> chemistry > explosifs > c2n14 > c2n14-azidoazide-azide-from-isocyanogen-tetrabromide-synthesis-extractions-ire

C2N14 (azidoazide azide) from Isocyanogen Tetrabromide (Synthesis)

Extractions&Ire - 2019-03-03

In this video, we finally finish 3 years of synthesis to make C2N14 in my backyard. 
Other channel video: https://youtu.be/-Sz4d7RQB6Y
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ExplosionsandFire
Discord: https://discord.gg/VR6Fz9g
Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExplosionsAndFire/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Explosions_Fire

Rhodanide - 2019-03-03

Watching this at nearly 2:00 AM, half awake and quite delirious. Loved it.

La Rose Rouge et Noir - 2019-03-03

@Extractions&Ire Same here!

Magik trix with whyte fosforyz...

Almost one of the least safe things I can think of, right next to making your own americium nuclear breeder reactor, culturing certain specimens by accident and opening the lid and breathing in the aerosols, and eating perchlorates...

CRM-114 - 2019-03-03

8:00 AM over here. There is no better way to start your day than watching E&F for breakfast!

Gabriel Gray - 2019-03-03

I stayed up for one of the live streams once all night and proceeded to fall asleep right before it streamed like the dumbass I am

pineapple ‎ - 2019-03-03

Rhodanide 9 am and still delirious

Ra's al Ghul - 2019-07-28

Why do we keep doing it though?

Nixeu Harroc - 2019-09-23

Seriously dude, I think there's a potential paper/research project, here. You have two distinct syntheses that should be producing the same product, but aren't, if your results are representative of this synthesis (as bad/weird batches happen). I think that's worth looking into.

Ra's al Ghul - 2019-07-28

Remember kids, watching this on any browser other than Tor will come with free surveillance as a gift!

Will O - 2021-11-09

@H3R3T1C I got your joke. It’s was pretty funny , free surveillance lol

H3R3T1C - 2021-11-09

@Will O It's nice that someone got the joke lol. Others here didn't have the benefit...

Official committee of time travelers Member 0-13 - 2021-12-27

@huhdidwhat main yeah that stops working when the government makes things illegal that previously wasn’t like speech and arrest people who did those things in the past, but hey that would never happen right?, right?

Darren Murphy - 2022-01-07

@tommytheshimigami chuck norris watch out

tommytheshimigami - 2022-01-07

@Official committee of time travelers Member 0-13 It's already happened lol.

Pangur Echyx - 2019-03-03

Props to you, it's cool to see someone doing chemistry that's only been replicated a few times in his shed.

Lewis Massie - 2019-03-05

Me and my housemate are currently studying a chemistry degree.

We both want to try this, but are smart enough not to try it lol


You have bigger balls than the both of us

Nixeu Harroc - 2019-09-23

He's Australian. Compared to the wildlife and high odds of skin cancer from his pale skin and the lack of an ozone layer above him, working with explosives is probably safer.

Dalitas D - 2019-03-03

I was scared enough when I made the trimer superoxide of acetone
But yours... Nothing should contain that much nitrogen, great work!

Extractions&Ire - 2019-03-04

Hey, that compound is pretty frightening too!

Pietro Tettamanti - 2020-04-09

It's not super shock sensitive if it's been freshly synthetized and the reaction mixture is kept under 0°C. When I made it I wasn't able to detonate it by shock or friction, and below 0.5g it just burst into flames, it didn't detonate. It's best to consume it within the first week, and to keep it on the filter paper, not in closed containers.

H3R3T1C - 2020-04-25

@Pietro Tettamanti "It's best to consume it within the first week". lol Something tells me you should have chosen your wording a little more carefully.

Mortlet - 2020-10-30

@H3R3T1C Yes he should have: DRINK within the first week. DO NOT CHEW!

Ben Perkinson - 2019-08-14

Do you have the ability to get dark field images on your microscope? I feel like these crystals would look really interesting under dark field conditions

Laboratory of Liptakov - 2019-03-03

If the chemist sees C2N14, his hair gets up, horrified and eyes bulbs get out. Great job. Like up on 59, Hat off....:-)

Extractions&Ire - 2019-03-04

Thanks Dr!

Justin Turner - 2020-12-15

Describe chemistry in your own words.

"Amazing. Amazing. I'm terrified."

Oak_meadow - 2019-07-26

Congratulations, you get all the kudos. My estimation of your chemical abilities has risen beyond all asymptotes. Take care bill from Texas

T Wilkins - 2019-03-03

Whenever I start hating my chemistry degree I watch your videos to reignite my love for the subject

Felixkeeg - 2019-03-03

If your still in your bachelor's programm: Masters will be better

Explosions&Fire - 2019-03-03

Well I'm glad I help out. Making videos for my channel is what got me through my degree, kept me excited about chem

kieran O'dea - 2019-03-03

Very nicely done, I wish I could give this video 100 likes. Congrats on being the first person to actually show this compound.

hoggif - 2019-09-23

Congrats.
BTW, sometimes literature has syntesis under eg. nitrogen or argon atmosphere for a reason. Quite often it is just to remove possibility or side reactions. When I did research in a lab, every synthesis was done under argon, just to be sure. Even cheaper nitrogen was avoided just because it is more reactive than argon. Then when you publish the results there are no if's about how air may have had a role. (and in milligram scale there often really is lot of air for every product molecule!)

The Q - 2021-09-17

argon isnt that expensive
you can buy big bottles of the stuff at any welding supply store

hoggif - 2021-09-17

@The Q Argon is not expensive. It is the tested and checked bottles, valves and regulator that often is more an issue if you consume small amounts.
I have locally available also some small single use bottles that I've considered for small scale protective atmosphere.

terawattyear - 2019-03-04

Wow! What a success! You spent so much effort on this. It’s great you got exactly what you were aiming at. C2N14. Damn! That’s a lot of nitrogen.

Extractions&Ire - 2019-03-04

Now where do I go from here haha

GeeksWithFeet - 2019-03-06

There is a slight chance in my mind that residual bromine in the acetone could make bromoacetone, perhaps enough to make a carbonyl-diazide bridge resembling sonething akin to a ureathane polymerisation

GerSHAK - 2020-01-20

+

James Harris - 2019-03-03

Loved your reaction to success, very Australian. Ned Kelly would be proud.

Paul Fomin - 2022-03-03

Tom your level of awesomeness can not be surpassed, pls don't stop uploading, love both your channels

Mothman - 2019-03-03

The microscope images of the crystals...I'm not ballsy enough to put my eye up to something that scary....

O_O

H3R3T1C - 2020-04-25

@hola amigo You clearly don't get it if you're still talking about LD50s. Did you actually read anything I've said? I'm getting the distinct impression that you haven't read beyond the first sentence of any of my responses.

H3R3T1C - 2020-04-26

@hola amigo And again, you totally miss the point. Way to drop the ball, bud. LD50 is not a measure of toxicity. It's a measure of how poisonous something is. Being toxic and being poisonous are not the same thing. Poisons kill you quickly. Toxins kill you slowly. I, for one, prefer a quick death to the type that Isocyanates will cause once they get into your blood stream, and you said it yourself; They can get in there rather easily, right through your skin.


Name me a collision repairman or car painter and I'll name you someone who's got a 90% certainty of dying from cancer. Like I said, my father's a Bodyman who's had to deal with stuff like that for 40 plus years. What I didn't mention is that all the friends he made at work when he was younger have literally all died in agony from cancer. Not some of them, and not most of them. All of them. He's not all that old, either. He retired just last year, and he claims that the only reason he out-lived them is because management took him out of the shop and put him in charge of the place 15 years ago, while they all stayed on the floor. Even he still looks like he's 10 years older than he is, though, so it clearly took its toll on him. As he once warned me, "If you can smell it, it's doing damage."

hola amigo - 2020-04-26

@H3R3T1C yes i am aware of that, i mentioned how isocyanates can be more dangerous due to it can be nonpolar, but both of the chemicals i mentioned are toxic, as a toxin is any chemical that can do harm to the body, what you mean is its much harder to accidentally kill yourself with the chemicals i mentioned then with isocyanates, and ld50 is the most used measurement for the toxity anyways so what are you even talking about

H3R3T1C - 2020-04-26

@hola amigo What if I told you that accidentally killing yourself outright is a far nicer fate than the one that truly toxic and accumulative substances like Isocyanates can easily cause? You can be poisoned in less-than-lethal dosages a whole bunch of times and still live a full life, but toxins accumulate in your body and provide a life-time of misery which gets exponentially worse with each minute that you spend around that stuff. That probably doesn't mean much to you, though, does it? Rhetorical question, ofc. Regardless, I'm out. I'm not wasting any more of my time on this. I'm not fixing to keep beating my head against a brick wall.

Breezy‎Beatsツ゚ - 2021-07-10

yeah it'd probably make your eyes deaf if it blew up

Bryce Hoffman - 2022-03-02

I’m curious what the law has to say about how much of a primary explosive you’re allowed to possess/make. Obviously chemistry isn’t illegal and bombs aren’t going off all the time so it has to be more than zero. At least here in Texas. Much love, great content, keep it up❤️

Spider Juice - 2019-03-04

Seems the way to go is to have enough water to keep all salts (NaN3, NaBr etc) dissolved while adding enough acetone to dissove all organics and to prevent two layers forming. Then you could gently blow air above the solution to evapourate off the acetone, eventually giving you crystals of your product. That would work I reckon, but I would love to hear your thoughts on my suggestion (as you are the expert!)

2001Pieps - 2019-03-03

Nice. Is the compound sensitive to high or low pH?

Explosions&Fire - 2019-03-03

Interesting question. I imagine it might fall apart in acidic conditions to release HN3?? Maybe

jogandsp - 2019-03-03

Ok legit please never scrape explosives. A graduate student at my university lost fingers a couple years ago because he was scraping at a diazonium salt. My grad student was an undergrad in that lab at the time. He has scars and he said it blew out the fumehood the guy was working in and one about ten feet behind him. Not worth scraping at man.

Kevin Bauer - 2020-08-25

Pietro Tettamanti maybe it was contamination from the water tank, before scraping it out of the Mr. Coffee filter?

jogandsp - 2020-08-26

@H3R3T1C no need to be such a jerk. My grad student mentor was there when it detonated. I've seen the scars with my own eyes. I've also heard the story from my PI too, so its not just the grad student making it up. I'm not an expert on diazonium compounds and I am not sure what the specific compound was that they were making that day. But you personally not being familiar with explosive diazonium compounds is NOT a good enough reason to categorically dismiss my story as false.

jogandsp - 2020-08-27

@H3R3T1C whatever, loser.

Hannah M - 2020-11-03

@H3R3T1C The irony of a snarky "well ackshuwally" comment itself pointing out that the vast majority of such comments are pretentious BS... Mmm, that's just... chef's kiss truly beautiful

Aevi Wright - 2020-11-14

​@jogandsp So you have two potential sources to find out what the exact compound was (and how much of it was being scraped) and all you give use to go on, is that it was some kind of diazonium salt? Sure they can be explosive, and it is very likely he broke some fingers, lost some blood, and ended up with scars. However blowing out a fume hood 10 feet behind the guy? The physics of a contained explosive don't support that as feasible. A detonation of that scale would have caused hearing damage to everyone in the room, on top of more severe injuries for the guy in the main blast zone.

R Johnson - 2019-03-03

Kudos on actually figuring all this out.

Maciej Multan - 2020-11-05

Could you give me the link to the procedure you've followed? It would be awsome to do it...!

Zz Zzzz - 2020-10-31

"I kept two milligrams." Tom's last words after sleeping with them under his pillow.

jogandsp - 2019-03-03

You fricking mad lad. I was wondering if you were ever going to make this crap. Bravest man in the world

Explosions&Fire - 2019-03-03

Or most foolish??? We shall never know. But glad you like it

Nigel Johnson - 2019-03-03

Is there any way to make more quantitative measurements. With all these very energetic compounds velocity of detonation is a key parameter. The very tiny size of the crystals that still manage to detonate is a clue.

Extractions&Ire - 2019-03-04

I have been wondering that. Sure, seeing foil being ripped is cool, but it's starting to wear thin that's it's all I'm doing. But I cant think of any more tests to do??

Nigel Johnson - 2019-03-04

@Extractions&Ire measuring detonation velocity is a very hard measurement to do, made even more difficult when so little material is being used. I tried to find more information on the test methods for initiating compounds, but the literature is difficult to find as the information is strictly controlled. I have found a few that measure the optical properties of the shock wave.
There are a few tests that can be done, you started with the drop test for sensitivity. There are old methods of measuring power, such as the sand test or the lead block test or the metal indent test. You could perform standard initiation test on standard secondary explosive, but I suspect that would quickly get your channel banned, even if only a small amount of secondary is used.
I would be interested to know if you find a viable test method for detonation velocity as this appears to be the best figure of merit for initiating compounds. I do know how brisance can be quantified as it is a combination of both speed and energy. In a way your tin can tests provide a crude measure for comparisons.

Nigel Johnson - 2019-03-05

Further to my last post on testing, I have found two methods for measuring detonation velocity, unfortunately I have only an abstract overview of each method.
There are a few simple tests that might be useful:
Buy a collection of standard metal plates, say small aluminium sheets a couple of millimeters thick and use them as test plates.
The plates could be kept as a library. Detonation could be triggered by exploding hot wire, but it might be safer to initiate detonation using a laser beam of a few watts. This has the advantage that initiation of a very small quantity could be triggered from a distance without physical contact. ( The disadvantage is it might be too close to the day job).

You could investigate the long term stability, if you can find a safe long term store.

Continue with the sensitivity drop tests.

Ian Miller - 2021-01-14

I glance around 1:52 and jump in fright from the Little Hand.

I love the equipment used in your videos. Vacuum cleaner go breeeeeeeeee

pineapple ‎ - 2019-03-03

Is it possible to film exploding crystals under the microscope?
A single crystal shouldn’t do too much damage


(It would be super awesome to have high speed camera footage of that..)

Explosions&Fire - 2019-03-03

My phone can do 960fps (only for 0.2 seconds though), which still wouldn't capture much explosion but could still be cool. But whats the best way to trigger a single crystal?

pineapple ‎ - 2019-03-03

Explosions&Fire2 static electricity could work, or apply pressure to the microscope slide?

Nakmus - 2019-03-03

@Explosions&Fire Do you own a high powered laser pointer?

Gabriel Gray - 2019-03-03

You could blast the slide with a heat gun, although that potentially could warp the plastic if your microscope has plastic pieces around the lense or slide.

not amouse - 2019-04-16

@Gabriel Gray Use a high power single emission from a 100us to 1ms pulsed 1 watt single emitter LED pulsed at multiple watts of power behind a magnifying glass. Filter the LED wavelength out and use a long focal distance USB microscope.

kan petyim - 2019-03-03

You can tie a knot on the air tubing to slow down the airflow.

Nigel Johnson - 2019-03-03

A better idea is to fit a T section and close off the unused port with an air line valve. It is possible to buy these valves as terminators or pass throughs to form gangs. One in let and two outlets. This allows complete control of the available air flow.
Again all the parts are readily available from aquatics suppliers for very little money. Blocking the air flow is not a good idea as it can damage the air pump, either destroying the internal flap valves, the rubber pump diaphragm or just over heating the pump solenoid. The indication of damage is when the air hose attached to the pump starts to turn black with carbonised rubber from the melting diaphragm.

Franglaiscophone's Locks - 2019-03-04

Loved it!

Californium-252 - 2020-11-10

You're still present on Wikipedia - this time, this video as the synthesis video!

John Francis Doe - 2019-09-15

You really should compare notes with the other people working on C2N14, maybe you made a mistake, maybe you found new results, maybe you fell for a cover story for a different result.

jogandsp - 2020-04-05

Dude. Your main channel video on C2N14 is cited on the wikipedia page for the compound!

Extractions&Ire - 2020-04-05

Does it still have [unreliable fringe source] on it? Lol

jogandsp - 2020-04-06

@Extractions&Ire it sure does! Now if that's not the Explosions&Fire we all know and love then I don't know what is.

rogerdotlee - 2019-03-22

10:42 those are some horrifying looking crystals.

J H - 2019-08-12

It took you almost 2 months to make the video after you had all the footage? Jesus.. Lol. Regardless, thanks! Great videos.

Les King - 2019-11-26

Thanks for taking us with you

Blake Lonsdale-Cook - 2021-01-27

4:38 Nearly had a Castle Bravo style over-yield incident there xD

madison king - 2019-05-31

Scishow lowkey overhyped it a bit

Nixeu Harroc - 2019-09-23

Possibly. There are a couple of possibilities, since the properties of what he made and what the Klapotke group made. First is that either one of them had a botched or abnormal synthesis, where some leftover material in or on one of their beakers or tubes or what-have-you messed with the properties of the final product, either massively increasing or decreasing the sensitivity of the end product. The odds of this are obviously much higher on E&F's part, since the Klapotke group churns out a lot of research on this kind of unstable, high-N compound, and probably had reasons for their very complicated synthesis. Alternatively, the synthesis E&F copied from the 60's didn't actually produce what they thought they did, which is also fairly probable, since they did think they'd synthesized a form that doesn't exist. They may have produce something totally different, or made some weird cocrystal or something.

Honestly, I feel like there's a topic for a paper in this, since we have a major disparity between two products that, on paper, should have the same properties. I seriously think E&F should consider doing some more detailed research into this, because there's definitively something interesting going on here.

nuck - 2019-11-27

They do that a lot, just no one with actual knowledge corrects them.

Pietro Tettamanti - 2020-04-04

@Nixeu Harroc
He explained why on his main channel, SciShow simply misinterpreted the findings of the paper

Nixeu Harroc - 2020-04-06

​@Pietro Tettamanti Maybe. Doesn't change the fact that E&F used a synthesis method where the original authors apparently misidentified their end product (as they thought they made something that's actually an intermediate, not a stable end-product), and seems to have gotten different results from the Klapotke group. Which means something interesting is going on, regardless of Sci-Show's accuracy or lack thereof.

William Ackerson - 2019-03-03

A new Explosions&Fire video AND a new video on this channel!?!?!?!?! Too much excitement...

Theodore Ceylon - 2020-05-23

You can't just put the BD logo out there like that, dude!

Deuce Moose - 2021-08-08

@Fen Vulpeus nah he pointed out the two that were patron images at the beginning of the video, he definitely would have mentioned it~ hehe

Heinrich Löbe - 2019-04-12

I want make hydroxylamine perchlorate, but i cant find a paper how to do it. Would that work when i mix hydroxylamine chloride with HClO4? pleas make a video about it.

J H - 2019-10-01

2:57 "That was the yield that Engager(sp?) got", who's Engager?

Extractions&Ire - 2019-10-01

Engager is the writer of the document that I'm following. He wrote two collections of data, named something like 'OTC routes to tetrazole' And 'energetic derivatives of terazoles'

Stan Washighski - 2021-03-15

Got my PhD in Bench Chemistry under the fellow who brought AZT to fruition in the 80's. Having produced quanties of Diketene with this fellow makes realize just how much he disliked me, he hated the homosexual community ":/

J - - 2022-02-08

Can you do X-ray on those crystals?

Pappa Flammy Boi - 2020-09-07

Can you plasticize it?

Andy Larson - 2022-01-29

DUDE, YOU'RE ON WIKI

Specifically for this c2n14 vid

La Rose Rouge et Noir - 2019-03-03

OOF!
Magic tricks with white phosphorus

Jaycob Whaley - 2020-11-29

That comment about the magic trick and white phosphorous poisoning was fucking gold😂😂😂😂

Ceyhun Sogutlu - 2021-07-20

Isn't this dangerous cause C2N14 is the most explosive element