Elias Experiments - 2023-10-20
In this video I team up with Advanced Tinkering to boil out toxic ammonia gas, out of 25 % ammonia solution. The ammonia gas is then compressed to a liquid using a refrigeration compressor. Of course everything that can go wrong does go wrong... You can find Advanced Tinkerings Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@AdvancedTinkering/featured
Wow, thank you both for this unique hands-on presentation. I´m happy that nobody got hurt. Breathing vinegar is an excellent antidote when you got too much ammonia into your lungs.
Thank you for the kind feedback! Luckily I got almost no ammonia in my lungs. I am not sure if I would want to breathe vinegar, that sounds horrible XD
I love it when mol seives jump around.
This video was really scary, thank you
Glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for watching!
I had a lot of fun that day! The video turned out great! I really like your editing style.
Let's see what projects the winter will bring ;)
Thank you! Yeah I am really excited about that too! ;-)
You guys could try nitrating the ammonia! I mean, that should at least make a nice video!
Sadly I can't do that legally in germany.
I work in industrial refrigeration in the United States i get to breath and hydrous ammonia in all the time pretty nasty stuff but surprisingly you get used to it
Oh wow that's really interesting, thank you for sharing that! :-)
Sehr cooles Video! Looking forward to more coming up :)
I have a lot of cool stuff planned, so look forward to that! ;-)
I would love to see you test its flammability, supposedly it can burn with enough oxygen and heat. also, I think the liquid has a super high heat capacity, (specific heat) I'm not sure if it has to be a solution instead though.
often brass can be soldered to copper instead of brazed, it doesn't need to get as hot, which means that the copper doesn't oxidize as much, and its easier to keep it hot enough while connecting them. I think solder flows better too.
That certainly sounds interesting!
Yeah solder would have probably been the easiest choice.
the Berkeley City government shut down the local skating ring ...after decades of safe operation ...due to extreme fear/ignorance.
NH3 refrigeration has been around for a long time.
Yeah the amount of fear out of ignorance in our society is crazy.
@@EliasExperiments a video explaining what trouble you had with your compressor, the soft-start capacitor and how to better operate such a compressor might be useful. many of us find and try to reuse these things all the time !
The conclusion from this video should much rather be: Use dry ice or liquid nitrogen to condense your ammonia, that's much easier :D
You guys are so funny! 😊 great video
Thank you!
Always wanted to do that but liquify it with dry ice. Great demonstration! Maybe try making a short video and put pure O2 and NH3 in a torch?
Thank you! That is certainly an interesting suggestion!
Super video, vielen dank für eure Mühen! Auch das ihr zeigt, was alles schief gehen kann. Das kenne ich nur zu gut. Aber cool wie locker ihr dabei bleibt. Denke mal Panik ist das Schlimmste bei so etwas.
Was ich mich frage, womit habt ihr eigentlich eure Schliffe eingefettet? Das NH3 könnt ihr verwenden um Nylon selber herzustellen oder ähnliches.
Danke Dir für das liebe Feedback! Die Schliffe habe ich mit ganz normalen handelsüblichen hochviskosen Schlifffett eingefettet. Wie würde man aus NH3 Nylon herstellen?
@@EliasExperiments Grüßt euch. Sehr gerne doch, ihr gebt euch viel Mühe und aller Anfang ist schwer. :)
Nicht direkt, ein "kleiner" Umweg, wofür man aber das NH3 verwenden könnte.
Aus NH3 wird Adipinsäure hergestellt, der wiederum ein Ausgangsstoff für Nylon ist. Also Adipinsäure und Hexamethylendiamin für die Polykondensation um Polyamid herzustellen, wo man aus der Schmelze Nylonfäden ziehen kann.
ya the ammonia is probaly eating at the copper winding in the rotary compressor, id try using a open drive compressor to do this
That could certainly be, but I don't think we'll do this again. Next time we'll just condense the ammonia using some dry ice or liquid nitrogen.
Obviously, the best thing to do with it is dissolve alkali metals into it, or make an alkali amide. :)
That is certainly an interesting sugestion!
Elias can you tell me why advanced tinkering in the cesium vedio and you in the potassium metal extraction vedio were pulling vaccum in the apparatus, why cant we just pull vaccum and fill it with argon and seal it.I just wanted to know if any problem occurs if we just seal it by pulling vaccum once.
One more idea can you liquify flurine and ampoule it. Cuz no one has done it on YouTube yet
Pulling vacuum is to lower the boiling point of the potassium metal or the caesium metal respectively. Also you tend to get less oxidation with vacuum compared to argon. Another disadvantage of argon is that it expands when heating and it could blow up your apparatus.
You could in theory seal it after pulling vacuum once, but we both didn't dare to do that yet.
G´rad entdekt. Weiter so Jungs. 🤘👍
Haha, danke Dir!
Maybe a "hard start kit"? The pressure differential of having vacuum on one end can stall a compressor like that, but it seems you broke the vacuum and it still didn't work. A hard start kit uses a current relay to know when to remove the start capacitor from the circuit. Might be the thing an old, failing compressor needs. And yes, pouring water over the compressor is how the professionals do it. When the thermal protection trips, it can take a looong time to reset with all that thermal mass.
Okay I didn't expect that with the cooling water :D But about all the other stuff I have no idea, and I don't want to try this again XD
Can you tell how much KOH and Mg metal you have used in making potassium metal vedio
I used about 40 g of 85 % KOH and 20 g of Magnesium turnings.
In all honesty, you can just condense it with dry ice though it would be a challenge to get it in the cylinder. If you did this in the US you could attract some attention though, some people like to use anhydrous ammonia to do some breaking bad chemistry, haha! But you guys are doing a fine job! 😊
Next video: Extracting pseudoephedrine from OTC medication and lithium metal from batteries :D
Just kidding of course :D
Thank you for the kind feedback.
i was pointing out that Ammonia is very hard on copper and brass and only steel is able to contain it safely.
I guess with dry ammonia gas it should be fine.
Cool video! :D
Thank you!
Called a nut and ferro. (Your fittings)
Thank you for clearing that up! ;-)
Welcome :)
Next time use liquid nitrogen so you can avoid using compressor.
And that compressor is definitely dead now (if it wasn't before) because ammonia loves copper.
Yeah that is what we'll definetly do next time, thank you for the feedback!
@@EliasExperiments You really gonna do this again?
I mean, I don't mind. (-:
If I need more anhydrous ammonia I will do it with liquid nitrogen for sure :D
Those compressors are not ment to start against head pressure. Did you release the pressure in the line to the tank before starting it? I would suggest to put a check valve before the tank and to empty line before each start.
That would have certainly been a good idea. But we are not doing this ever again XD
@@EliasExperimentsthat's sad, I feel with a few tweaks you could get it working really well
if you need an idea for an experiment. I would really like to see proof that concrete made with desert sand does not work, compared with concrete made with beach / regular sand.
That sound interesting. Has really nobody done that yet on youtube?
hm tbh I just suspect no one did...@@EliasExperiments
Awesome videos mate, why don't you start a discord?
Never thought about it. I don't know if there is much interest. I'll think about it.
I'm really confused how the molecular sieves are supposed to absorb oil vapor, they are usually tailored for small, simple molecules like CO2, N2, or water. I would expect the sieves to just act as very expensive, poorly-performing mechanical filter media. Something like activated charcoal would seem like a much more appropriate choice. Anyone have another perspective on this?
And if you heat the charcoal enough could it form HCN with the ammonia
You will have no flow through the carbon unless you have pellets I guess then it's fine
The oil isn't very volatile, so no tailoring is needed as long as the pores are large enough for the molecules to permeate inside at all. The sieves are just high surface area. Activated charcoal would be cheaper iirc per amount of oil absorbed but they didn't need to absorb a lot of oil so it was good enough.
That was Advanded Tinkerings idea, so you might be right XD
We could have also used activated charcoal. It's not about the pore size. We just needed a large surface area.
I always enjoy seeing the experiment where they add sodium metal to the ammonia and get a metallic bronze colored solution of solvated electrons. No idea hiw dangerous it is though (well I know it's dangerous enough that I don't want to try it anyway)
Maybe we'll do that with caesium. :D
@@EliasExperiments oh that would be interesting!
@@EliasExperiments@Thunderf00t has done quite a bit of work with this (ie solvated electrons)emailing/talking with him may help if you want to go this route
Ihr habt frei Geredet und selbstbewusst geschaut und joah. Ich würde ne eins geben.
Sie haben auch viele Bilder benutzt
Danke Dir für die sehr zuvorkommende Bewertung :D
Make nitric using a catalist, platinum would do :)
That certainly sounds like a great idea, but it is very sadly illegal in germany.
@@EliasExperiments really? What about a nitrate salt? Also very usefull.
Nitrate salts mostly too, but there are some exceptions, so that might actually be possible. Thank you for the suggestion!
A much better way to generate ammonia is Sodium Hydroxide mixed with an Ammonium Salt, Ammonium Sulphate is cheap and easy to get.
Also, it's far easier to condense the Ammonia with a flask that is cooled with Dry Ice in Acetone or liquid nitrogen.
Why is it better to generate ammonia with sodium hydroxide and an ammonium salt? I calculated beforehand, that I would need a larger flask to do that and the setup would be more complex.
Yes using dry ice in acetone certainly would have been easier, but anyone can do that ;P
@@EliasExperiments By better, I meant cheaper! Agricultural Ammonium salts and Sodium/potassium hydroxide in 25kg bags are usually cheaper than buying a kilo at a supermarket.
Might be more complex but more fun!
13:18 Ah yes, I see that you've grounded the water... ?
Safety third! XD
Make some nitrogen triiodide aka touch powder.
I don't need anhydrous ammonia for that
@@EliasExperiments I think it’s better then ammonia hydroxide.
hmmm....intewestinnnnnggg
im glad they made it out alive to upload this video ;D
bro only wore his mask halfway through the experiment 💀
Dying is really not that big of a danger with something like ammonia, because the smell is so strong.
Shrink an american dollar bill with it!
That sounds like a cool idea!
mm ammonia
Yeah super tasty :D
use the birch reaction to cook meth!!
Really, fantastic idea. Why did I not think of that sooner?
It is quite scary to see you fiddling with all that tools. Working techniques looks like your goal is to hurt yourself. So be careful -- the amount of fingers and eyes you have is strictly limited.
How did I risk losing fingers or eyes with anything I did in this video?
@EliasExperiments In this particular case I saw at least two of your mistakes in safety.
1) Don't pull wrenches with both arms like you was doing after brasing. Choose smaller angle between wrenches in a direction you need and just squeeze them to each other with your hands. So you can't throw them or hit yourself accidentally if one of them torn off.
2) Never ever aim to your or another persons face with a tube that throwing out some pressurised gas unless you absolutely shure (wich you can't be in most cases) that the system is not containing some dirt or sand or metall chips in it. Even a safety glasses will not save your eyes in case some sand grain would be thrown out of that tube. They can fly under the glasses and penetrate horribly deep in your eye. And this is true for even 2-4 bars when you have 15.
Meanwhile that plastic bag full of NH3 isn't that dangerous unless you're doing such an experiment inside the house.
Hm interesting I never would have considered those things as real significant dangers. But I might be wrong, so thank you for the input!
Bitte sprich deutsch 🙏
Wenn ich bloß die Zeit dafür hätte, würde ich meine Videos auf Deutsch übersetzen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia
you may want to read up before working with the substance.
ah yes wikipedia, the most trusted resource for industrial chemical hazard safety management information
Also, these people know what ammonia is.
@@Samonie67it's not a bad source, what would you recommend?
I am aware what ammonia is :D
@rgi9509 - 2023-12-23
I particularly like how much Elias sounds like Dr Strangelove.
@EliasExperiments - 2023-12-23
You are certainly not the first person to tell me that XD
@your_utube - 2024-04-01
Peter Sellars vud (sorry I meant "would") have loved this. The eery laugh was particularly sounding like Dr Phibes! 🙂