> chemistry > explosifs > sulfur-nitride > making-s4n4-part-1-scl2-nh3-extractions-ire

Making S4N4 Part 1 (SCl2 + NH3)

Extractions&Ire - 2019-06-26

S4N4, sulfur nitride, has been something I've tried to make for years. In this stressful video (seriously, hear the stress in my voice  haha) we pump ammonia gas through our freshly distilled sulfur chlorides. 

We are following this paper, on a smaller scale:
"Tetrasulfur Tetranitride, S4N4"
(Jan 1967) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470132401.ch26

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@austinholbrook6356 - 2019-07-31

I feel 200% better when I can hear he is wearing the mask.

@jhyland87 - 2019-10-15

Agreed!

@opalishmoth8591 - 2023-03-20

I like the kinda jank nature of his set up.
But safe jank. Like using an old brick to keep a stand in place.
(Also I think the visual of a state of the art fume hood in the shed is just hilarious. It’ll be beautifully out of place LOL

@pseudomonad - 2019-06-26

Gotta say, we really don't get this kind of edge-of-the-seat suspense from NurdRage.

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

I suppose it's always a relief knowing that I uploaded this, because it means I couldn't have actually died

@pseudomonad - 2019-06-26

@@ExtractionsAndIre Yeah, that's always a plus.

@joeestes8114 - 2019-07-10

Hey now! Thats enough!

@danielgrantcoleman - 2019-06-27

Im unclear. Did we choose a new pope or not? Trippy smoke man.

@johnmorrell3187 - 2019-07-26

Underrated comment, this

@hans429 - 2021-06-20

*elect

@MrAaronbill - 2022-01-30

HA !

@elnombre91 - 2019-06-26

"If in doubt, toluene" is always a good plan.

@nigeldepledge3790 - 2021-02-27

Unless you're doing nitrations....

@vladimirputin4157 - 2024-01-29

@@nigeldepledge3790 Yeah, glycerine would be a superior option there

@franglish9265 - 2019-06-26

Beautiful ammonium chloride smoke rings

I'm guessing your lawn will really enjoy all that ammonium chloride!

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

It was fun to watch at the very start!
And yes, my lawn has never been short of nitrogen, between all the ammonium and nitrate salts that I use!

@Pro_Vs_Con - 2019-08-08

Sometimes I feel guilty about my drinking habits and how bad it is for my body....





And then I watch this and I honestly feel alot better...!

@NicolasBana - 2019-06-26

Hy sine according to wiki "S4N4 is thermochromic, changing from pale yellow below −30 °C to orange at room temperature to deep red above 100 °C" it might be interesting to heat that powder up to see if it changes back to the bright red.... That might be your product after all ! x)

@Felixkeeg - 2019-06-26

Shit that reaction stressed me out. You know your chemistry is exciting when you could insert the footage into Breaking Bad and it fits.

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-27

that was a stressful show

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

Hey so comment question of the day is: what is the most stressful reaction you've ever done? I'm sure some of you have some good stories!

@MsMotron - 2019-06-26

accidentally exploding black powder while drying it. not very advanced but very stressful for a short time.

@orvillelam3550 - 2019-06-26

Stressful story:
I remember once doing a school project to find out the strength of hydrogen bonds between chloroform and ethyl ethanoate. But according to what I learn from my school, chloroform does not form hydrogen bond. So, I was quite stressed when I wad asked to explain the exothermic reaction that happens when chloroform is mixed with ethyl ethanoate using hydrogen bonds cuz I don't really know how to do it.

@doyale2 - 2019-06-26

Even though it is more of a process than a single reaction, that has to be the C60 synthesis since it took years of work and very unconventional large scale setups to get milligrams of crude product in the end... Worth it tho

@fbiopenup6698 - 2019-06-26

Ammonium nitrate from ammonium sulfate and calcium nitrate using no glassware, filtration was hell

@j_sum1 - 2019-06-26

Embedding fragments of a 10mL beaker into my fingers at high velocity. A wee bit stressful for a moment there.
Mostly recovered now but lower portion of one finger is still hamburger meat under the skin.

@drrrrockzo - 2019-07-20

A good source of DCM is "powder coat stripper". It's normally are 30-40% DCM with a small amount of HF and the balance is methonal.

@williamackerson_chemist - 2019-06-26

You can't just go and leave us on a cliff-hanger like this!

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-27

I thought it was interesting stopping here, because you genuinely can't tell if its going to work or not

@nigeljohnson9820 - 2019-06-26

It will be interesting to see the properties of the product.

@danielmclatchie5229 - 2019-07-01

I have to say, these videos really help with my exam procrastination <3

@LateNightHacks - 2019-06-26

The pink rain was trippy

@horrorhotel1999 - 2020-06-10

Imagine this where our product, the explosive, being made here and snowing out of the reaction vessel. That would be amazing

@lablulz2483 - 2019-06-26

Nice, I've had this compound on my to-do list for a while.

@miialamia1653 - 2019-12-02

What a clusterfuck, this is at least my third time coming back and laughing at this. Good one mate!

@kieranodea771 - 2020-02-15

I can't remember the reaction exactly but I know the pink color is from Calcium chloride reacting with elemental sulfur. Some sort of complex with S, HCL and H3N I think.

@gitbig333 - 2020-12-03

I'll never be unimpressed by smoke rings

@yiannisch6851 - 2019-09-24

9:06 thats a hell of a bong!

@oofman1740 - 2022-09-02

Making (stuff)
Me: idk what that is or what you're saying but I know I enjoy watching you try stuff and learn.

@washingtonirving1345 - 2022-03-12

The "all I have to do is clean up... oh no" at the end is so sad

@helldad4689 - 2020-06-21

as one chemist in ungodly hot area to another, i was gonna joke that you should stack another condenser on it. quite the surprise to see the next shot be "that idea didn't work either". i've also just thrown ice directly onto my stir plate when a reaction was in the "thermal runaway danger zone".

@nivikliriak - 2019-07-30

It'd be cool to see you synth the carbon tet!

@MsMotron - 2019-06-26

do you prefer pink or yellow chemistry?

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

Pink is magical, yellow is trash

@homosapiensqp3225 - 2019-06-26

Isn't pink caused by mercury complexes?

@HomemadeChemistry - 2019-06-27

manganese chloride also

@doyale2 - 2019-06-26

Damn, I could have sent you some CCl4 just a while ago

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

Transporting a liquid is hard though, and I'm not sure if you legally can import it here?? Chloroform would've been fine, I did not plan well enough

@luckybo1675 - 2020-03-05

At 6:40 looks fun and kinda relaxing well... watching it. Also, where do you get your gear?

@piranha031091 - 2019-06-26

Just looked up the structure, that is one weird compound!

Will you try making weird complexes out of it? Would be fun adding a little to aqueous solutions of Fe, Cu, etc... to see what happens.

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

The final compound does have some interesting chemistry! Not sure it survives well in aqueous solutions, but it can do all sorts of things with extra ammonia or extra chlorine

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

Like check out this structure: https://twitter.com/CM_Hedge/status/1142188235621195776?s=19

@aaronclair4489 - 2022-07-02

I would actually expect one hour to be just enough for those sieves to dry out that toluene, at least mostly. Sieves are really awesome, and I think people take them for granted because they're so cheap and easy.

@neillcoetzer9133 - 2019-08-04

Just a thought. why not use a hot water bath for temperature control, and use the water as a buffer, taking advantage of its high heat capacity allowing it to act as an energy sponge.

@Alexjaeger1024 - 2019-08-03

Had you considered synthesizing carbon tet through UV chlorination of chloroform? The references I've found suggest that's the most feasible small batch method.

@ryanc473 - 2022-05-18

Well he just got some fancy new UV LEDs for the cubane synthesis, so maybe it's a feasible option now (assuming he can get them working). If you saw the prior installments though where he attempted UV photochemistry it was, uh, interesting to say the least lol

@mamaymay8259 - 2020-11-13

Some people want Morgan Freeman to narrate their life. I need you to narrate my lab life!

@jhyland87 - 2019-07-10

Who knew... Wine makes a pretty decent good solvent!..

@DG-cz3hv - 2020-05-07

You should use a tee joint downstream of the pump with one end going to your glass setup and one end going to a throttle valve and then to atmosphere. You can then just adjust that throttle valve to a place where the pressure is low enough to not blow joints but also still hopefully high enough to provide you sufficient driving head for your experiments. That valve would also be a means of manual over pressure protection by allowing you to fully open the valve in case you needed to rapidly depressurize.

@robmckennie4203 - 2024-01-08

I like that he almost came to this solution, but instead of a valve he just cut a hole 😂

@mosswurm - 2020-06-09

I dont know a damn thing about chemistry. I just think youre funny, and like listening to you.

@spurmdogresidue603 - 2020-09-13

6:53 my inner crackhead is telling me to clear the glass rig like a fat bong

@shonkysidewayssam6134 - 2019-12-08

Hope you haven’t had the police or Hazmat people turning up. Lol ;)
Invest in a fume cabinet, have a chemicals and a glassware registry, make sure to also keep MSDS sheets for each reagent being used and I definitely advise keeping an up to date/detailed laboratory notebook of all your experiments/preparations. Having these items will safeguard in most cases against any embarrassing neighbourhood evacuations and confiscations of equipment and chemicals.
Awesome stuff though :)

@AguaFluorida - 2019-07-12

Just thinking, if you bubble the ammonia thru DCM before the SCl2 solution, won't that reduce the amount of solvent loss? Ammonia dissolving in the first DCM could perhaps be compensated by clever use of a dropping funnel.

@AguaFluorida - 2019-07-12

PS you really need to get some more clamps and stands, or even a bench scaffold set up!

@terawattyear - 2019-06-26

Looks like you have as much time coming up in cleaning all that glass as you did in making the product. Great color show. Must’ve been hard to breathe in there though, ay?

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-27

It wasn't hard to breathe, but hey I wasn't breathing that stuff in! Did not look very healthy at all

@achyuth6500 - 2020-07-20

Can you please upload your older videos of S4N4 to YouTube

@FunkBallGX - 2021-06-24

Hmmmm... forbidden wine.

@Ccccaatfish - 2019-07-30

What if you threw some ice cubes in the pump water?

@Pro_Vs_Con - 2019-08-08

Love this lmao..

@franglish9265 - 2019-06-26

DCM
A little less than Ideal?...

But it's safer than water....

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

I should've pranked myself, and three years ago actually just put wine in that wine bottle and label it DCM. Then I'd forget, pour it directly into the SCl2... and that would be less than ideal

@franglish9265 - 2019-07-14

@@ExtractionsAndIre yes, wine, or even 100% EtOH, would have been less than Ideal.

@JabirAli-do7dq - 2021-01-30

Can convert ammonium chloride and sulfur into lacquerwood

@rubywest5166 - 2021-11-29

Just thinking, next time you have that "Are you suuure it's dry" question, would it be work taking some anhydrous Mag Sulfate and testing it for clumping?

Or are you part of the "it's too hard to see the end point" club too?

@duketoast544 - 2019-06-26

Great contribution to pride month with the pink smoke, keep it up!
(jk)
I really wonder where the dark colour of the filtrate could come from though, looks almost like tar. Let's hope you can extract something explosive from it nevertheless, i know how it feels to do something over and over again because it keeps failing.

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-27

the solid is a very strange colour here. Its nearly a green, but very dark. Also, not a great smell

@botavictor5832 - 2019-07-19

what stir plate is that?

@nicktohzyu - 2019-06-26

but shouldn't dcm be more polar than tetraCM and hence have a lower vapor pressure?

@ExtractionsAndIre - 2019-06-26

You're right it is more polar, so it goes against that usual trend. If I had to guess the reason, is say that the chlorine is just so heavy, you basically double the molecular weight from DCM to tetrachloromethane, so that factor increases boiling point

@nicktohzyu - 2019-06-27

@@ExtractionsAndIre but at the scale of molecular interactions, polar attraction/vanderwaals is many magnitudes stronger than gravity, so that shouldn't be a reason. Perhaps it's because the bigger tetCM has much more vanderwaals?

@thobiazz - 2020-01-13

what is that green stuff you're pumping through the condenser? 2:02

@luisp.3788 - 2020-04-19

Dyed water.