Advanced Tinkering - 2022-04-30
After my first time making cesium, I always wanted to make some rubidium. Especially because there is no video on YouTube showing the preparation of this beautiful alkali metal. In this video I am making rubidium and redistilling it in my homemade still. It is a project I wanted to do for a long time, and I am happy to tell you that it worked great. I am using lithium to reduce rubidium chloride to rubidium. To purify the rubidium I am distilling it. If you want, you can join my patreon to help me working on my projects. https://www.patreon.com/AdvancedTinkering Music: LoFi: https://youtu.be/pLcw3dK1yU0 Reverie by Scott Buckley https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley 'Bring Me The Sky' [Cinematic Uplifting Orchestra CC-BY] by Scott Buckley https://youtu.be/Hwz2b12fqKM Chapters: 00:00 Glassblowing: Making the still 03:00 Rubidium preparation and collection 04:35 Distillation of the rubidium 08:18 The product
Nice video. I really enjoyed the crafting of your glassware. You make it look easy.
he advanced his capabilities of glassmanufacturing a lot over the videos :D
I absolutely loved everything about this video, it was a pleasure to watch the whole way through! The music, videography, lighting, and content (Rb woot woot!) are all individually spectacular but all together it makes for a hell of a chem video! More like this anytime, please!
I could stare into that glass torch all day
These shiny, liquid metals are very fascinating.
Great video, well chosen music! Sometimes saying less is more. 👍
I admire your glassworking abilities 🤩 - where did you learn that?
Thank you! I taught it myself. Just bought some boro silicate glass, a torch and got started.
@Advanced Tinkering Then you have got talent for it.
very nice and informative ty!
That's some beautiful music mate
Thank you! Scott Buckley makes awesome music that is free to use.
No worries, mate. Absolutely enjoyed your video. Also intriguing is to see the pale blue colour on the inner glas walls during your distillation. The same colour occured when another youtuber distilled rubidium, as well. Any ideas of the reason for the blue colour?
I know that to dye glass you have to basically use metal fumes like gold makes reddish glass and silver makes yellowish blue glass so I assume it's because the rubidium is dyeing the inner surface of the glass but I could be wrong.
Very interesting
These videos are awsome. I wonder if it glows when molten and moved about like mercury does 🤔
Lofi rubidium (｡♡‿♡｡)
What metal is the still and condenser arm made of, it looks like stainless but wouldn't that have undesirable thermal properties compared to say copper for the arm
Yes, it is V4A stainless steel. If you are talking about the smaller thermal conductivity of stainless, it's actually a good thing. You don't want your condenser arm to be 400 °C. Everything above the melting point of cesium is sufficient. If it gets too hot, you might get problems with different thermal expansion coefficients between the glass and metal. Depending on your vacuum, you also risk not condensing all of the rubidium/cesium vapors.
Last but not least: if some lithium boils over, it solidifies in the condenser. If the condenser is to hot, it will just collect in your receiving flask (which is a huge problem if it's made from glass).
@Advanced Tinkering yes I saw thunder footage accidentally collecting lithium 🔥 and it starting fire
Cool
This gives me a weird idea. Mercury used to be used in making gravity switches. But if you used a metal that is solid at room temperature and liquid just above room temperature, you could make a switch that could keep it's state. Also recently watched someone build a NaK fountain where they used magnets and tungsten wires to make the metal pump it's self. So ... Maybe one could have electrically switched memory cells made of alkali metals.
Galintin is the liquid metal alloy of gallium, indium and tin that replaced mercury in thermometers and is liquid over a wide range of temperatures.
Can you try making some lithium?
Can you use the rubidium to make a laser?
Love to know where to buy rubidium chloride
I bought it from a german seller. It is relatively easy to get because it's not a hazardous substance.
@Advanced Tinkering
Did you have to register and provide the name of your 'organisation'?
I'm in England and most online suppliers ask that when you register - which seems to be mandatory in order to make a purchase.
I may be wrong, but I assume it's because they're checking you want for educational purposes, academic research or some industrial application. I would make something up but I wonder if they check. I doubt they always would, it would just be embarrassing to be caught in a lie.
I don't want it for anything as creative and interesting as what you're doing here, I just want the rubidium chloride because I've read it has antidepressant effects and some scientists think it could be an essential trace mineral.
Perhaps I'm just lazy, but I think I've got some kind of dopamine dysfunction, and the chances of a GP prescribing anything other than SSRIs if you tell them you're depressed is not high at all.
Interesting. Did you use argon as inert gas ? btw. the music is kinda annoying.
Yes, I used argon. I needed something to fill the silence, so I thought music might be a good idea.
Where captions ?
What were your input costs?
I used 25 g of rubidium chloride. So around 75 $. My yield was approximately 8,2 g (46%).
@Advanced Tinkering Good deal for DIY - compared to the market prices for RbCl and elemental Rb...
In case of sale a profit of around 100 Euro - less working hours, energy and equipment...
are we going to see some rubidium ozonide as well?
I'm not sure, because rubidium is so expensive and the ozonide looks just like cesium ozonide.
@Advanced Tinkering have you solved the issue with the sealing around the tungsten wires?
an idea could be sandblasting the wires for silicating the surfece and melting the glass to it.
next step could be to use cobalt-chrome-molybdenum alloy as a self sealing electrode - the oxide on the surface lets silcates glue directly to them. in dentistry the ceramics are bonded to metal like this.
@tdsangel No, still working on it. Over time, the metal/glass seals leak. I will look up the alloy you mentioned! Thank you!
@Advanced Tinkering jeder zahntechniker hat das zeug am start .da könnte man einen wolframdraht einfach rumtüddeln. ansonsten ist die literatur zum abdichten von metall zu glas sehr vielseitig - aber es ist nie einfach.
an glühbirnen ist diese schwarze vergussmasse - ich habe aber keine quelle gefunden wo man die kaufen kann.
I still want to see a NaK Kelvin generator 🤔
what is your rubidium source?
I am using Rubidium chloride. I bought it from a german shop.
@Advanced Tinkering thanks!
i came from a Pr0gramm now im here
I made rubidium first, check my video out
I saw your video. No offense, but it just looks extremely fishy. There is just no way it would work the way you showed in the video.
The amount of rubidium metal you got in the end does not match the amount of RbCl you used. You burned the magnesium metal with the RbCl. Why would rubidium be formed, when the magnesium is burned? And you are telling me you distilled it using aluminum foil and a candle?
I don't know if the video is meant as a joke but the procedure you showed will not work.
Edit: ok, I get it, it's a joke :D
@Advanced Tinkering ;) more videos coming soon so stay tuned, the most alkali metal stuff I have really done was managing to make a sodium glass ampule with shiny metal inside, I just put it in a long glass tube then sealed the end, melted the sodium from heat from the outside several times until the liquid metal stopped oxidizing on cooling, then just melt and pour thorough necked end and shorten the ampule, quite easy with cheap sodium because the waste doesn't really matter
@Chemics and-experiments Just out of curiosity, was the metal at the end gallium? And you added an acid to make it react?
Thats a great idea! Looking forward to more videos! :)
@Advanced Tinkering it was water and gallium with aluminum dissolved in it xD, next video is gonna be fullerene made with candle or something
Sorry, don't feel like watching a video when uploader don't "feel" like talking, bye.
That's fine :)
Does this work with Sodium, Potassium? I know from you, that with lithium is not possible 🤔
@AdvancedTinkering - 2022-04-30
Sorry guys, I did not feel like talking much in this video. Whenever I do something for the first time, I like to concentrate on what I am doing. I hope you still enjoy the video.
The process for making the rubidium is the same one I used for making cesium. You can watch my videos about the cesium preparation if you want to know how it is done.
https://youtu.be/HU7cKspMePA
https://youtu.be/budLy8ll8Bw
The difference this time was, that I made a still that I could connect to my reaction vessel. Because rubidium chloride is six times more expensive than cesium chloride, I wanted to lose as little to oxidation as possible. With the new still, I can seal it while the whole apparatus is still under vacuum. After that I can directly redistill the metal in its final vial. This way I do not have to transfer the metal from the receiving flask into the still. It worked great and I will probably use this technique when making cesium in the future.
I am sorry for the vibrations (caused by the vacuum pump) when filming the distillation, but I don’t have a camera with a zoom and I have to place my tripod on the table to get close up shots.
If you have any questions, write me a comment and I will answer.
If you want, you can join my patreon to help me working on my projects. https://www.patreon.com/AdvancedTinkering