NurdRage - 2010-05-20
In this video we turn copper pennies into silver and finally to gold. Obviously it's a chemistry trick but still impressive. First we get 30g of zinc sulfate and dissolve it into 100mL of water. Zinc sulfate was made back in our video on making a copper sulfate and zinc battery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id3tL2iI0Vw If you don't have zinc sulfate or can't make it, you can also use zinc chloride. This can be made by simply mixing hydrochloric acid with zinc metal and waiting until the fizzing stops. Then we drop in several cut strips of zinc metal. Zinc metal was obtained from our video on getting useful materials from batteries: http://www.youtube.com/watch#%21v=knc1lSupAwQ The solution is heated to a boil and copper pennies, that have been thoroughly washed/cleaned, are dropped in. They must touch the zinc in order for this reaction to work. Leave it in for five to ten minutes. The zinc metal dissolves and releases electrons that go into the copper and give it a negative charge. The zinc ions in solution now redeposit form a thin layer of zinc metal. Giving the coin a silvery color. Now the smart physical chemist might wonder how this can possibly work. Overall we're going from zinc metal to zinc metal and at first it seems like we're missing something about thermodynamics. What is the driving force? I've searched the literature and there doesn't seem to be a consensus among scientists, some claim it's a surface free energy issue with zinc having a lower potential on copper than in free solution (at high concentration). Others state that its an alloy of zinc metal and copper on the surface. The silvery color you're seeing on the penny is actually a type of white brass, not pure zinc. This is thermodynamically more favorable than pure separate metals and thus serves as the driving force. Anyway, whatever the specific chemical reason, we've now deposited zinc onto copper. The most amazing trick is to turn it into gold. Simply wash the coin and place it on a hotplate heated to about 300 Celsius. As it heats the zinc will diffuse into the copper, forming brass on the surface that looks like gold. Eventually it will wear off but the results are rather impressive.
I remember watching this video when I was 13yo and it was so fascinating to me. Nurdrage and Cody were my favorite science youtubers and I was getting into chemistry, I was very fascinated.
Now I'm studying chemistry in university and 1 year away from graduation.
I just came here to thank you Nurdrage and everyone else that got me into chemistry. Thank you from the bottom of my heart 😃
"Don't actually try to pawn this off a gold"
Ah, you caught me.
what poor fuck would even try?
u triggered his name trap lmao
@Pulowski lol
Wow! I would love to do this. I've got somewhere around 500 pennies in a jar just sitting there, collecting dust. They would look so cool as gold coins. Simply amazing.
I remember doing something like this in school, I think we even did one where we scored the edge of the penny and put it in a solution that dissolved the interior metal leaving just the thin shell of the out layer.
This was one of the first good videos I ever saw on YouTube... I was so very shocked to see that someone on YouTube was delivering good quality science education videos. Until then I'd assumed that YouTube was just pirated music videos and idiot "pranks"... Thanks so much for your work over the years!
Found this video researching galvanized metal, wonder how this would hold up under the hood of a car?
What are the effects of prolonged heat exposure?
see this is where alchemists went wrong.. you have to make silver before you can make gold!
My question is, does the penny still have the same value even after the experiment?
Does the coating stand up for much abuse? I was thinking of doing this to pinballs but I don't want to have to do this often, or worse, get weird metals all over the playfield.
I did this in Chemisty class and everyone was blown away. Thanks!
I remember doing the gold trick in high school, might still have the coin too! 👍😄
I scammed a dozen boxes of cookies off a girl scout once doing this. All those thin mints assuaged my guilt quite nicely.
@Tony Dạnza GENIUS!
Deceitful but clever.
Ah scamming children, teach them a lesson lol.
Could this process be used to reapply zinc plating to steel fasteners for rust prevention?
I did this experiment ~3 years ago. My "gold" penny has actually stayed the same, but the silver one turned a light gold colour. Make sure you don't overheat the penny when you are turning it gold. Brass has a fairly low melting point - we damaged a lot of hot plates with this experiment!
Thanks!! My class did this lab but I'm at home so I couldn't do it!! The visuals really help!!
For those who do not know when zinc and copper mix they make brass which looks like gold
Alchemist rejoice! Gold has been made!
Almost a Magician's form of alchemy... awesome. i love science.
I am wondering if I could use an element of this for the science fair.Are any of these stuff harmful in any way?
"Don't try and pawn this off as gold as the brass layer will wear off" Ha, my evil plan to get rich was instantly quashed.
But atleast bro, he didn't tell , in how much time ??😜😛😈👻
I also think, even If I would wanna fool somebody, gold coins are plain mostly, or have company logo on them, so a coin number maybe wouldn't work
How durable is the plating? If I had a bag full of these (for game coins) would they wear down quickly?
Pretty cool video, would be a nice chemistry lab experiment.
How about applying a lacquer finish - ie wood lacquer to prevent the gold look from tarnishing? Would that work?
You did it! Alchemy fulfilled! I must tell my liege lord!
I have been wanting this method for so long..Thanks
What do you do with the leftover zinc sulfate solution? It would be very helpful plz
I did mine in a steel can (as I do not possess beakers etc.) and it ended up taking longer as the steel becomes charged as well, attracting zinc ions towards it as well.
I used zinc powder, instead of metal strips and it worked fine.
+Grey Ronin actually works much better
+Grey Ronin Ive been looking for an answer for this for ages! i can finally go ahead and order the zinc powder now...
@Da Moose
Good luck :-)
@Grey Ronin Thanks :D
+Grey Ronin Well of course it's going to work better, the zinc powder has a MASSIVE surface area compared to the strips.
Simple, but really impressive
I deal with money for a living, and recently I came across a gold penny which stumped me and my coworkers. We knew it was not real gold, but still curious on what changed it. Now I know how it's done!
Very neat trick! It's like alchemy!
Beautiful! Please, how long it takes to turn "silver" ?
I know what i'm going to do for my science fair project... you know if my school ever has one.
could you do something similar with copper II sulfate on the hot plate and without a voltaic cell?
im not bothered about the coloured penny, ...how does this reaction effect electrical currents + voltage drops when passing through compared to pure copper
Does anyone know, for the Gold trick, if the penny needs to already have gone through the silver reaction?
I did this in chemistry class it was awesome
Now someone make a lot of these and drop them randomly in public
😅
Oh how I simply love the concept of transmutation.
Could you please write the full chemical reaction on this experiment. thanks
It's possible to do the experiment with a 3+ molar solution of NaOH as well, but the Zinc needs to be in much smaller strips for this to be effective.
i was expecting him to say 'let's play a game' the whole video
The Zinc layer needs to be present on the Copper to diffuse through when heated and create Brass alloy.
This is actually a really awesome channel...
I'm having trouble finding what temperatures hot plates can go to. Can you recommend an electric hot plate for this? (If electronic hot plates can indeed reach these temperatures?)
For my physical science class our teacher made us do this and my pennies turned out really good. :D
American pennies are mostly zinc unless they're from before 1982
yes, but they are copper plated and will still work.
Question; this is basically plating the copper in zinc right, then heating it to diffuse the zinc into the copper making brass. So my question is after the 10 minutes or so once the copper is plated with the zinc, would leaving it in longer create a thicker plating and a longer lasting brass finish? Or since the copper is coated with the zinc, is it as thick as it is going to get? I ask because I have some copper "Zombie Walker" coins for magic tricks and I would love them to have a golden finish.
Actually there's evidence that ancients knew how to coat metals in gold. Using pots and chemical mixes, they created chemical batteries and electroplated lower grade metals to be coated in higher grade metals.
Eric Jenkins - 2013-10-05
Man, imagine if alchemists in the dark ages caught on to this.
Mansi Gupta - 2020-10-30
I think that is what those guys did. Goddamn Serious and Scary Stuff.😲🤑😞😱😵😵
EasyTerrariaWins - 2020-12-20
Turning wood into uranium in these three simple steps
Creamer Of The Dairy Squad - 2021-08-17
This (or variants of this) is exactly what alchemists did to turn things into gold lol
Ross Bane - 2021-08-22
Some of them are still here!
TEKNO - 2021-11-11
Then he will executed before discovering floating principle