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Tuesday, March 01, 2022

Junior's First Chemistry Set?

PROVO, Utah - Authorities at Utah’s Brigham Young University said 22 college students had to be relocated after someone attempted to make rocket fuel on the stove in their dorm, which led to a "fireball" explosion. 

Campus police subsequently reminded students to "keep your experiments in the lab."

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Speaking of Junior's First Chemistry Set, my parents gave me one for Christmas, must've been my 8th or 9th Christmas. Within 24 hours I had developed the Mother of All Stink Bombs and was promptly forbidden to play with my new set inside ever again.

18 comments:

  1. That "someone" should not be hard to find, they're the one with burns....

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  2. Idjit was probably cooking nitro-sugar; potassium nitrate and sugar melted together is a very old amateur propellent. Poor performance, lousy specific impulse, but dirt cheap and easy to get ingredients. Sounds like a typically uneducated twenty year old mistake. Back in the day, this was old hat to kids half that age -and no, we didn't blow up the kitchen, either- we did stuff like this outside where it wouldn't be a disaster.

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    1. Slacker. I was cooking that stuff when I was 12. Part of a book "Chemical Magic". Owning that book probably would put me on several watch lists today.

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    2. I would not rate the specific impulse “lousy.” It is better than most inexpensive propellants.

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  3. These amateur pyromaniacs were born too late -

    https://gajitz.com/1950s-radioactive-science-kit-most-dangerous-toy-ever/

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    Replies
    1. I had one. Never blew up anything (with THAT kit). and the glow faded out by the time I was in high school

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  4. Double boiler, electric hot plate OUTSIDE boys. This ain't rocket science... Oh, wait.

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  5. Recycled hdpe (milk jugs) and nitrous oxide make an absolutely wonderful propellant. Extremely stable and the byproduct is water vapor. Need a very hot ignitor though.

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  6. I got my Gilbert chemistry set when I was in 8th grade. I had years of fun creating explosives, rocket fuel and Thermite.

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  7. Reminds me of the time my sister's doem had to be evacuated because of extremely spicy Asian food made in the basement communal kitchen...

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  8. Here's a fun read for those into rocket fuels : https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf

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    Replies
    1. Awww... my Junior Chem-O-Kit didn't come with trimethylaluminum nor chlorine trifluoride!
      (Though I did make red fuming nitric acid when I was in junior high school.)

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  9. Today's kits it's a wonder you can do anything with them other than paint a fingernail. I fully expected today's kits to tell you, as compared to let you try anything that might resemble an 'experiment'. I know there's still a dresser at mom's house I modified with the thermite and solid potassium that I'd left out of the oil it came in.

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  10. Had a friend who'd heat railroad flares in water on the stove some 55 years ago and skim off the nitroglycerin they contained. Amusing escapades ensued.

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  11. I had one of these stupid Gilbert chemistry sets when I was a kid.

    I learned a couple of things:

    1. Sulfur really stinks when you burn it.
    2. Phenylthaline is very useful for detecting blood spatter if used with UV light.

    Absolutely worthless crap.

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  12. Phenylalanine will also give you the runs for a week. One of the best mixes is calcium carbide and water.

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