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'Match on a Stick to Hydrogen. Big Bang Coming.' (Watch!)

blog.wired.com — In a clip about hydrogen, Haran and his colleagues fill a balloon with the gas and prepare to ignite it with a match, but the explosion comes after a quick lecture by Martyn Poliakoff, a soft-spoken professor with remarkable hair.

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  • shaggyb, on 07/20/2008, -0/+17I saw this demonstrated in my chemistry class in college. I was a good 40 feet away and could feel the concussion of the explosion and I could feel the heat instantly. Gave me a healthy respect for just how powerful hydrogen is.
    • wontstoptalking, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1Same, did this in about every year of school since 7th grade. I've seen this explosion so many times. Best case? The line of explosions. We lined about 20 hydrogen balloons up, right next to each other, and lit an end one. The reaction was quick; each of the 20 of the balloons were a fireball in about half a second. Boy, was the assembly of 8th graders happy.
    • scotticus, on 07/21/2008, -0/+5It's a way more impressive bang if you add ~ 1/3 of a balloon's worth of oxygen.
      • JayD16, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1Yeah, that one is way more dangerous.
    • dhughes, on 07/21/2008, -0/+3 It's not just the hydrogen, it's the result of the combination of oxygen with hydrogen that causes the bang.
  • Antibland, on 07/20/2008, -0/+19break.com users collectively orgasm at the infinite, injurious possibilities.
  • cubbiesx, on 07/20/2008, -5/+6I saw this in college too. It's the reason why I'm nervous as hell about hydrogen fuel cell cars..!
    • RothenbergXXX, on 07/20/2008, -1/+9Don't be; no combustion takes place inside a fuel cell.
      • ApokalypseNow, on 07/21/2008, -2/+2It isn't about what happens inside the fuel cell - it is about what happens when the fuel cell breaks due to a crash.
      • Renton, on 07/21/2008, -0/+5Hydrogen fuel cells have less energy density than gasoline.
    • jahart14, on 07/21/2008, -1/+8What do you think a balloon full of gasoline will do?
      • DeFex, on 07/21/2008, -1/+6put out the match. gasoline rarely explodes like in the movies
      • ApokalypseNow, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1@DeFex
        You need to get it aerosol first for an explosion like the movies, right? I mean, set up an initial charge that vaporizes it, then one to ignite it?
      • cnosal, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2@Apokalypse now
        That's right, you need the proper fuel/air mixture to get an explosion vs. a fire, either by aerosolizing it yourself, or fumes can collect. In the movies though, they generally use real explosives, not gasoline.
    • wontstoptalking, on 07/21/2008, -3/+1So the Japanese make enough of those, ship them to the US, every household has one...


      then they have us right where they want us.
    • microchp, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2It is a bit safer than gasoline. There was a test city running hydrogen cars, stoves, heaters, basically everything in the city that would normally have run gasoline or propane was converted to run hydrogen. That was in the early 80's I believe. It is safer to store, lighter and burns much safer (straight up). In fact, the cause of death in the Hindenburg case was the diesel fuel from the engines and the fall. It is currently much harder to produce in large volume however and not yet cost effective to do so. That may change in the not so distant future, but not any time soon either. Hydrogen is also much cleaner burning. It mostly gives off water. It would be pure water if the source was pure oxygen and hydrogen, but there are other inert gases in the air that produce a small amount of emissions. In other words, it is not entirely safe to drink the output.
  • tinybubs, on 07/20/2008, -0/+13Nice to see the professor explaining hydrogen properties in plain English. Gotta love his hair too, looks like he used some hydrogen hairspray.
  • Labyrinth336, on 07/20/2008, -19/+2Hydrogen cars = bad idea... if you got rear ended ... bye bye city block... it would start a chain reaction of cars blowing up...
    • DestroyFascism, on 07/21/2008, -1/+4Like when the trucks from BOC roll over and nothing happens?
    • itsradBrad, on 07/21/2008, -1/+5Dude, you suck. That was stupid.
    • palmdalian, on 07/21/2008, -1/+13I know, imagine if we used something flammable as a fuel. I bet if there were any crashes, the whole car would blow up. That's why I stick with my horse and carriage.
    • werries, on 07/21/2008, -2/+5You're getting dugg down, because well, you're retarded.
  • BlueLogic, on 07/20/2008, -0/+15Good thing (Watch!) was posted on the end of the title, without it I would have had no clue what to do with the video!
  • Rozza, on 07/20/2008, -0/+6talk about mad scientist
  • bmerkl, on 07/20/2008, -4/+2This is nice: http://wiki.chainofthoughts.com/dt/en/Hydrogen%20a ...
  • Scaryclouds, on 07/21/2008, -9/+1Ok so is the professor talking a man or a woman? I'm thinking man, but seriously I don't know! Awesome hair either way.
  • random12345, on 11/16/2008, -1/+39dugg for hair
  • Accolade1, on 07/21/2008, -12/+2How is this news? Hydrogen is flammable. Matches ignite things. Explosions occur when you combine these two items.

    YAWN.
    • gn0stik, on 07/21/2008, -0/+11They are trying to get people to watch science by putting explosions at the end. If we respond well the experiment will move forward, and they'll start putting porn at the end. Stop ***** it up, *****.
  • redekzilla, on 07/21/2008, -4/+3just blow it up already!
  • phillc, on 07/21/2008, -4/+1blow something up inside near the ceiling, really???
    • cnosal, on 07/21/2008, -0/+4since it's hydrogen, what ever doesn't burn in the explosion diffuses quickly, and it doesn't 'splash' onto the ceiling etc. There isn't enough heat in that explosion to spontaneously ignite the surroundings.
  • rob2oo4, on 07/21/2008, -6/+0Lets put it in our gas tanks! BOOM
    • waldo686, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1gas tanks fuel cells, all the same really?
  • MAGZine, on 07/21/2008, -1/+2Actually for the people who are worried about the hydrogen cars... I can't recall who, but they said that it wouldn't be any more dangerous then the cars that are powered by gasoline today. It might have been someone who had the car to the water-to-hydrogen conversion, and the ones that actually store the hydrogen molecules me far more deadly.

    I'm not worried. Its not like they'll make the gas tanks out of sulfur.
    • PolarZoe, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1Actually most hydrogen cars are not using the hydrogen to burn it as in cumbustion motors , but the hydrogen is used to create electricity to power an electric motor. By letting the hydrogen react with oxygen, water and electricity are created.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle#Hydr ...
      • MatM888, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1when hydrogen reacts with oxygen, it IS burning. high school chemistry.
    • diesel349, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1But you also have to remember that we have been making gasoline engine cars for over 100 years and there is still the occasional problem with gasoline combusting when it's not supposed to. And hydrogen cars are fairly new. The video isn't cause for concern in today's technological age but it's something to look out for in hydrogen cars.
  • elliotys, on 07/21/2008, -0/+9Periodic Table Neck Tie. . .Dugg.
  • konig12, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2The explosion is actually a lot more impressive if there is the right amount of O2 mixed in the balloon as well. In that case it will react not only at the edge where the hydrogen normally meets the Oxygen, but through the entire balloon at once. In fact, most explosions are pretty amazing if there is enough pure O2 mixed in...
    • cnosal, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2But hydrogen mixed with oxygen would make water! you can't burn that!

      Anyways, your right about more O2 leading to bigger booms, since air is mostly inert nitrogen doing nothing but keeping the reactants apart really. An addendum to your comment about reacting on the edge, is that since in this case the reactants are gaseous, diffusion means it spreads quickly (especially with hydrogen, note how the explosion expands well beyond the volume of the balloon) leading to a very large surface area to volume ratio (another way to increase reaction speed)
    • chispito, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1A nice balanced oxyacetylene balloon will do wonders for your hearing and vision. It's practically a flashbang grenade.
  • JazzCatDRP, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2Aw, it's like a cute little Hindenburg.
  • YodaJones, on 07/21/2008, -1/+1Interesting and well presented.
  • cinder, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1A friend and I used to do this regularly at a science museum we worked at. We'd get the hydrogen from hydrochloric acid (add a little zinc to get the hydrogen). It was always my favorite part of the demonstration and the kids loved it.
  • fuzzybeard, on 07/21/2008, -1/+2Jamie want big boom!
  • xDynaBlade, on 07/21/2008, -0/+9Wait, did he say "Surrounded by oxygen... /little/ bit of nitrogen, but oxygen. That's the magic stuff." How incredibly unscientific! The air is ~78% nitrogen. That's a lot more than just a little bit.
  • MJDub, on 07/21/2008, -0/+13The mixing of hydrogen gas and oxygen gas together in a balloon produces and even bigger/more fun explosion as seen here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMB2VR0087w
    (Not a rickroll.)

    Awesome.
  • ferrell, on 07/21/2008, -1/+2Albert Einstein lives!
  • wontstoptalking, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1I have done that in science class so many times, but it somehow never gets old. Ever.
  • godfather2729, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1THE Big Bang?! So that's how...
  • getlogicated, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2That guy with the huge hair probably gets so much puss...
  • jacktheripperr, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2dugg for FRO
  • Owwmykneecap, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2Blogspam.

    The scientists Youtube account:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos

    I'm a chemist and i've got to say I LOVE what they are doing.
  • shagg187, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1The dual monitor screensaver is distracting.
  • custerfluck, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1We did this in 8th grade science class. We started by putting a balloon over a flask of zinc and hydrochloric acid and captured the hydrogen released in the reaction. then we took the balloon off of the flask and got it with the match on a stick. Most fun I ever had blowing stuff up in school.
  • TheLastEskimo, on 07/21/2008, -0/+4Dugg for the page the article links to:
    http://www.periodicvideos.com/

    They've got a video for every element in the Periodic Table! How cool.
  • PosedMagnet, on 07/21/2008, -3/+0Video stops after 4 seconds. Buried
  • RRJackson, on 07/21/2008, -1/+1When I was in my teens I knew a guy who worked at a water treatment plant. He had the graveyard shift and several of us young nerdlings used to go hang out and play D&D there. Well, obviously the lab was just full of things that you're gonna want to play with. Probably the most tempting thing was a HUGE container of hydrochloric acid that was used for all kinds of tests, so a little missing from the bottle never really seemed to be a problem.

    We'd take a beaker and toss aluminum foil into hydrochloric acid to make (admittedly impure) hydrogen that we'd use to fill garbage bags and then go play Hindenburg over the aerator. Our hydrogen didn't detonate as violently as the hydrogen in this video. It usually just went up in a big soft burn instead of something you'd think of as an explosion, but it was still amazingly cool.

    Well, one night we decided that the little kitchen-bag Hindenburgs weren't cutting it and I grabbed a much bigger beaker with much more hydrochloric acid and a lot more aluminum foil. Normally we'd drop the ball of foil in, wrap the garbage bag around the rim of the beaker and secure it with a rubber band...no problem. The big beaker and the lawn-and-garden bag sounded like an *awesome* idea, but with the larger reaction I got something I hadn't been expecting...a lot of heat. It melted the garbage bag. I woke up wearing a respirator. My face was covered in mucous I'd apparently managed to shoot out of both my nose and mouth. Thankfully one of the other guys was together enough to run out of the room and put on a respirator or I'd have just laid there and suffocated.

    Anyway, hard to say how much scarring I managed to do to my lungs just by being a moron. But hydrogen is still cool. ;-)
  • TwwIX, on 07/21/2008, -0/+2White Bro with a 'Fro.
  • liuite, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1though this video is educational...it might give kids the wrong ideas such as repeating the same near a sprinkler.
  • bubba9999, on 07/21/2008, -0/+1Check it out now...Funk Soul Brother.
  •  

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