ChemicalForce - 2025-12-15
Hi! In this video I demonstrate one of the most powerful acids in the world — anhydrous perchloric acid. No video about the properties of 100% perchloric acid has ever been published before. As usual, many reactions are shown in slow motion, which helps to better understand the processes taking place. I hope that after watching the video, some long-standing myths about this acid will be busted. Enjoy! ___________________________________________ 0:00 Intro 0:26 Vacuum distillation of 60% perchloric acid 1:54 Cooling of 72% perchloric acid 2:29 Sulfuric anhydrate presentation 2:36 Melting of sulfur trioxide in a sealed ampoule 3:06 Preparation of 60% oleum 3:31 Preparation of a mixture of 100% sulfuric acid and 100% perchloric acid 4:36 Explanation of how a glassware setup for producing perchloric acid works 6:16 Starting the Synthesis of Anhydrous Perchloric Acid 7:33 Demonstration of anhydrous perchloric acid 9:20 Impact test 9:47 Heating test 12:07 Perchloric acid and cotton glove 13:30 Indicator pH-paper test 13:44 Perchloric acid and potato chips 14:40 Perchloric acid and sugar cube 15:34 Perchloric acid and Oreo cookie 16:11 Dissolution of gold in perchloric acid 17:40 Perchloric acid and potassium permanganate 18:03 Interaction of perchloric acid with hair 18:21 Interaction of perchloric acid with kitchen sponge 19:08 Interaction of perchloric acid with cigarette tobacco 19:53 Interaction of perchloric acid with cotton wool 20:32 Dripping perchloric acid on toilet paper 21:35 Attempting to light a match with perchloric acid 21:54 Reaction of perchloric acid with sawdust 22:41 Reaction of perchloric acid with a wooden surface 24:09 Unpacking chemicals 25:00 Reaction of perchloric acid with charcoal 26:03 One drop of perchloric acid and phenylacetylene 26:32 Perchloric acid and hydrazine hydrate 26:44 Anhydrous perchloric acid and anhydrous hydrazine 27:12 Outro _________________________________________ 🎵𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤: 🎶Codec Sabotage - Marten Moses 🎶Deorc Decuple - FormantX 🎶Divisive Alliance - Jon Bjork 🎶Gutter - Cushy 🎶In the Aftermath - Michael Rothery 🎶Never Turn Back - Adriel Fair 🎶Night Hunter - Robert Ruth 🎶Not a Game - Michael Rothery 🎶The Hourglass - Jon Bjork 🎶The Mill - Marten Moses 🎶Time Is Running Fast - Jon Bjork 🎶Trembling Anticipation - Dream Cave 🎶Tyranny - Dream Cave 🎶Unveiled - Michael Rothery 🎶Working It Out _________________________________________ ❤ https://www.patreon.com/ChemicalForce ❤ _________________________________________
The fumes were so strong from this video they came through my phone and burned my eyes.
After a short period my eyes then exploded
My phone started to smell like burnt plastic.
Ahhh, that's terrible.
Regards
Okay, it turning a potato chip into a grenade was pretty impressive...and scary.
With enough angry oxygen you can turn anything organic into a grenade 😂
And the way it left an imprint of the oreo cookie in the table... Absolute madness!
@raideurng2508 Cave Johnson and his combustible lemons witness the new generation with pride.
Sounds like a scene from Death Note... Victim eats a potato chip, then explodes...
I am picturing someone throwing potato chips on the battlefield while yelling "Aloha snackbar!"
Imagine you spill this on your hand, nothing happens for a few seconds then your hand just explodes.
Well, flush it with water immediately to dilute it, which should stop the explosion. But that Oreo exploding is pretty amazing. Strangely it only contains a mixture of various starches and sugars.
ב''ה, what if you fill a bowl or basin and immerse your entire head?
@josephkanowitz6875 Mind-blowing?
@josephkanowitz6875 Advanced brain surgery.
😂😂😂 definitely fucked but the thought was funny
This man weaponized oreos.
I always wanted to light my cigarette with perchloric acid and blow my face off. haha
I mean, they were already. Whoever made them have billions of lives on their conscience.
wait, how so? @stefflus08
@stefflus08 Look up "Animal testing on tobacco," where they test cigarettes on rabbits, dogs, and monkeys.
Connecting the board of directors of Imperial tobacco to the same testing equipment would be a suitable punishment.
Those were not oreos, there was no cream filling.
It was just 2 biscuits
Shoutout to the glass blowers that actually make this all efficient and possible.
Yes, it was a custom order from glassblowers made specifically for this video 🤗
@ChemicalForceI was wondering about that when you mentioned that all the mating parts had been specially ground to hold a good vacuum, I was pretty sure that's not a process you can do yourself without some fairly specialised equipment. I have no idea how much custom-ground lab glassware is worth, but I bet it wasn't cheap in any currency. Thanks for the effort, knowledge, and expense you put into making these incredible videos!
@ChemicalForce - In the intro I thought you might try it on the cat. haha jk
@sixstringedthing for sure! after having taken multiple lab courses, i know specialized glassware isn't cheap, but custom?! any chance you can let us (me) know how much this stuff costs?!
lol took me back to college but I wasn’t a chem major
As a guy who did a Ph.D in chemistry and never got to do any of those shenanigans in the lab: thank you for showing us all this. (And in glorious slow-mo too!)
The most dangerous thing I'll play with is liquid oxygen. I'm thankful for this guy and his videos. It's stuff I would never do 😊
Wait, so the idea that every single chemistry graduate synthesizes lysergic acid diethylamide at least once is false? My world, my world.
@HallgrenoidNot many want to synthesize it because of it's legal status. Much more common is to dream of having a lab accident like Albert Hoffmann had.
My words. To see all the things, we were warned about "be careful, you may die doing a stupid mistake" done small scale deliberately.... Nice.
How can you attain a PhD with no practical experience?
Detonating snacks is what I'm subscribed for lol.
Chip's challenge!
Ye ❤️🔥
Even as an organic chemist with 25 years of experience, I'm terrified by some of the experiments you perform! 😮
My man needs a dedicated table fund with these shenanigans
How gay is your mom?
^how's the view from inside your own colon?
@ChurchOfThought dude what's your problem
@Robocop-qe7le Don't feed the trolls. Just downvote and move on.
@ChurchOfThought dude you wouldnt believe it, if it could be explained with numbers you really wouldnt believe it
I like how you're concerned about "highly dangerous chlorine heptoxide" being present in a 50/50 mix of anhydrous perchloric acid and sulfuric acid.
No need to make it even more dangerous
Reminds me of one of Derek Lowe's blog posts about an extreme explosive that's stablised by mixing it with TNT.
Or these guys that were making potassium above an incredibly hot distiller and had a cup of kerosene above it. I forget the specific purpose, but that there was one is amusing enough
@weejastbf TNT is so insensitive it took 30 years for people to figure out it was an explosive and not just a vigorously burning yellow pigment
4:38 that is just pure anger.. 😮 imagine a small amount of grease somewhere in that funnel...
13:44 "oh dropping it on a potato chip, the oil and the starches should be lit on fire and bu-"
Potato chip is so unhealthy that even perchloric acid doesn't eat it. ... Oh.
rip 🎧 users (ie. me...)
I genuinely did not expect perchloric acid to react explosively with organics….
@4eversquidsisters266
If you have a spoon of ethyl perchlorate you will soon observe that it doesn't want to exist and will happily depart from this reality, taking away with it the half of the spoon holding it along with any windows in the vicinity and perhaps most ear drums too.
@drgazterhow do you even GET to convince a perchlorate to hang out with an organic group?!
All our food keeps blowing up
specific reference 😂
Maybe it's the gluten (South Park), but I bet it's either actually reacting to either the fats or oils or the starch in the food because when he put the acid onto the sugar cube it just turned into one of those snake fireworks
This must be what's happening to all the food processing warehouses "randomly"
I'm going to use this video next time I need to educate a coworker about handling this stuff.
How gay are you?
@ChurchOfThoughtREALLY REALLY GAY
@ChurchOfThought1995 wants its insult back
@notsam498more like, 1992 and it was lame even then.
@ChurchOfThought:3
The cat was given a quite high activation energy. The reaction has started, turned exothermic and it ran away.
23:22: "I must go, my people need me."
I thought the exact same thing 😆
"I'm a rocket mannnnn"
@RomanG6_Real “Burnin’ out his fuse up here alone”
@WilliamFord972 “and I think it's gonna be a long, long time”
Dude! Love your videos! I've always had a severe fascination with chemistry. I never had the patience to learn as much as I wished. Thank you!
That drop of acid at 23:21 was just like "later nerds!"
Now that you've hearted this, I'll say that I'm waiting for a perchloric anhydride video now :)
This is absolute cinema, I was planning on making dichlorine heptaoxide but after watching anhydrous perchloric acid I am scared tf out.
That oreo explosion made me jump out of my chair.
This is the first Oreo shaped-charge I have every seen! Thanks for the video.
Best visual chemistry in the world.
ohh ya
The Oreo cookie straight up detonated 😳😵💫💩💯
This is, when C4 military charges can no longer keep up with Oreo.
Three detonation, the oreo, the last carbon powder, the smhydrous Hydrazine. Maybe also the chip, but this was propably just an explosion, deflagration
The way the porcelain worktops were fractured is a dead giveaway of a powerful shockwave being projected downwards.
Without a doubt, a detonation.
You should change this title to "This acid makes cookies explode"
Oleum + perchloric acid sounds like nightmare fuel if there is a spill or leak…
Right I haul 99% sulfuric acid and olem for work and just the fumes off the olem is crazy I've gotten a few scars from both 😂 and that's just from small drops couldn't imagine getting a full on spray or anything
@eldergod3556especially mixed with something that makes Oreos detonate on contact.
I have watched quite a few chemistry based videos on YouTube, but I have never seen anything like this. Absolutely crazy how powerful Perchloric Acid is. Great video.
It was still very cold acid in all those reactions. If it’s at room temperature, then it’s much more terrifying!🤯
@ChemicalForce Dude I was terrified just watching this video good lord. Oleum is nasty 5hit so when its one of the precursors to making something far scarier you know its gonna be good.
Yes, definitely a "don't try this at home" video.
You are one of the most talented chemists on Youtube and a criminally underrated one at that. There is no channel like ChemicalForce!
🤑Thank you so much! It’s hard to fight against YouTube’s algorithms ✊
23:23 - you can see the soul leaving from the wooden board! "Too much acid - I'm outta here" :D
This is the second or third lab bench that got blow to pieces so far on this channel. I love his videos about obscure and inaccessible chemicals.
The amount of energy in those few little drops is astounding!
Watching the trippy balls of dancing exploding acid droplets at 10:38 was my favorite part.
Try making pure Caro's acid (Peroxymonosulfuric acid, H2SO5).
Piranha solution has it in diluted form.
Perchloric remains one of the most dangerous acids. Anhydrous is on another level.
For real I got scared just reading the title.
Once again you've found a super beautiful TINY WORLD OF DETAILS with your slowmo.
I really love the explosions that seem like "meh" in real time, but slowed down show more detail than one can hope to process..
Truly ART IMHO !! FANTASTIC WORK
Yes, at first glance many chemical reactions look the same, but that’s only at first glance...
we really need to get SlowMoGuys to team up for a video. I would kill to see an ultra-slow view of the hydrazine reaction, among others
I havent watched the video yet but one word comes to my mind based on the title. Boom?
You allow us to see just how visually fascinating chemistry can be... and scary! Thank you!
The part with the synthesis is even more scary than the part showing it's destructive potential. Kudos!
You know your acid is REALLY strong when it makes the PH paper burn up on contract lol ... loved that demo!
18:06 me, not looking at the screen when hearing this: YOU WHAT??
Finally the much awaited Perchloric acid vid !!
15:44 Holllyyyy shiiiit! You are taking you life in your hands making that stuff for us, your lucky subscribers!
There is one thing that I truly love about this channel.
Droplets.
My thesis was about droplets and their behaviour and mechanics when they impact surfaces.
I wish I had had a slow motion camera back then.
It's hard to choose, but for me this was your finest, most audacious video yet.
As a West Virginia native and graduate of WVU, your hoodies always make me so happy to see :D
I swear I remember passing him in the halls. I want to say he was working with Dr. Showalter but that was long ago and I was a lost undergraduate student lol.
That distillation apparatus is gorgeous. Great video, I am worried even working with regular concentrated perchloric acid, the pure stuff is truly terrifying. Thank you for showing us!
Watching Perchloric acid react with carbon is nothing until I remember that we are carbon-based life forms. Scary stuff until you contemplate what certain radioactive isotopes can do to any type of matter.
You have the mind of a scientist and the soul of an artist. This channel is gold. There’s nothing else like it.
Oreo cookie reaction is terrifying
Yeah we handle this stuff in my lab. We use 10% mixture with methanol for electro polishing metallic samples for EBSD AND TEM prep.
It requires a special scrubber because even it's vapor can form peroxides in the fume hood exhaust tract, which can then become explosive.
You are the bravest man on youtube.
The process shown in the beginning requires so much thought, experience, and patience!
I am convinced ChemicalForce is sponsored by big watch glass 😂
Love your meticulous preparation, and experiments. Always fascinating and educational. After seeing several explosive reactions followed by you saying “I then added Perchloric Acid to my hair, I was greatly relieved to see an image of your hair covered hairbrush and not your hair covered head, when testing that reaction….
We need to get you over 100 Thousand views for your videos in 2026!
@ChemicalForce - 2026-06-19
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@supposedlygreg - 2026-06-21
Does it react with Teflon?
@irulanthagan - 2026-07-21
I want a video of neutralisation between strongest acid and strongest base in their concentrated form.