and other gases that escape. Plus it's very cheap.
Oh it floats, alright. We all float down here.
That picture book "Elements" is one of the few books in my life that I've actually bought for people and just given it to them, out of the blue.
Hey I love your videos man. In this Cody's Lab video (watch?v=EzQPYr3LP44) he uses hand warmers that absorb oxygen to suck all the air out of a bottle. I'm sure you could use those to get all the oxygen out of the helium.
Also you could set up a pressure gauge or something to get a good idea of how much O2 it actually contains. That would make for a cool video.
where do you buy all your chemistry stuff?
please answer my question :) i really love chemistry and i want to become a chemist!
+Nick Horse eBay is a surprisingly good source for just about anything you can think of. UnitedNuclear has a great selection but can be a bit pricey on some items. Then of course you can become a compulsive label reader like I am, and find many good chemicals OTC. There's plenty of sources out there - search and ye shall find!
Why not use iron to capture the oxygen?
Will the Helium stay in an flamesealed ampule?
BiG ᗷOSS Agar.io Sure, assuming it's completely sealed. There's nowhere for it to go!
can the copper be heated with steam?
+Alliasa PettyPanCake It need to be heated higher than that (assuming you can't generate superheated steam). A flame from a bunsen or butane burner is what's usually used.
I see, bunsen burner it is then, thanks.
Great video!
Awesome! I was trying so hard to find a way to purify helium from balloons and now i know how. Would iron work instead of copper? Great video!
+Sor Sor Science07 Maybe, but I'm not sure. I seem to recall iron rusting is a bit more complicated than Fe + O2, i.e. rust forming on nails requires a bit of moisture. Plus finely divided iron is pyrophoric, so it would be tough to handle!
mrhomescientist Very true, just a thought though. I think copper would be the best bet. Where did you get those copper beads? Also, how would I make an ampoule (did I spell that right?) of hydrogen without the hydrogen "popping?"
+Sor Sor Science07 The copper was a little difficult to find, but I did find a seller on eBay. They were marketing them for 'orgonite' devices, but I bought them for actual science. Making a hydrogen ampoule I'm sure requires specialized equipment, I'm not sure how they do it!
mrhomescientist Cool! Thanks for your help
Jesus please upload more vids
The description of why the sound of someone's voice (with helium in the lungs) changes is not purely accurate.
John Grund Do you have a source for the correct explanation?
The velocity of the sound waves is faster in helium and the wavelength is greater. The frequency remains the same because it is determined by the vibrating vocal cords which is not affected by the medium in is in.
It is the minor density of the helium, which serves as the medium for the sound waves flowing through the larynx that produces this different tone in the voice.
If you are interested heres my source:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-inhaling-helium/
great video bro
How about N2 contamination from the air?
+flimsybop Well I'm assuming they start with pure helium and dilute it with pure oxygen, so those would be the only two components. I suppose I don't know for sure; I'll have to look into it more.
Do you have access to Dow Corning Vacuum Seal grease? If you glop that over all your joints, you should be pretty much good to go. Of course to know for sure you can get ahold of a helium leak detector...but I can't afford one ;)
+verdatum I did try greasing the barrel of one of the syringes with silicone grease, but it didn't seem to help much even with air. I suspect there isn't much I'm going to be able to do to stop helium from getting out, since it's so tiny.
+mrhomescientist it will seal the joints between syringe, valve, and tube. It's too sticky to be used in the syringe at the film thickness required for movement.
I would use iron instead of copper
Teach us how to get enriched uranium.
+Kevin Medici Wikipedia does a pretty good job of that! You need to be in charge of a highly industrialized nation to pull it off, though.
Wonderful!
Are u talking abot x traction etz ? :-/
You ought to be seriously careful breathing helium like that, i didn't hear you getting breaths between taking breaths of helium. When you hold your breath your body senses that the concentration of CO2 is going up, not that oxygen is going down. When breathing helium, you're still getting rid of the CO2, but not getting oxygen. So you could be asphyxiating without even knowing it, you can go from feeling completely fine to blacking out in a matter of seconds.
+Rob Mckennie Posted before the note about balloon grade helium containing oxygen.
+Rob Mckennie That's why you watch the whole video first! Also I cut out the parts where I took several minutes between He breaths, since I figured people don't really want to hear me breathe for 5 minutes. Despite containing oxygen you still need to be careful.
Create a vacuum in the tube beforehand.
yay a new vid good job very interesting :)
Awesome!!!!!!!!
I automatically tried to wipe out the bug at 5:36 with my finger.
it decomposes back to copper because the gas might contain traces of hidrogen : CuO+H2->Cu+H2O just saying haha
It's possible! I bet it's not super pure to begin with since it's only used as a lifting gas.
+mrhomescientist it's ok, at least you managed to purify it, great idea with the apparatus! you can use it to make NH3 (Haber Process) but instead of copper you can use steel wool ( or anything that contains iron) as a catalyst. great video btw :)
+Stefan Raul The Haber process requires high pressure and temperature, which I doubt I'd be able to achieve with this apparatus, unfortunately. Thanks for the comments!
FINALLY
+Erik Forcht Yeah this one took a lot longer than I expected.
+mrhomescientist All good, just happy to see a new video. :)
Bruh im tryna make my balloon float and i got a chemistry lesson
Space isn't real
O.o) ooooooooooo