NileRed - 2014-04-11
Warning: this experiment is dangerous and possibly explosive. Proper care must be taken. Magnesium silicide reacts with HCl to produce silane gas. Silane gas is pyrophoric, which means that it spontaneously combusts in contact with air at temperatures below 54C. The silane gas erupts into flames when it contacts air and makes small popping noises.
ExF: Yeah Nilered is a pyromaniac.
Also came from that vid
Yep
A word of caution regarding the sand: not all sand is SiO2. The typical "play sand," used for kids' play-boxes, or for making concrete is likely to contain various silicates and other minerals. Remember, sand is nothing more than rock, which was pulverized by erosion, and has the same composition as the original rock. Be sure to get silica sand, or quartz sand. This is sold for sand blasting. You'll note it is pure white in color, whereas other sand is usually tan.
Clyde Wary
Do you think the sun might have caused decay?
ecstasy.apostasy no, the difference in color between Quartz or silica sand is due to small amounts of other minerals in the crystal structure. Same way that causes diamonds and other minerals to have different colors.
Clyde Wary if you get playground or beach sand that is usually a pure enough source of silicon dioxide for most purposes. The most important thing is to wash whatever sand you use with acid several times to remove any carbonates or non silica based minerals. Nitric or hydrochloric acids can be used for this. After washing with acid and rinsing with distilled water, even crude sources of silicon dioxide should be usable for most purposes.
proposed use: Hydrochloric acid is the stuff you have in your stomach. Eat magnesium silicide to burp flames.
I kinda wanna try now...but I don't think it's a good idea
The fbi would like to know ur location
What about silane turbo charged balloon?
Thank you for posting chemistry videos on youtube! It seems to be a dying art...
Well sure but they have a billion times more resources and 100,000 times more guns and hands to carry those guns to shoot you down, not to mention they have influence and if you were to loose you would be deemed by history as nothing more than a petty terrorist. Even if you were to win what then? who would you place in power other than them, if you say yourself then you are merely repeating the cycle because people under your rule would likely have the same opinions about your leadership only on different matters.
If you want to make a new state or country with its own rules and culture then it is better to find an uninhabited island and make one there as opposed to carving a new one from someones else's.
Haha. Don't worry. You'll find me in the news. I have a plan
I will be watching closely, it sounds highly entertaining.
@Stefan Reich did you manage to do something?
@NileRed after seeing the final aerogel video, this comment is really a hidden gem
Wow. Your old videos are so much different from the new ones.
New ones, you have a lot more lab equipment and your voice over sounds much more professional.
Practice makes perfect
@Nabeel Farooq Absolutely!
What would happen if you eat magnesium silicide and it reacts with hydrochloric acid in yur stomach? If there is not enought air in your esophagus, will you breath fire upon the gas reaching your mouth?
olshevch
Warning, do not attempt.
Its also toxic
that test tube blew its load
Impressive that you made yourself a flash cannon reaction!
I only heard of silicides in the context of Nickel silicides in ohmic contacts on Si wafers where they exist as nanometer thick boundary layers. Curiously, a Ni2Si MSDS states "To the best of our knowledge the chemical, physical and toxicological properties of nickel silicide have not been thoroughly investigated and recorded."
Thank you I’m studying silane for school
How many grams of silica gel would I use,as opposed to the 3.1g sand?
Superb demonstration.....nuff said ;-)
You need a way to perform this reaction anaerobically, so you can capture the silicide.
I love your work. please keep it up. free youtube education is the future of learning, thank you for being such a fantastic part. science is awesome.
Hmm wonder if it would work with aluminum instead of magnesium.
I'm afraid aluminum and silicon might turn out to be incompatible in terms of their radii. Plus, since they're so close int he periodic table, I would expect there to bee too low of an electronegativity difference, substantially decreasing the energy output of such a reaction. Plus, even if it is possible, the activation energy might be too high. I mean there must be a reason every textbook out there gives the reaction with manganese and not aluminum.
What percentage of Mg2Si was produced
how did you clean that up? :D
Top notch! I didn't pick up on this one in college. Thanks.
Classic video. Would you be able to revisit this?
Would the reaction to create silane work with any acid? I saw another video from Frankium where he spoke about the reaction occurring in water but is sped up in an acidic solution.
Thank you for making all these awesome videos!
if u want to b the first to see the light field it explains chirality NileRed
When does the silicone became metal? Wasn't it a metalloid?
Would you still be able to make magnesium silicide if you substituted sodium silicate for sand?
I honestly have no idea. You might have to try it out yourself to see if it works.
I do alot of these experiments without any proper safety equiptment and it really melted my legos but nothing sevir, only an arm and face burn.
Do you have any suggestions for the synthesis of calcium silicide ?
what gases should be allowed to escape from the tube with Mg/Silica gel? What gases are produced? Water vapor?
I was wondering,would the sand help space the particles between the magnesium? Possibly aiding in the excelleration? Probably not so much related to the reaction but i was just curious
How to collect silane ?
can you teach us how to make nitroglyceren
good for a blare bomb
So how to make it right with large amount of silica gel?
Exciting nice work
This is why they invented fume hoods and why you can't skimp on fire protection.
Silane Gas is one of my new favourite chemicals...
Wonderful video as always, only thing I do not understand is why some people have disliked it? If they don't like the subject matter, why watch?
Makes no sense.
Great video anyway, ignore the jealous people who do not understand what they are watching.
Is it more violent because of the vapor fumes? Silicon dioxide gel
Can you just use one of the silica gel packets that say don't eat on them and throw those in the test tube and heat up???
I have never tried, but you would have to first dehydrate them and then crush them. Their purpose in that little packet is to absorb water, so you can imagine they will be pretty wet. Also, if the grain size is too big, it won't react properly with the magnesium.
If you do try this, be careful. Silical gel and magnesium together can be quite dangerous.
Very Good video !!!! 😍😍😍
In the organic chemistry class I took, we did "sodium fusion" reactions. It's done like this. A small piece of Na is placed in a test tube, and is heated intensely. An organic chemical you want to analyze is then squirted into the test tube. The reaction is pretty vigorous. Then, while the test tube is still really hot, it's plunged into water. It shatters. The glass peices sink to the bottom, leaving a clear solution that then undergoes elemental analysis. I think this method would be ideal for the experiment described here.
Yes, it's called the Lassaigne's Test, and it is used for converting the covalent bond into an ionic one, so you can easily identify the atom present. Usually done for detecting the presence of nitrogen, sulphur, and halogens!
How is silane used
NileRed
Any good ways to purify sand so it's essentially just as good as using silica gel?
1. Take impure sand
2. Remove impurities
3. Search it online, I'm an expert in being annoying, not chemistry!
How come the magnesium doesn't react with the test tube glass?
Jake Kim I think it is borosilicate glass not Sio2
@Eastern Slav Isn't that mostly silica still? Do the other ingredients prevent it from reacting?
Jake Kim it also is not in a fine powder so it doesn't react, but with the one that exploded it may have reacted with the glass.
Hey can you make a video showing the preparation of Grignard reagent.
Would you be able to do this with powdered glass instead of sand or silica gel?
+thebestofall007 as long as your glass is silicate glass, i assume so. Nile Red, any info on that?
Justin Koenig
I guess not xD
Does Silane react with water or not?
It doesn't react but magnesium silicide react with water to form Silane and Magnesium oxide.
Mg₂Si + 2H₂O = 2MgO + SiH₄
Can I use 25% vinegar instead of 10% HCl ?
Winny Puch no
Can you make a video showing how to make silicon tetrachloride? It is a really interesting compound, but I have no idea how to make it. I have seen procedures calling for "treating silicon metal with chlorine gas" but I don't know how that should be done.
If you can figure anythiing out let me know
hmmm, actually very interesting! I will look into this :)
heat silicon metal and pass over DRY chlorine gas.
And for heating the Si metal should it just be gently heated or heated strongly? Also could you give me the source from which you found this? Thanks!!
Strongly with a bunsen burner. Here is the link:
http://www.chemiedidaktik.uni-wuppertal.de/disido_cy/en/exp/m_fact01.htm
TheBackyardScientist - 2014-04-11
That hood won't look good for long! Haha. I had no idea you could just make silane like that very cool. It's also eye opening, I sometimes work in a lab with a large cylinders of silane with tubes running all over yikes.
NileRed - 2014-04-11
haha, luckily hood seems to be quite resilient despite my best efforts to destroy it.
Zachary Friesen - 2020-10-02
Hi backyard scientist can I have an aluminum banana