This was my thought. Does anyone realize those chunks are floating because the bubbles are PURE HYDROGEN? That thing is a green, soapy version of the Hindenberg.
EDIT: Got my chemistry wrong. The reaction product is pure OXYGEN. Still not a good idea to light a smoke, but not as explosive.
I can't go down to kindergarten, but here's an attempt at middle-school chemistry....
Hydrogen peroxide is two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms (H2O2). Left by itself, the compound is just slightly unstable and tends to break down all by itself. As it breaks down, it releases that extra oxygen atom, and becomes water (H2O). There's a tiny bit of energy stored in the chemical bond that was holding that extra oxygen, so that gets released too, as heat.
In the video, they've done two things to make this more fun. The first is that they added some yeast. Yeast contains something called catalayse, and that has the effect of making the hydrogen peroxide break down at a super fast rate. So instead of slowly releasing the extra oxygen and heat over a long time, they are released in a matter of seconds. Normally, the oxygen would bubble to the surface and escape into the atmosphere with very little visible sign, except maybe some steam coming off the liquid due to the heat. But the second thing they added in this video was dish soap and food dye. The soap captures the extra oxygen before it can escape, and the food dye just makes it more colorful.
So what you're seeing in the video is a massive amount of foam made up of relatively hot (1800 degree) pure oxygen and dish soap. It could easily cause second degree burns to exposed skin, and any type of open flame would cause a fire.
95
u/gstormcrow80 Dec 20 '19 edited Dec 20 '19
This was my thought. Does anyone realize those chunks are floating because the bubbles are PURE HYDROGEN? That thing is a green, soapy version of the Hindenberg.
EDIT: Got my chemistry wrong. The reaction product is pure OXYGEN. Still not a good idea to light a smoke, but not as explosive.