Why did spongey have to be smiling? Thatâs just mean.
Apparently hydrofluoric acid is worse.
As a high school student I assisted my chemistry teacher when he was one of the judges for a science fair in the elementary school next door.
One of the students had an experiment that involved etching some small metal plates. He poured some hydrofluoric acid that his father had provided on them. No gloves, no safety equipment.
I heard a âsqueakâ from the teacher, and observed him turning white, then red.
If the kid had a control, it would have been the best experiment of the fair.
Johnny was a chemist
But Johnny is no more
For what he thought was H20
Was H2SO4
Hydrofluoric is less dramatic in terms of sheer displays of acidic power(except that it will attack glass pretty enthusiastically, which few of its peers can handle); but it has the excitingly ghastly power of âsoaking into your skin and grabbing all the calcium it can get its hands onâ. Since most people are rather attached to their skeletons, and consider the various calcium-channel cellular mechanisms to be life critical; this can go poorly.
Sulfuric is more of a âstraight, old school, chemical burnsâ sort.
Sulfuric acid used to be called âoil of vitriolâ because you could get it by heating vitriol, a glassy rock made of a number of different metallic sulfate. Vitriol of argile is an old name for aluminum sulfate, or alum for instance. You heat vitriol, it exudes an oily liquid â sulfuric acid, or at least, something with pretty high concentrations of sulfuric acid.
It was only later that âvitriolicâ came to mean bitter, nasty, etc, after the effects of sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid wasnât called âvitriolâ because it was mean, being mean was called vitriolic to remind one of the effects of H2SO4.
Cool video, but the lack of safety equipment gives me the fantods, and Iâm not even my high school chemistry teacher. Sheâdâve straight up flunked any student who did that.
Oh yes. Pouring conc. Sulphuric straight out of a large bottle onto some non-lab equipment, using no safety equipment whatsoever is a recipe for chemical burns.
Interestingly,the sponge is disintegrating leaving behind that back residue because the acid is ripping the structure of the polymer apart, leaving you with a mush of (rather hot) carbon. This is what it will do to any carbon rich substance, such as cloth. and its dehydrating powers will work well on anything containing a lot of water, such as human skin.
Cool⌠Now try it with thisâŚ
/Just not when Iâm aroundâŚ
Um, gloves???
I think it depends on the substrate-- hydrofluoric acid is âworseâ because it will etch glass (normally impervious to other acids), and because it reacts withthe human body in a particularly nasty way. But HF is also known as a weak acid-- unlike hydrochloric, nitric, sulfuric, perchloric, hydrobromic, hydroiodic and chloric acids.
Or maybe some FOOF?
I liked the soundtrack, but I was disappointed there were no Peeps.
And weâve been doing this to our environment for hundreds of yearsâŚah, chemicals, aka alchemy, you wily destructive devils of industry, always seeking goldâŚ
Precisely why itâs my go-to drain cleaner; nothing clears hair and veggie waste better (well, nothing thatâs relatively safe; -) Just make sure it doesnât touch fixture finishes or grout⌠Chase it with some boiling water and that clog is gone!
Also used as tray cleaner in photo processors for removing silver. Although these days, âprogressâ â most tray cleaner now comes with a dye to mark spills/slops. The dye is wicked permanent, and somewhat more of a pain to deal with than just straight acid.
You lost me a âlestââŚ
Saw this in the shops recently⌠is it any good?
I wouldnât mind to see it.
Too bad that todayâs rocket propellant research isnât what it used to be.
Fwoooooosh!
Indeed.
âŚthereâs one youtube video of ClF3. Enjoy!
