Elias Experiments - 2023-10-06
What happens when you mix liquid oxygen with liquid propane? Or any other organic substance? Watch this video and find out! Many thanks to Thy Labs and Advanced Tinkering for helping me with these difficult experiments. You can find their channels here: Thy Labs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv0Bj3DM-ioSaVjO22g2ARA Advanced Tinkering: https://www.youtube.com/@AdvancedTinkering TKOR Liquid Oxygen Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv0U8SvU34I
Laughing Germans blowing things up is never a good sign.
You better watch out! XD
@@EliasExperimentsJetzt hab ich Angst...
This is funny. I'm sorry, Germans.
it is the best sign there is
@@ryanrenolds Solltest du...
The missing puzzle piece appears largely to be one of the confinement of such reactions. The highly unconsolidated (albeit homogeneous) nature of the sawdust oxygen mixture allows the mass to disassemble itself in a weak deflagration analogous to a pile of black powder on a table being ignited. When confined in a rigid container however, (possibly only even in a glass cold trap) both mixtures absolutely will detonate violently.
Yeah with confimenment you can certainly make it more dangerous, but I was not to keen on experimenting with that and getting accused of bomb building. XD
Yep, even nitroglycerin or C4 will burn with an ordinary flame when ignited, it's all about the initiation energy and confinement.
@@flomojo2u Doesn't C4 require a blasting cap to actually detonate? That stuff is super stable.
it does, nitroglycerin will actually just puff into smoke but there are stories of people using c4 instead of a portable solid fuel for cooking MREs in the army, its one of the few things the mythbusters did that really really shocked me, cant find the mythbusters episode but there are some vids on yt @@Boomchacle
@@BoomchacleYes c4 (rdx) is a secondary explosive and requires a blasting cap to be set off.
The actual danger of liquid oxygen is saturating stuff you don't want to burn, like clothes on your body, with it without noticing and then being turned into a human blow torch so quickly you can't react to it before being covered in 3rd degree burns because of static discharge.
Static discharge is actually really bad at lighting this, but if you get very unlucky anything can be really dangerous. I guess driving a car is generally a lot more dangerous.
@@EliasExperiments The thing is, oxygen saturated clothing means that if another thing goes wrong, it goes really, really, REALLY wrong, as in, the life you had before the accident is over.
In other words, if there is a 1 in 100000 chance you turn into a human flare, will that number comfort you when you're in a burn ward after the freakest accident actually happens?
Comparing it to car accidents doesn't really fit if you consider the billions of dollars worth or R&D spent to make cars and roads safer because humans are easily distracted monkeys with ego problems.
Also, a dismissive attitude about safety - even jokingly - has claimed many lives of those who thought it couldn't happen to them. Wood burning microwave transformers come to mind - total widowmakers.
So I am perfectly aware that what I did in this video could have gone horrible wrong.
The thing is anything you do in live can go very horribly wrong.
You can't have no risk in life. If you don't do anything to avoid making mistakes you will probably regret it at the end of your life and that would be a horrible tragedy in itself.
Why can I not compare it to car accidents? Should I compare it to extreme sports, or overeating, or what would you prefer?
No matter what you do tragedy and horror lurks everywhere. If you have a solution to safely avoid tragedy I would love to hear it.
I am by no means dismissive about safety. I am dismissive about a wrong perception of reality and not putting actions into proper perspective. Like this video vs. car driving, extreme sports, overeating etc.
There are always two extremes: Being safe and being completly irresponsible are two nice opposites. However being on the safety extreme it no good either in my opinion. I think it is far better to learn how to deal with dangerous stuff instead of trying to hide from it. That would be the lesson of sleeping beauty ;-)
So how about you pick your poison, I will chose mine? ;-)
@@EliasExperiments It’s just good to be aware of what the dangers are.
Your clothes were in a plume of concentrated oxygen vapor when trying to cool that propane. Maybe it would be better to just use nitrogen when trying to cool something.
That pan of wood dust had potential to blow violently if there was a slightly different amount of oxygen, or different mixing or type/point of ignition.
The propane thing managed to blow up just from a flame in an open container. Most things that do that are things you don’t want to stir or shake by hand.
@@EliasExperiments I guess the point is, there’s little moments of danger that aren’t as obvious as what you would see when driving. I probably missed a lot more than I noticed. Just because something like this worked 11 times doesn’t mean it will work safely the 12th.
"This is so blatantly irresponsible that it cannot be put into words"
😂
Haha exactly :D
Good blend of fun and terrifying! Amazed how tame most of them were.
Yes I was truly amazed too! Thank you for the feedback!
Explosives need fragmentation to damage you or something that burns longer to light you up. If you have neither then it's mostly safe aside from the "soaking in liquid oxygen" scenario
Now I want to see 2/3 liquid Hydrogen with 1/3 liquid oxygen
I will try to do it this winter!
Thanks Elias. Just think of a confined automatic mixer thus time. Even gasses explode with 4km/s blastwave, so plz keep your extremities (i was close to losing mine a few times).
@@dannydetonator Well they can't really confine anything without violating explosives laws.
Haha! I have rarely laughed and cringed so much at the same time watching a video :D
We should definitely repeat such a day! It was a lot of fun!
Super cut and I also like the thumbnail very much!
No need to cringe, you added a lot of value to the video!
I am sure that we will definetly repeat such a day.
For the thumbnail I had some help, this is beyond my capabilities :P
that was a very nice blast, gas mixtures always give a nice sound.
Yeah certainly :D
@@EliasExperimentstry frozen acetylene and then powder that, acetylene has very worrying properties but isnt sensitive to hammer when frozen solid
My assessment is that it's tricky to get liquid oxygen to mix well enough to cause an explosion rather than a fire. All these trials were done with a short mixing time. A cold trap has external cooling with liquid nitrogen, so there are more possibilities. For example if you condensed propane and oxygen from gas phase into a receiving vessel cooled by liquid nitrogen, you could probably get a much more reliable explosion. Or if the charcoal were precooled by liquid nitrogen and so the oxygen had time to soak in unhindered by eg the leidenfrost effect, that might also work better.
On the one hand, a cold trap accident would have condensing air, which might be somewhat enriched in oxygen but I don't think it would usually be pure oxygen. On the other, the opportunities for thorough mixing might be much greater, and the cold trap might provide some confinement.
The thing is, how many actual accidents have been reported with liquid oxygen in a cold traps, besides freaking out. Would be an interesting research topic. If anyone could send me a report of this actually happening once, I would love to read it.
I am pretty sure the charcoal was thoroughly soaked with liquid oxygen, because it has to cool down to the boiling point of oxygen anyways to wet it. But who know. All ideas for future experiments ;-)
@@EliasExperiments I have no idea how often something interesting actually happens, or might happen given the right stimulus.
The issue with things like this that turn into their own little legends is that the conditions that created the legend, if they ever existed, get lost to history.
It might be that some conditions for an interesting cold trap "accident" are written down in a very old chemistry paper somewhere.
I mean in theory it is definetly very dangerous, but this is a problem of perception.
If people are really scared of something it can easily perceived as a lot more dangerous then it actually is.
I remember how extremly scared I was when making this video, once I saw the large amount of liquid propane, but after editing the video and looking at it from a safe perspective it didn't seem that dangerous to me at all.
While in the Air Force, we were given a demonstration about the dangers of liquid oxygen and jet fuel mixed together. If you were at one facility (fuels) and you had to go to the other facility (lin/lox) you had to change your uniform every time you went from one to the other. They dug a small hole in the ground and poured some jet fuel into it. They then filled a mall cup of lox with a long string on it and pulled it into the hole. To ignite it they plugged in a frayed electric cord. For the amounts mixed in the hole there was a VERY large and loud explosion. It cracked the windows on a building about 70 feet or so away from it. Scary stuff
@@EliasExperiments Oh definitely the perceived danger is much greater than reality. On the other hand, accidents that manage to hurt people often have several things go wrong, or something odd happens. It's often not the thing that usually happens that one has to watch out for, but the unusual outcome that still happens often enough to cause trouble.
With the propane-oxygen mixture, it clearly wouldn't have gone well for you if somehow it had gone off while you were handling it. It's not clear to me whether an electrostatic discharge could set it off. I think that's a possibility with methane-oxygen mixtures. If you were doing this another 1000 times that would be something to consider.
Mostly what I think would be interesting about this is what circumstances would actually be required to make it act like the legend. You know, like the Mythbusters formula: first reproduce the conditions as stated in the myth, then try to reproduce the result stated in the myth.
I’m glad you went through with the experiment to ensure people understand the reality vs the myth of the chemistry. Respecting the chemistry is always wise, but being reasonable about the magnitude of effects is also important. I’m glad you cleared the hype.
Thank you for the kind feedback!
POV: German scientist in 1943 experimentating the right mixture to find an efficient propeller for V2 rockets (colourized).
Haha lol, great comment! XD
With the LOX+propane mixture the initial flame is the propane burning by combining with the oxygen in the air above it and the second much more impressive boom is from the boundary with the LOX igniting
That could certainly be the case. This has to be investigated more closely haha.
LOX doesn't burn, for it supports combustion. Many of these mixtures may not do as expected because the fuel-to-oxidizer ratio is too far off to support burning, deflagration, or explosion.
@@EliasExperiments Needs to be filmed with both a thermal camera and a high speed camera
Enjoyed this way more than I should, especially your banter!
Haha, thank you so much!
What's probably going on is that in liquid form O2 won't easily react since you're removing a lot of heat. As soon as that oxygen comes back up to room temperature, and you've created an oxygen rich environment, almost anything will burn. You're really lucky nothing caught prematurely.
That is certainly a very good point, that I didn't manage to articulate yet. Thank you for the input!
I imagine whats causing the explosion with the propane and oxygen mix is largely similar mechanics to a fuel air bomb once the mix is right from the initial fireballs force
Yeah that might be. Sounds like an interesting hypothesis!
you're becoming my favorite channel, I LOVE THIS, I had this idea for so long and couldn't find out why nobody has tried it! also, I'm checking out thy labs and advanced tinkering as well :D seems like they have similar content!
P.S. I made sodium using the downs process recently, not much, but enough to hold and see! which is particularly impressive because nobody else on youtube has done it on a small scale that I know of, they all just do the castner process.
Thank you for the kind feedback!
I would definetly love to see your downs cell process in video format!
@@EliasExperiments yeah, me too, I'm still busy helping my family through harvest season... farming is boring for me though, and I would love to make a chemistry YouTube channel. its been a dream for a while now. thanks for the reply!
Don't let your dreams be dreams! Haha
Impressive!
I'm not talking only about the spectacular reactions, but the bravery of the experimenters. :-)
Lol, thank you so much!
There is a difference between bravery and stupidity. I think this is the later. Look at the actors. It is clear they don't really know what will happen.
2:24 when you ask your chemist friend to light the barbecue... :D
He burns down the entire grill as well XD
I just got recommended this channel from the algorithm, and I love it! Keep up the great work, I think your channel is gonna do really well! Thanks for mythbusting this, people really freak out about oxygen. Ive had so many try to tell me that oxygen is flammable.
Thank you for the kind words, I will try my best to continue!
I used to freeze all kinds of things in leftover LOX we used to service aircraft in the military. Energy drinks make great instant Popsicles!
Oh wow that sounds really dangerous
I think that this video demonstration actually serves a very useful purpose: it helps people visuallize a little better the processes involved, and would help us to feel a little more relaxed if we had to work around something like this. If there were ever some crazy emergency that came up, we could have a little better assessment of our risk, and thereby avoid panicking and making a bad decision. Like if you were on the third floor of a building and something happened with liquid oxygen, you wouldn't want to panick and go jump out of the window. Now anything that were to happen indoors is way more dangerous though, because the wind can't disperse the explosive mixtures. But this demonstration at least shows how much safer it is to be outdoors with any really flammable or potentially explosive mixtures.
Thank you for the kind feedback! I am glad that I am doing something useful in your opinion :-)
@@EliasExperiments Imagine if there were some sort of emergency where someone spilled liquid oxygen outside while doing an experiment, but the person was also injured and needed help. Prior to watching this video we might be inclined to think that there would almost certainly be a dangerous explosion any second, so we might be inclined to grab the injured person and drag them as quickly as possible away from the spilled oxygen, which could end up doing additional injury to the person. By having a general idea of what the actual risk is, we can make a better decision and avoid unnecessary further injuries. This is obviously an extremely unlikely hypothetical scenario, but just in general people tend to panic when they are suddenly put into a situation with something that is perceived as extremely dangerous and not well understood, and panicking in of itself can sometimes be worse than the incident that gave rise to it.
Yeah that is definetly a great point. Thank you for mentioning that!
That wood dust burn off was pretty cool! Nice lil bang there at the end. Enjoyed watching guys being guys, and no one lost a hand, so that’s always nice.
Haha, thank you!
I saw the title and I immediately thought “what kind of crazy person mixes liquid propane and smoked salmon?”
Lol now I get the salmon reference from other comments. Thank you for clearing that up! For me as a chemist LOX is only liquid oxygen haha :D
The flash point of propane at standard conditions is -104°C so it takes at least a bit of energy to get it to ignite. I think it's hard to get that going when the solution is so cold unless you use something like a sparkler to ignite, I assume this is what you do when it works. Also, once it ignites most of the liquid is blown away by the pressure before it has time to react in liquid phase, so you get the big fireball instead. The final pop is presumably a residual mixture of the gases. I speculate that a wide, shallow vessel like the trays you use in the beginning would have a better result. Shredded sponges could also be a useful medium to absorb both liquids, but this is even more speculative.
Yeah that certainly could have work. So much to try for future experiments!
You guys had some hilarious comments. I would quote them here but there were too many. Loved it.
Haha, thank you for the kind feedback!
when someone says something is a terrible idea i need to try it
Well good luck and have fun :D
During World War 2, experiments were carried out to see whether a small cargo vessel with both a liquid fuel and liquid oxygen could spill its cargo in a harbour and blow everything up. I seem to recall that the experiments were not sufficiently successful to be pursued.
Even if they were successful - there's got to be some very major benefits compared to conventional fuel-air explosives to warrant such a complicated endeavor.
Why carry the oxidizer with you, in a dangerous cryogenic form no less, if it's everywhere around you anyway after all?
Edit - Maybe that's how they came up with fuel-air explosives in the first place.
Wow that is very interesting, thank you for sharing that!
Next video: pouring liquid hydrogen on solid oxygen
Liquid hydrogen will be coming up, so subscribe that you don't miss it! ;-)
The reaction with the sponges tells us that the contact area and mixture of the LOx is probably what limits the other reactions. The sponges absorb the LOx into every pore. The wood dust and sugar probably pack together too tightly. The charcoal probably only absorbs LOx into the outer surface.
That is certainly a possible explanation. Further testing is required! :D
"Welcome back to my laboratory where safety is number one priority!"
In this case it would be like third priority :D
Crazy Russian Hacker to be remembered 😂
Super fun and exciting video. Wondered since I was a kid what lighting liquid gas rocket fuel would look like. Wasnt dissapointed.
Thank you for the kind feedback!
It´s great seeing a new "energetic video" from Elias. So it just takes liquid O2, liquid propane and a bunch of "daredevils" to create some Hollywood-like blasts. Many thanks for the exciting entertainment and please more of the good stuff!💥💥💥
Thank you for the kind feedback, I will try my best to do so!
Geile Nummer😅 was mir am besten gefallen hat, war die mit der Länge des Video's "zunehmende" Professionalität😂
Haha, danke Dir!
How much difference would there been using liquid O3. We had tanks of liquid O3 in a factory I worked in. Needed it for the cutting torches
It would make a huge difference and a couple of things would probably already ignite on contact.
Im a pyrotechnician from germany and i think i have a valuable comment:
in my experience things that combust in a harmless manner when unconfined can make a surprising boom when confined.
When the hot gases cant escape temperature and pressure build, im sure everyone was aware of that. That on itself speeds up the reaction. But i think more importantly for a application like this is that the turbulent flow of gases mixes the fuel and oxidiser when confined, while it separates them while unconfined. The effect of which is bigger than one might expect. In a low explosive like black powder the effect of that is likely not to big because fuel and oxidiser are quite well mixed already and still we can observe a slow burn turning into a pretty snappy boom. But in a scenario like this where fuel and oxidiser would likely not be well mixed that effect could make drastic differences.
I would reserve judgement about the actual danger at hand until tested in a confinement similar to a real application such as in a cold trap.
To be clear i am *not* suggesting to make a experiment in confined conditions. With the passion for safety you guys show here that might not end well haha. I just want to say a conclusion such as "its not dangerous" from these tests alone is likely deceiving and could give a false sense of safety.
Thank you for the additinal insight.
Using an actual cold trap to test that, would have certainly been better, but then we would also have to test, how easy it is to ignite accidentally, which would make this whole thing a lot more difficult.
I did not conclude that any of this is safe. I only concluded that the reactions I observed were a lot less violent then what I would have expected.
Very interesting results in many of these combinations. Agree with the other commenters about the containment factor being a key component of the reactions. It is fascinating to know that technically you don't need separate tanks for a liquid propane / oxygen rocket as it will separate by its density on its own. You'd just have to know where to draw the different fuels out of that tank. The sugar/oxygen one seems very promising as a rocket motor fuel.
I wouldn't want to build a rocket with oxygen and propane in the same tank. That is crying for a disaster to happen lol.
@@EliasExperimentsDidn't the Germans come up with a thermobaric bomb during WW2 using coal dust and liquid oxygen? There's not much information out there about it other than it's existence and that it was extremely powerful for the time. If you're ever in the mood to add containment into future experiments, I'd really like to see it with coal dust (+ burster and ignition charges😊).
I have no idea, I would have to research that for myself. The wikipedia articel oxyliquid at least states that LOX and charcoal powder has been used as an explosive in the past, but was too unreliable. The thing about adding containment is, that you quickly wander into illegal territory.
@@EliasExperiments An excellent point! I thought you were going to have a "mini bleve" with the lox/LNG but it didn't do what I thought it was going to do at all - proving why experimenting and actual science are still incredibly important; because sometimes real results just aren't what you think they are going to be.
Yes exactly theory and practice are often two entirely different things.
So jealous knowing you guys are fluent in German and English. I can count in German, that's all....
I am sure you can learn it just like we did ;-)
You know, if you used a stake, a string and a swivel you could pour stuff into the other container from a safe distance. It would save you a whole lot of running and probably be a lot less stressful.
Yes that is indeed a great idea! We did that in the past and we should really go back to it.
I used to work for a gas company. One time the valve that connects the trucks up to the giant tank of liquid oxygen via a tube caught on fire, the large metal valve! No idea how it started, but a large chunk of metal burnt away like it was burning plastic.
Wow that sounds spectacular. I was trying to reproduce a similar effect, but I didn't have much sucess yet.
@@EliasExperiments haha! Good on you! This incident in that job actually caused so much fear in the truck driver who was filling his tank he had to take time off work and visit a therapist for PTSD. It's funny that you're trying to do it for fun (I'm on the same page as you really though, metal burning like plastic is brilliant).
I also understand the truck drivers perspective. If you really don't want something like this to happen it can be quite dramatic. Confronting something voluntarily always is something quite different psychologically :D
Schönes Video wieder!
Thank you!
Fun times. I can still feel the sweat when pouring the oxygen in that bottle xD
Ah so that is your YT Channel! :P
@@EliasExperiments It is indeed :D
I assume you've seen the old post of George Gobel dumping 10L of LOX onto 50 lb of charcoal and a lit cigarette? Good video.
Yes I have seen that :D
An interesting thing about propane is it's melting point is below that of methane, ethane, ethylene (ethene), and propylene (propene) in spite of being a higher molecular weight, though propylene is the closest to it of those. Methane, ethane and ethylene all freeze above oxygen's boiling point (-183C), so you'd end up with hydrocarbon slush if mixed with LOX, but propane's MP is at -188C and propene's at -185.2C, so either of those would work.
Also interestingly, the other two 3 carbon hydrocarbon molecules both have much higher melting points (propadiene and propyne AKA methyl acetylene) at -136 and -152.9 C, so trying to mix a MAPP gas blend with LOX would also end up with slush. (though that's not commonly available anymore, at least in the US due to manufacturing ceasing, and pure Propylene is used instead)
Though as actual rocket fuel, this still leaves both propane and propene/propylene as interesting fuels given they can potentially be stored at the same temperature as LOX without freezing, even if the margin between the freezing point of fuel and boiling point of oxygen is still rather small, it's present, and would increase a bit if the oxygen stores could be held at even slightly above 1 atmosphere of pressure.
Ethylene has a higher specific impulse than even methane, so a mixture containing that would be especially attractive. (though methane and propane would give the best economics)
Though given the marginal difference is specific impulse even there, the greater density of propylene at LOX temperatures would be the greater advantage (higher density and better ISP than propane for comparison too, but propane has the cost advantage and even lower MP)
Compared to hydrogen you have much lower specific impulse but also much higher bulk density and the ability to store close to the same temperature as LOX. Compared to kerosene rocket fuel (like RP-1), you have still significantly better specific impulse and also the ability to store at LOX temperatures.
OTOH this also ignores the potential for eutectic mixtures to form with some of the above hydrocarbons (and possibly others not listed) as that could suppress the melting point well below that of the individual constituents. I can at least find an example for methane and ethane with eutectic point very close to a 50/50 mix (by mass, or 65/35 mix by mole fraction) with melting point suppressed to below 73K or -200C. (looks close to 72.5k) So that case would be quite useful for storage at LOX temperatures and relatively cost effective.
I wonder if there are any useful eutectic mixtures formed with acetylene or even just good low temperature solubility in other hydrocarbon blends (without forming a true eutectic mixture) given acetylene specific impulse is very high, but melting point is only -80.8C, plus it becomes unstable under pressures much above 2 atm at room temperature (prone to spontaneous, explosive decomposition and polymerization when exposed to shock under those conditions), but is stable dissolved in acetone under pressure and should be considerably more stable at low temperatures, so solutions in cryogenic liquid hydrocarbons would seem ideal for this, though better still if they remain stable liquified under pressure at room temperature for easier storage and transportation. (OTOH acetylene could also be generated on-site using calcium carbide and blended into the desired composition with cryogenic liquid hydrocarbons on-site as well, and storing the blended mixture at capacities similar to those of on-site liquid hydrogen storage)
Wow those are some very interesting insights thank you for sharing that! ;-)
I'd be curious to see what happens if you match the temps better. the propane and the LO2 have vastly different boiling points, so I wonder if giving them both a bath in LN2 to supercool them to identical temps if they would mix better
I would imagine that if you are worried about atmospheric air condensing in lab equipment, anything that makes it to that point is going to be the same temp as the LO2,
Also, I bet if you tried this in anything with a constricted opening, that energy level is going to go up up up. You got a decent bang and that container was blunderbuss shaped. any confinement and you're going to exponentially increase that speed
So please use a plastic soda bottle next time 😉😉
As soon as the liquids are in the same container their temperatures will be equal quite quickly. So freezing everything with liquid nitrogen won't help mixing the liquids. It might help freezing everything solid and mixing it as a powder, but that sounds very dangerous with substances like that.
Plastic soda bottle certainly sounds like a very fun idea :D
@@EliasExperiments I was more thinking that the lo2 is colder than the lp, but they are both fighting to equalize temps. My thought is that if both are super cooled past their boiling points to equal temps, they will play together better than the lo2 furiously boiling to try to keep the lp cold
Maybe, but it is quite dangerous to play with stuff like that for any longer then we did.
Welcome to my laboratory where safety is number one priority. 👍
Maybe like number three haha :D
That was a great idea having Advanced tinkering and Thy labs help. Why blow off your fingers when you can have them do it for you.
Exactly!
During ww2 when Germany was experiencing shortages of nitric acid they tried to use porous carbon with LOX as an explosive. Apparently it had the same performance as TNT(when initiated with blasting cap)but was far too sensitive
What I have read was, that it was far too unreliable.
Aah I probably misunderstood the report... I guess at lox temperatures primary explosives would be too cold to detonate
When servicing USAF F-16 LOX bottles on the flightline we found LOX freezes water bugs (those get big in the Southern bases) mole crickets and frogs instantly which then shatter agreeably when tossed on the concrete ramp. LOX also does an amazing job chilling six packs (use a paper bag, NOT plastic which is petroleum). Do with that what you will.
Oh wow it's impressive you had LOX to play with. I have rarely seen anyone who was not terrified to death of LOX.
If we are looking for dangerous things to do with liquid oxygen, aerosolising it in cryogenic conditions with something like propane would be a wild ride.
SpaceX has manage to produce some impressive explosions with the mixture in the past few years.
Haha lol, but that is not exactly what we are going for XD
@shebamina - 2023-10-08
Regardless of what language you speak or your country of origin, we all have the same "I am an adult doing something extremely unwise" laugh.
@EliasExperiments - 2023-10-08
Lol, great point! XD