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Experimenting With Acid | TKOR Tests Sulfuric Acid And Sugar In This Simple Science Experiment - YouTube
Channel: TKOR
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Hey what's up guys welcome back
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Now today I thought it would be fun to play with some "off the shelf" kitchen chemistry
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To prepare for this experiment today I went down to the local supercenter and picked up two main ingredients
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A bag of white sugar, and a bottle of drain opener like this.
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Now when you get to the drain cleaner aisle
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There is going to be two main types of drain cleaners
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There is sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid. This one here is sulfuric acid
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sodium hydroxide is really a cool stuff
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And you can tell that because they usually put it in another bag for additional protection
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This is extremely nasty stuff and it can do a lot of damage
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and you definitely don't want to get it on your skin
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so it's important to use the right kind of protection
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Now this stuff is labeled drain opener but all it really is
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is about 96% concentrated sulfuric acid
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and if we open up the bottle and pour it out you can see
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its a very clear liquid very similar to the
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sulfuric acid we extracted from my car battery.
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That's essentially all this is, virgin sulfuric acid, with buffer.
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Whatever buffer means.
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If we dip something like a piece of PH paper in the liquid
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you can see it actually tops out on the acidity scale.
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Pretty dangerous stuff.
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So we got our bottle of drain open, and we've
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white sugar now what do you think is
going to happen if we mix the two
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together so step one I'm just taking a
normal drinking glass I'm gonna fill
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this up about halfway with white sugar
and then step two we're gonna take our
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drain cleaner pour it into the glass
until the liquid level rises just above
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the sugar then we're going to stir that
up thoroughly with something like a fork
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and then we're just going to watch and
see what it does looks kind of nice huh
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what's going to delicious right now take
it on a nice golden color it's pretty
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sweet
look at that it's kind of goopy kind of
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slushy it looks like a coke frosty see
it changing color getting kind of syrupy
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it's actually starting to warm up so at
this point it's a good idea to insert
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back in the way
ok so it's been about 30 seconds since
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we stirred this sulfuric acid in you can
see the liquids turning black nothing
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else much seems to be happening though
just kind of hanging out if I were to
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feel this I can feel the glass warming
up it's turning into like a black syrup
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oh and it's starting to grow this right
here is where the magic happens watch
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this
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this little black pillar starts rising
out of the glass you see the smoke and
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the steam coming off there that is
vapours of sulfur dioxide and steam if
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you were to try this reaction indoors
the sulfur dioxide would actually
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irritate your eyes making them water
like crazy and if it gets into your nose
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if you breathe it in it can actually
make your nostrils swell making it very
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difficult to breathe ask me how I know
that even being outdoors you can see the
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fumes are irritating my eyes as we speak
now you can see the reaction stopped and
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we've actually let it cool down for
about five minutes so we can touch the
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glass this is an exothermic reaction it
produces a lot of heat so now that it's
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had a chance to cool off a bit let's go
ahead and pick up the glass and take a
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closer look ooh that is extremely hot that
is super super hot I have to keep moving
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this thing or it's going to burn my hand
and this is after five minutes I'm
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actually surprised the glass didn't
crack and look what we've got coming out
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of here guys we've got a big black
charred column of carbon you see how it
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arched over and then solidified look at
this stuff closely it's very unique and
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very interesting it almost looks like
lava rock that's spewed on a volcano and
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cooled down in the ocean but it's
definitely not that hard see if we can
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pull it out the glass here yeah look at
that
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so looking down the glass you can see
actually all of the sugar burned up
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everything's completely reacted there's
no more sulfuric acid no more sugar
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everything is completely gone we've got
all captured here in this dark and
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demonic looking black candy cane that's
fantastic now this stuff is pretty firm
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I'm surprised is holding up as well as
it is but it's still very brittle as
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well let me break it apart for you so
you can see what it looks like on the
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inside
so this was the top of the reaction here
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this is the stuff that came on the glass
first if I take that and just give it a
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little twist you can see it breaks right
apart and look at all the bubbles that
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were formed in there this is a light
frothy foam of carbon this is mostly
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carbon but there is residue of sulfuric
acid on here as well so it might be a
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good idea to have some baking soda
solution nearby so you could neutralize
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that acid if you needed to but I'm
wearing gloves and I'm comfortable with
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the risks right now and I'm finding that
this just really
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stuff it feels firm but it definitely
feels a little bit spongy you can see
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all the air pockets in there if I just
put it in my hand and squish it a little
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bit Wow it turns to ash that's amazing
it completely crumbles with this stuff
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being carbon makes me wonder if it would
be conductive could we make our own
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carbon bridges our own carbon electrodes
out of sulfuric acid and sugar we should
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try that with the arc furnace see if it
conducts electricity this is the part
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here that was down in the glass I'm
going to break that apart for you and it
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just snaps cleanly and evenly and
without any problem at all and you can
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see even though this is firm this is a
piece that was down to glass and I think
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maybe the sulfuric acid ran out and
that's why the reaction didn't continue
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this top part is really crumbly but as
we get closer to the bottom here oh
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that's crumbly as well haha and still
really hot ouch that's really hot crazy
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crazy how much heat that captures watch
this
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that's it it's gone easy as that okay
cool apparently now we have a process we
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can make a black carbon foam with
slightly acidic residues let me explain
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a little bit about what just happened
the sulfuric acid is a dehydrating agent
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that means it wants water and sugar has
a lot of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in it
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so the sulfuric acid violently rips that
hydrogen oxygen away to satisfy its need
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for moisture that just leaves the
resulting carbon which bubbles up and
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turns into this frothy foam which very
quickly cools and turns into the hard
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black substance that we saw this makes
me wonder if we mixed up the concoction
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put it into a flask like these what's
going to happen when the ash hits the
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neck of the bottle is the bottles going
to build pressure and explode is the ash
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going to reform itself and work its way
out of the channel normally is nothing
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going to happen at all the purpose of
this experiment is to find out
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I'm going to add a little bit more this
time so we get a full reaction you can
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see how the sulfuric acid starts out
relatively clear and then as it mixes
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with the sugar it starts to darken up
you know it's interesting about this is
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I can't get it all the way to the bottom
I think we've got about 60 seconds
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before the reaction takes place so we
want to get this mixed as much as
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possible before that happens the flasks
still feels relatively cool when it
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starts heating up I'll know it's time to
set it down and back away starting to
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warm up what's going to happen is the
container going to explode here it goes
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oh my goodness
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oh wow it's spewing ash out of the top
like a little sulfuric acid volcano look
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at all that steam and sulfur dioxide
coming off the top the reaction is still
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going but nothing else is coming out is
it
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is a container already empty I suppose
it is we'll need to let that cool down
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for a minute where the stuff is pushing
out on the top like that it almost looks
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like one of those black firework snakes
if you light and just growth
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if this one is highly acidic I want to
get too close to that so the flasks did
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not explode but the reaction was a
little bit different than I was
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expecting as well it seems the carbon
sets up so quickly that by the time it
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hits the top the pressure breaks it into
chunks and spews out kind of like a
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volcano spitting ash I was really
impressed at how quickly that reaction
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took place once it got going once the
levels started rising the whole thing
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only took about 10 seconds before it was
over that is extremely hot this stuff
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down here
gooey and spongy but very brittle look
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at all these pieces of ash that clumped
off they look like little lava rocks but
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they've got the same weight as styrofoam
peanuts they're extremely lightweight
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smells like sugar and chemicals it's not
extremely pleasant but it's not too bad
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either
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instant ash brought to you by the King
around for one final experiment today I
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want to try using a round flask to see
what kind of a difference if any that
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makes
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yeah it's starting to get pretty goopy
they're trying to mix it as best I can
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it's starting to heat up here goes it's
like a black bubbling potion of evil
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look at that spattering and spewing
everywhere oh gosh there's a lot of
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pressure in there it's spitting it out
and of building the top at the same time
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look at that
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weird okay that was unexpected kind of
looks like a t-rex like a skeleton t-rex
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it's got a little arm sticking out there
his open mouth and head spine
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okay maybe t-rex is living a stretch but
does look really cool so what I saw
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happening when this reaction took place
is it did get clogged but the pressure
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just kept pushing out the carbon and it
started spewing chunks up to about four
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feet away and what was really
interesting is near the top little bits
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of carbon would start to collect and
form a little tube and it started
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building this chamber this black bridge
column that just continued one chunk
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after another it was amazing very
similar I imagined how volcanoes build
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themselves as well as the lava flows out
the chunks solidified the volcano grows
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bigger and that's what we see happening
here it even kind of jetted off at a 45
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degree angle but it looks really cool
very cool reaction I wasn't actually
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expecting it to turn out that way but
I'm glad that it did interesting
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I love the randomness in this design
what's amazing to me is there was
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actually like a column inside this neck
look at that you can see the cavity is
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completely filled up but there's a
little hole there which I imagine where
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everything was spewing what's amazing is
that was able to continue this far
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that's a good eight inches if we break
this in half yeah you can see that hole
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continues right through it and if I keep
breaking this you can see that hole
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continues through the entire length of
that neck so we actually made a sulfuric
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carbon straw and it looks really cool
look at the texture to that awesome
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experiments guys let's talk about what
just happened we started off with the
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classic experiment mixing sulfuric acid
with sugar but we did it with a little
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bit of a twist
rather than using sulfuric acid from a
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chemical lab we use sulfuric acid from
drain cleaner we found that when the two
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substances were mixed nothing really
apparent seemed to happen right away
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after that we found our container very
quickly warmed up and shot up a pillar
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of black carbon ash we saw that the big
black carbon column pushing up out of
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the glass looks a lot like those black
snake fireworks you see around the
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fourth of July and we found that this is
because sulfuric acid is a very strong
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dehydrating agent and sucks the moisture
out of the sugar leaving nothing but the
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black carbon residue
next we tried putting this mixture in an
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Erlenmeyer flask where the opening
constricts near the top to see if we get
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the container to explode but rather than
exploding we saw the pressure just push
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the carbon chunks up and out of the
container letting them flop down over
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the side for our final experiment we put
everything in a round bottom flask where
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even more pressure could build up but we
still didn't get it to explode instead
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what we saw happened was chunks of
carbon would spew out up to 4 feet away
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and the ones that collected near the top
coagulated together and formed a long
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carbon tunnel which is something I
haven't seen done before well there you
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have a guy's great day of experimenting
and hopefully you learn something new
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thanks for joining me for this set of
experiments I'll be looking for you the
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next video talk to you then it's a quick
update guys some of that black ash
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flaked off and it's sticking to my skin
and starting to burn I'm going to wipe
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that off and come back with my lab
jacket I'll be right back it's got a
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nice whiff of sulfuric acid it it's kind
of a nice setting texture that's
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interesting shiny carbon foam
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