Advanced Tinkering - 2025-02-15
In today's video, we visit a laboratory that works with the most reactive element in the world – fluorine. This element is so notorious that it has drawn YouTubers like NileRed, Explosions&Fire, and MrGreenGuy from all corners of the world to Germany. I'll show you how scientists handle such a dangerous substance and reveal never-before-seen reactions between fluorine and various materials. Join my Patreon and support my projects! Your contribution means the world to me and helps bring my ideas to life. I truly appreciate your support! https://www.patreon.com/AdvancedTinkering Check out Prof. Kraus YouTube Channel:@Fluorineisgreat A huge thanks to Prof. Kraus lab for making this video possible: https://www.uni-marburg.de/de/fb15/arbeitsgruppen/anorganische_chemie/ag-kraus
3:24 NileRed entering the flouring lab, grinning like a maniac. Danger level just increased to 'Unfathomable'
Nigel's nonchalant laughter in the presence of obscene danger is so endearing lol
I was about to look for another video to watch but then he said Nile, Yep I'll keep watching been. subscribed to him for awhile love his videos
Not really he's made videos for years and nothing has happened. It's all just for show
It's like * a troll enters the chat chat*
@@YTispartofproblem When you know what you're doing and know what the dangers are then you know which rules you can ignore, which you can bend, and which must be followed
If I'm in that laboratory, and as soon as I hear one of my colleagues say "oops", rest assured I'm running out of there faster than the road runner.
I am glad I don’t live near Marburg.
Bass, I love you.
@@DeRico1337
Lol yup!
Fluorine, I Love You!
Meep Meep!!!
the only steps i'm taking in that situation are fucking big ones
The fact that a stray fingerprint on a flourine-safe metal can ignite with flourine, destroy the protective metal flouride layer, and start a metal fire, is absolutely bonkers to me and thus I finally truely understand the safety precautions taken.
👍👍
Look at 6min08sec in the video...
What I find funny.. Right after they explain this they show the long hair scientist run his gloves over is face pulling back is hair... That dude is a serious risk in that environment...
This is even worse when you think about the fact that most of the grease is often not coming from the hands them self, but from the face and hair - as most people put their hands in the face and rub them thru the hair all the time. Put your face against a window or mirror and you will see, haha. Now if someone do the same with their glove covered hand, it gets on the glove too and they will leave grease on the objects they work with (not in the typical pattern of fingerprints, but there will be smudges).
Maybe the amount of grease isn't enough in most cases, but if fingerprints really are a concern, this will indeed be as well. Maybe that was the reson the pressure regulator went up in flames at 12:00...
I use to look at the phone display, it's is also a good indicator (look against the light). If I wash my hands with dish soap, I could use it for hours without leaving visible fingerprints on it - then I touch the hair and it get fingerpints all over it (unless I have taken a shower within the last 3 hours or so - washing the face and hair as well).
@@SteveBludsworth that's not a scienctist. it's one of the influencer idiots
I'm a chemist. I won't touch the stuff.
appreciate for including nile red in the project. its hard for small creators to start sometimes, and im sure he appreciates this alot
Seriously nilered is a much larger creator than this guy all you need to do is look at his channel unless you are just being a troll or sarcastic
@@CodyChambers-t3p Wait, Nile Red has more subscribers? Really?
😂
We just need to get nilered in here saying how this video is what made his channel what it is today.
@@CodyChambers-t3p oh my god do none of you have a sense of humor???
guys you need a designated survivor process, otherwise all of chemistry youtube could be wiped out in an instant
I recognized that sign in the back of the fume hood:
"Not only will this kill you, it will hurt the entire time you're dying."
Seems apt.
Nah...it just retcons you out of existence.
They should put stuff like that on the outside of cigarette packaging; the same sort of warning would be great for vaccine incentives... Something along the lines of: the most common side effect of receiving this vaccine is a sore muscle in the local area around the injection site. The most common side effect of not getting this vaccine is a severe respiratory system infection that can result in hospitalization, loss of taste and smell, choking to death or drowning on the fluid buildup in your lungs or pneumonia from the illness and death from myriad other complications or permanent disability from the aftereffects of the disease!
Me 2 the only one worse? I know of is the same but Freeze Dried if you survived those others?
Phuckers! told me it was pure oxygen!
Found the sheep.
@jjj-i6d5k explain.
You know you've got something unbelievably special on-hand when you can invite out all of YouTube's chemistry MVPs to Germany and everybody is delighted to show up.
That monel regulator being incinerated by a stray fingerprint was extremely impressive. Kudos to the research team for their safety protocols
Ty to Patrick for sacrificing his fume hood for us. May his research bring him eternal glory, and his career be free of mishaps.
Patrick was being a prune! I bet he’s fun at parties!!!
I cannot describe how endearing it is that all my favorite chemistry YouTube channels have a Discord group and the Avengers assemble as soon as someone's doing something cool and dangerous.
small creator is a really accurate description of nilered
Wow, you are sour.
@@mariemccann5895 I wouldn't immediately criticize a comment in what could be immediately understood as sarcasm for actual malice
Talking about that NileGreen wannabe ? 😂
@@mariemccann5895 Wow, you are dense
He is like 5 feet tho
Wait, is professor Klaus, one of the few men who can safely work with Fluorine… named Florian? That’s some serious nominative determinism!
Fluorian.
My supervisors last name is Florian, lol. I work at a tire manufacturing plant. 🤣🤣
I knew a Lionel Wheeler. He owned a shop that aligned wheels. True story.
My name "Björn" means "bear" in Swedish. I work in IT. No coincidence there. Because I'm good at that stuff! 😉
Thanks for the multiple mention of PhD students, the term, and what it emphasizes as how much research is actually conducted in a lab by the PhD students, their dedication and efforts.
A relatively unknown section of society responsible for all innovations research and development hardly ever mentioned and acknowledged.
A former PhD student.
It appears that pressurized or high-flowrate fluorine has an adverse effect on...everything. Amazing video, and thanks for the mention!
Great minds think alike
Do you think it could ignite a rock?
yes, it definatly could....@dralanjhgi
Not on everything... it made those fires WAY better!
@@dralanjhgi If it can ignite a brick, I'm sure it can ignite a rock, as long as the rock isn't already a fluorine compound
I cannot believe all of my favorite science and physics YT creators were in 1 video!!! Who would've thought a little Fluorine experimentation could bring everyone together? Thank you AT and another huge TY TY TY to all my other faves for participating and all you guys taking the time to visit Germany for the production of this vid! Well done! Super important to show, if not in such a minor fraction of time to highlight all the processes required for handling and storing Fluorine. It feels a bit strange to see that and read that......Fluorine lol. Who would've known such a substance could be so "unstable"? Seriously well done and how cool it was to see you all together!! Again thank you all for the making and participating in this video!
Thank you for watching! I’m glad you liked the video!
I think everyone who worked in a lab would think that it would be super cool and scary to see some fluorine.
Gotcha, best defence against a flourine accident is running shoes.
😁😄🤣🤣😂😅
wasn't that specifically ClF3?
When I used to drive white phos round the firefighting instructions we were given was to discharge the fire extinguisher over your shoulder while you run the other way.
Make sure, you are running against wind or atleast 90 degree angle
Ahhhh. That's a runaway reaction, right?
I used to work in the semiconductor industry. Once, in my bay of the fab, I heard a technician screaming from outside of the clean room(!) because he was having a giant (16 gauge?...or roundabouts) "needle" [hollow nail!] jammed into his hand. Apparently, he was trying to fix a robotic arm device over an HF sink that refused to drain. He didn't drain the sink before trying to fix the robotic element or something equally forgetful. The robotic arm fell into the HF sink, splashed HF all over his hand and up his arm a ways.
HF will not hurt at first as it seeks out the calcium in your body to bond with. So, to give it something else to chew on b4 the medics arrive &/or it starts to liquify your bones, the affected area will be covered with a calcium "lotion" after a colloidal calcium compound is injected into the area. Such an injection requires a giant freaking "needle"!
😭
I'll take the giant needle over my bones liquifying, thanks.
Sounds like an absolutely terrifying experience. I love your description of giving the HF 'something to chew on'. I have to say though that in my experience, 16 gauge is nothing, I've routinely had lots of 'permanent' body piercings done at that, even sometimes being a pincushion for apprentices to practice on, haha. 4 gauge (4.1mm) is much more 'interesting', and I've had nearly 2 hundred of those done too, albeit only temporarily, they're deffo quite 'nippy'.
Jesus. Did the guy survive and retain the function in his hand? People have died from much less.
I wonder how that bout of HF toxicity went for him. I had minor inhalation exposure once and it was nasty compared to the burns.
FYI I don't work in a lab, and it's a corporate owned "customer service" position. So I had NO idea what was wrong with me until I went looking up the cleaner. Fun, don't you love the callousness of our corporate overlords?
I remember reading a quote that went roughly like "many an ambitious chemist's life has been cut short once they embark upon the study of fluorine halides"
This sounds so much like Derek Lowe's "Things I Won't Work With"
When flourine compounds were discovered, it took 70 years before fluorine was isolated and three chemists died.
@@darylcheshire1618 That must mean the three chemists lived very long lives.
There is no such thing as an old fluorochemist!
The scientists that isolated fluorine were known as the Fluorine Martyrs.
Too bad they never got to enjoy their nickname.
Not only is Florian Kraus the most knowledgeable about Fluorine, but he's still alive! (and has the best name for someone who works with Fluorine)
He could improve the name by moving just one letter: Fluorian Kras
it always makes me smile when Chem youtubers hang out. I assume they have a mad scientist discord
how else did they all get together
Ive seen some insane dc discussions between backyard chemists.
Wow. NileRed has a great channel. I am glad you included him. Thanks for the informative video.
I met Patrick at a fluorine congress in early January and he spoiled me that a video was coming with most chemist Youtuber in Kraus' Lab. To be honest I completely forgot about it.
Really nice video!
That’s a funny coincidence! Thank you, I’m glad you liked the video!
Awesome video on fluorine. . Super cool collaboration. Totally amazing 👏👍👍
Thank you so much! :)
i am a chemistry student at Uni Marburg and it is so nice to see that you all went to Prof.Kraus´ lab and made a video about fluorine. The research there is highly interesting and inspiring. Love your channel and so cool that you did one month internship
Awesome! I’m glad you liked the video! Yes, Prof. Kraus‘ lab does a lot of interesting research.
I INSTANTLY thought of the University of Marburg and high energy chemistry lol
What an amazing opportunity to see an incredibly rare and dangerous chemical being demonstrated.
Thanks so much for sharing this.
I was recently injected with the isotope fluorine-18; the tech was fully garbed, and the syringe was encased in a tungsten shield.
The positron emissions over the very short half-life highlighted my tumours nicely.
Yup its insanely radioactive but very short half life. The chemical used is 5 fluoroglucose. It's used to find areas of high metabolism.
hopefully the tumors are benign, thank you for sharing!
Hope the tumors are benign, will pray for your speedy recovery! 😊
It's antimatter! Feels like Star Trek technology.
I hope you will recover.
Never too early to speak to a lawyer about securing the rights to the future X-men movie.
So nice of you to give such a small creator like the Niel Reed guy some of your YouTube spotlight 🙏♥
Wait wait wait. There's an evil chemist DISCORD?!?!?
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I think they could still be identified as mad rather than evil.
@@johnlucas6683 no, when experimenting with Fluorine you cross a line even mad scientists manage to toe
Nahhhhh you’re thinking of l.o.v.e.m.u.f.f.i.n
Needs to be pubicly visible
Nile Red probably runs the damn thing. He's one life tragedy away from becoming a super villain lol.
So exciting to see your channel take off like this. You deserve it!
Thank you so much! And thank you for being part of that journey.
I had such a great time with you and all the other guys filming this video! I hope there is a lot more stuff like this to come in the future! ;-)
I thought you are busy building your potassium empire. :D
@@altxyz Haha I am busy with a lot of stuff actually.
So good of you to throw the smaller creators a bone!
Thanks for busting some myths about fluorine. People think that putting a piece of brick into a 1 bar atmosphere of fluorine will cause it to ignite, but it really requires an initiator and a strong flow of the gaseous reactant.
I still think this was a missed opportunity not to ask another department to lend some liquid helium and finally make pictures of solid fluorine. I don't think there are any photographs of it online, only descriptions.
That’s an interesting idea. Maybe it will be possible for me to film solid fluorine at some point.
Wait, does F react with He or is it just a temperature thing?
@@KevinLyda it's a temperature thing, liquid hydrogen is colder than liquid nitrogen so it can freeze the fluorine instead of liquefy it
Oh, thank goodness, fluorine only burns bricks if there's an initiator AND a high flow. Pheew, for a minute there I thought this stuff might be dangerous.
I'm no chemist myself, but I distinctly remember my high school chemistry teacher telling us that if one were to take a lump of solid fluorine the size of a house brick (and had a way to prevent this "experiment" from ending before it began) and threw it into a tub of water, the resulting explosion would be powerful enough to level a skyscraper. What do you think of that?
Wonderful video. Thank you so much. It is nice to see you all in one place.
Best molecule: FOOF
It does what it sounds like
Satan’s Kimchi.
until you discover, they got more insane and synthesized hexaoxygen difluoride FOOOOOOF. Which, funnily enough, is what your fume hood sounds like, reaching escape velocity because you heated it up to 90 K (-298F, 183C) too fast.
My man reading up on the things I won't work with blog, I like it!
There are some who refuse to work with it, and then there are others so insane they use it in a tri-propellant rocket engine.
Insane how the lab coat was harder to light on fire than the firemen's coat. Very interesting video, and nice cameos. Thank you!
Nomex will burn "vigorously" in an oxygen rich atmosphere - so I'm not at all surprised fluorine will do it. They really drilled into us - if you ever see O2 > 20% on the meter get OUT
That actually makes sense to me because the primary purpose of a fireman's coat is to protect you from high heat while lab coats need to react to as little as possible.
An opposite observation I had was that the lab coat kept burning after the flourine was stopped while the fireman's coat just smoked a little.
A key example of needing to use the right tools/safety for the job
@@jtosety That's actually really good reasoning. Thank you for the enlightenment!
an advanced laboratory, carefully and thoughtfully maintained with a fully functioning machine shop...yeah i'm thinking we're in germany
It's so hilarious that a layman will overblow the dangers of uranium when you can even hold it in your bare hands, or even lick it (unless it was a dusty sample), while he won't even have any knowledge on the dangers of fluorine gas which is so reactive it can tear electrons off from noble gases.
Yeah, uranium and thorium aren’t that bad. I’d stay away from stronger alpha emitters like radium and polonium though.
Ideally youd stay away from any radioactive material but thats easier said then done
@@Kaenguruuehhh unless you eat uranium it's basically harmless, it's mainly emitting alpha particles so unless it's inside you they're getting blocked by your skin
Anything that can rip electrons off a nobel gas is indeed terrifying.
Fluorine: the atom you get mugged by.
Periodic Videos from the Royal Oxford school of chemestry had a pair of fantastic videos on flourine but you are right, they are years old. Still relevant, still well worth watching.
Making your own equipment is a time-honored tradition in experimental physics. Back in the day, we made a liquid ozone generator to do cross-section collision measurements with various upper atmospheric molecules -- including HFl, but never Fl2 itself.
Great video Nikolas!! Was such a pleasure to experience this!
Thank you! It was a pleasure to have you! It was a great time!
Its really nice to see the small hardly known about YouTuber NileRed get some exposure.
Yes, only 8 million subscribers. 😂
Hahaha
The most popular chemistry YouTubers in one place. Thank you all for this great cinema!
8:20 Look at that all-star lineup. Glorious
@6:26 My first glimpse of the “DANGER • DO NOT TOUCH • NOT ONLY WILL THIS KILL • YOU, IT WILL HURT THE WHOLE • TIME YOU ARE DYING" sign which I first thought was a creative attempt by an employee to shock some reality and caution to coworkers until I realized that the sheer number of idiots in this world warranted the commercial production of a sign like this! 😂 My first introduction to the scary nature of this element is Randall Munroe’s “What If?” talk at Google (where he considers the consequences of trying to collect a brick-sized amount of every element on the periodic table).
Glad to see some of my favorite madmen in the same room!
Very impressed by the lab and how they manufacture the equipment they need as well.
Is it,um, symptomatic that I recognized some of them with the sound off?
I live about seven Kilometers away from a plant of a big chemical company that extracts flourine and chlorine from the salt in the ground, and among other things makes PFAS from it. Even though I knew that fluorine is the most reactive element and very aggressive, I hadn't been aware how dangerous it is. Thanks for this rare insight.
Where is that? BASF perchance?
@@Reality_TM No, it belongs to Solvay
The US Chemical Safety Board produces educational Youtube videos on accidents involving chemical plants, oil refineries and the like. I learned from one of their videos that phosgene is used as a reactant for some chemical industry processes...
Good on everyone involved for all the time it takes to create this.
This video is PURE GOLD!!! Thank you!!
Thank you so much to the lab and everyone that helped make this happen, it's beyond rare to get to see such things!
@Mic_Glow - 2025-02-19
Nilered didn't go there to make a video... he went to learn how to safely(ish) handle those compounds for a future project.
@ASDeckard - 2025-02-26
Yep..... I really hope he survives the project. XD
@sharxbyte - 2025-03-02
He's going to turn fluorine into lemonade
@Mic_Glow - 2025-03-02
@ Teflon flavor! You wouldn't die but probably spend the next 2 days in the bathroom with explosive diarrhea
@codiserville593 - 2025-03-04
Mmmmn
@thybaltcarratala2433 - 2025-03-04
And of course if the project fail it’s will be worst than the bomb h