"...gently lower them into a large container of water." or throw it in including the forceps. Ha.

When I was in Navy firefighting school, they taught us to never spray water on burning metals ... but we were to do our best to throw it overboard before it started burning through the deckplates.

If I remember correctly there was an incident related to this in the past. A magnesium recycling complex caught on fire at Garfield Heights, Ohio in 2003. Due to the rain and snow the situation got worse because of the forming hydrogen. There was another case when a water pipe ruptured above a furnace containing molten magnesium, causing a series of explosions and fire in St Louis.

that high speed camera you guys bought must be the best buy ever. lovely footage.

Damn that makes for some beautiful slow-mo footage. Thanks, electrons!

I found this out when I was young. They used Magnesium for rims on airplane tires since it is so light. Problem is, if you hit the brakes too hard on landing you can set your own rims on fire. Since my dad was an airplane mechanic, he actually had some hunks of old magnesium rims, set one on fire, and showed me what happens when you try to put it out with water.

Race car drivers and fire marshals have known about this for years. Hence why racing Magnesium wheels stamped NOT FOR ROAD USE. if the car catches fire then normal fire crews can't put it out.

Somebody needs to tell Neil that he would be better served building some kind of trap door device rigged with a wire to drop the magnesium into the water rather than sticking his arm under the shield.

i know that it is extremely difficult to even get near a CERN laboratory or such, but can you do a video on antimatter?

In chem101 they made us memorize the lighter element's reactivity with water and according to that magnesium reacts with water vapor readily, though not cold water.

6:22 - This is why metals shops and plants that deal with these kinds of metals have Class D extinguishers and never water extinguishers.

Great job, the reactions are beautiful. Neal is the man, a real-life magician!

It would be awesome if you could try the Mg + H2O in an inert gas environment to prove that it will react without getting oxygen from the air. Here's how to set this up: Use a large flask with a narrow opening like an Erlenmeyer flask. Add some water but leave a lot of head-space for gas, then purge the air out with argon, which is heavier than air so it will persist in the beaker and keep most of the oxygen away. Then drop the pre-ignited burning Mg into the beaker. Here's another idea. Try a thermite-like reaction. Get some iron oxide powder, and then add burning Mg metal, again with an argon-purged gas environment. The Mg will probably strip away oxygen from the oxide: 3Mg + Fe2O3 --> 3MgO + 2Fe

The ominous music that you added during the reaction was a really cool touch. Nice work!

We did this in school to demonstrate redox reactions. Doesn't seem to be part of the standard curriculum in the UK. Funny to think that such differences in school chemistry even affect chemists at a university level.

To explain Le Chatelier's principle, my lecturer said that iron ships had magnesium blocks along their hulls to prevent the hulls from rusting by "rusting in their stead". I never thought magnesium would react with water before that but I never thought it wouldn't.

This is just fascinating o_0 Thank you to Brady, the Professor, and the experimenters for doing these again and again. The slow motion REALLY brings out the coolness.

Thank you for the geekness. I have learned a great deal from your offerings here.

That was an amazing video. Loved it guys. Bravo!

Could you get the same reaction by taking an oxidized aluminium ribbon, dipping it into water, and then stripping the oxide layer off with a knife or scissors while it's underwater?

Brady always asks the questions I want him to.

I thought it was common knowledge that magnesium burns in water. It was something I knew in the first years of secondary school...

you are awesome! thank you for making these videos :)

The red colour is due to the mag oxide fumes scattering the blue component of the light, same reason the sun looks red at dusk and the sky looks blue. Magnesium ribbon burning whilst sandwiched between two blocks of dry ice is also very impressive.

Brady, Your best salesman is the professor. Please, give us youtbubers more of his wisdom! Thanks for your awsome vids!

Old race cars often had magnesium body panels and parts, if you look at footage of them on fire after an accident you'll see how useless water is at stopping the reaction, turns out it makes it burn more, which is quite counter intuitive.

Im getting mesmerised by the visual effect. (not the magnesium, but watching the professors hair bobbing around in such high recording quality)

Great video again, just wanted to add a little info that i have learned being a firefighter. Using dry sand is probably the easy way to extinguish a burning metal and takes quite a lot to put it out. The professional way to do it is to coat the burning metal with a layer of matter that stops the burning reaction by taking away the oxygen part of the fire triangle ( or fire pentagon if you want to make it more complex ) It is applied as a powder and actually forms a layer of salt to shut out the oxygen....

Great vid. As a firefighter, you quickly learn about this Rxn with burning car steering columns having a high magnesium content. It's very violent and impressive. Thx

Very interesting video, and pretty cool to see something I deal with put in to a more controlled environment. This is an extremely common reaction we as firefighters see with vehicle fires. Magnesium used in the vehicle, mainly steering columns, will always provide an extremely explosive reaction. If you're interested in much larger amounts of burning magnesium, I would recommend some videos of car fires being put out by firefighters. *****

Very interesting as always

Part of my training included taking some old wooden pallets and piling them onto an old VW Beetle engine block and setting it on fire. Then try to point a stream at it! This is something to be aware of when fighting a car fire as several vehicles use magnesium components and as the fire burns thought the oxide and paint it can become rather volitle.

My science teacher has played some of your videos in class during first semester. :)

Please give the Professor a better microphone. Interesting video, (as always), but the sound could use some help. Thank you!

It's dark because magnesium burns really bright so to compensate that the camera reduces backlight

Wouldn't a camera with an underwater view give a better picture due to the lack of waves and things?

What do you use to set a piece of metal on fire??? EDIT: Thank you all for telling!!!

I figured you would explain that the magnesium's burning temperature is high enough to split the H2O into H and O2 which then ignites the Hydrogen (H) with some of the Oxigen (O2), thus creating the red/orange flame. And also the O2 accelerates the burn rate of the magnesium, creating more heat thus accelerating the entire process.

That looked amazing!

Many years ago, I was driving to work and saw an old VW Microbus catch fire in front of me on the roadway. (Apparently it had a fuel-leak that dripped onto the hot exhaust manifold, which started a fire in the engine compartment.) I stopped to make sure everyone got out alright, then waited for the fire department to come put out the fire... Turns out the engine-blocks in those old VW's were made from a Magnesium alloy. Also turns out that fire departments apparently aren't aware of that fact. Or of the fact that spraying water on a magnesium fire doesn't help. It was fun to watch, though. :-)

great video and tie

Hey, i just did this experiment in lab. That was spectacular!!

I love the slow motion videos, but how about some time lapse sequences (for example, of a piece of magnesium ribbon left in water for a few weeks?)

I've known about Mg fires in air and water since I was 12 years old. I didn't understand until decades later that Mg is strongly electropositive therefore a powerful reducing agent so it can strip the oxygen right off of the hydrogen.

We did this in High School chemistry to demonstrate that temperature can change the interactivity of substances.

Those metal pencil sharpeners from the 1980's were difficult to put out once gotten started by a Bunsen burner during science lessons. Often water just made it worse! Good old man alloy :)

love his videos.

I'm a little bit surprised, that the professor didn't know the reaction, because magnesium can be used to dry solvents, when it's oxidized surface is activated with iodine vapors (turned into magnesium iodide). Nevertheless, I like the video:)

I learned this in my FIrefighting Essentials class about 15 years ago. Magnesium (and many other metals when burning) can actually break the water down into hydrogen and oxygen, and the heat from the already burning metal ignites the hydrogen, causing a flare-up. Also, the violent boiling of the water serves to agitate the molten metal and cause it to be thrown everywhere. Really a very bad thing, especially when you are trying to extinguish a fire.

Magnesium is one of the pieces used in under water welding . magnesium welding rods were used to weld the cap in place during the bp oil disaster, also used to repair ships rotors and such underwater without having to pay countless amounts to drydock. Under water welding looks wicked also, there are many vids on youtube showing it.

Magnesium is used in parts of the tail of a f14 fighter jet. A friend once told me he saw a magnesium fire after a tail strike on landing. They ended up pushing the f14 off the carrier into the ocean. The magnesium kept burning brightly as it sank.

We do this in general chemistry lab, along with other metals and nonmetals.

while he was talking some bubbles formed on the surface of the magnesium. nice!

I love you and love Alchemy... professor i wish to be one of your followres...

I wish there was a way to get the entire dynamic range into the video. First it's ultra dark and then the flame is completely blown out. Oh well, it's a great sight even with those technical limitations.

This is something I actually got to test as high school coursework. We were testing concentrations of hydrochloric acid reacting with Magnesium, I decided we also needed to test just water with Magnesium. We confirmed it reacted, very noticeably after 2 weeks.

I remember I once dared my friend to set fire to a small piece of magnesium. He asked for permission from our teacher, and was allowed to. He lit it, but he didn't expect it to burn so violently, so he panicked a bit. He tried to put it out by dabbing it on the table, which sat fire to the paper covering the table. I stood behind him all the time, laughing as he completely oversaw the sink beside him. I now see, it was a good thing he didn't drop it in there. Thanks.

Nice tie.

Can you please make a video explaining why the explosion is so massive and violent when water gets under the surface of molten aluminum?

You really need more light for those slow motion shots so we can see it better! Magnesium reactions were always one of my favorites since I did one in Science class years ago. Something I have always wondered, would there be any difference if some of these reactions in water were done using D20 (Heavy water)?

Could have done a timelapse of the slow reaction.. :) Not the most exciting footage but still better than a photo!

would have liked to see Neil !

I find it odd that the Professor is not familiar with this reaction. At the school in the UK where I teach chemistry we routinely react magnesium ribbon with cold water and small bubbles of hydrogen are produced on the metal surface along with a solution of magnesium hydroxide. Older students react magnesium ribbon with steam which is a strongly exothermic reaction which looks the same as magnesium burning in air, hydrogen produced by the reaction can be burnt, displaying an orange flame while the reaction lasts.

I wonder if you could dissolve the magnesium in liquid Gallium (just above 30C). I know aluminium will react with water as well, if you remove the oxide layer. And one way to do this is to dissolve the aluminium in gallium (

Indeed there are special fire extinguishers (usually containing powdered sodium chloride) for tackling metal fires effectively, the salt melting upon the metal and blocking air from reaching it - these are called "class D extinguishers"

this is quite handy... you can shoot at really high FPS and dont lose to much brightness, because the magnesium burns so bright.

Very cool reaction

Mg does react with water, but very slowly. A good way to demonstrate this is to put pieces of Mg in water with phenolphthalein added, and boil it for 15 minutes. It will turn slightly pink, and the Mg will keep bubbling even after you take it off the heat, making hydrogen gas.

By the way, hot magnesium might be able to react with sand, which you suggest using to extinguish burning metals.

If you add some phenolphthalein to water with magnesium in it you can see that a reaction is taking place. (The reaction turns the water basic and therefore phenolphthalein turns pink)

To answer to the professors question about just putting the magnesium in water, I've taken reagent grade magnesium intended for grignard preparation and submerged it into pure water, and to my amazement small amounts of bubbles would form, in which I assumed it was hydrogen gas. Granted it was very very slow, but it was there. Great video as usual though.

I may have missed something, but I recall my science teacher showing the class that magnesium will burn underwater.

You should film a shot where you have the Mg wire in your water beaker like you have and light one of the extremities of the wire that is sticking outside the water. Let it burn until... I don't know, we have to try it out ;)

So the real take home message is, set fire to stuff and play around with it!

To summarize: Don't put metal fires out with water and CO2 fire extinguishers. Does't work!

I reacted magnesium with cold water when I was about 15 - it was a very slow reaction indeed, rather like that you got. I never tried, or saw, burning magnesium added to water before. I have seen the result of steaming magnesium - it catches fire readily when steamed.

Amazing.

The magnesium does react with water at room temp. Slowly. Brady, what I've done before is take a piece of Mg and put it in water with some universal indicator, then wait. The water will slowly go blue/green depending on the indicator as the solution gets more basic from the magnesium hydroxide created. That would be a cool timelapse IMO,

In 1955, the race at Le Mans taught us all how dangerous magnesium can be in a fire.

I remember a while back I heard a story about a race car that was built primarily out of magnesium because it's lighter than many of the alternatives. Unfortunately, it somehow caught fire and proved very difficult to put out.

Huh I actually learned that you could burn magnesium in water in the fifth grade!! And yes this is how underwater wielding is done(also learned about this in the fifth grade) I had a great science oriented teacher back then Mr Malouf. This was over 15 years ago too, I still remember him setting that strip of magnesium aflame.

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What happens to burning magnesium dunked in vinegar? Why I ask is maybe Vinegar could deliver an extinguishing effect for metal fires? This is just a suspicion. What else could extinguish such fires?

Martyn thanks for good videos of education on chemics. Can you please make one for us to see what the reaction would be if putting about 1kg of magnesium in water? It is not known what reactions would be then. Or may be 10kg would be even better. ta blesses ARek

What would happen if you do the same experiment in boiling water?

We did something similar in chem class in highschool. Passing water vapour over heated (not burning) magnesium will cause the magnesium to strip off the oxygen from the vapour giving you hydrogen gas as the exhaust.

This causes a bit of a problem for firefighters rolling up to a car fire with a Mag block and try to extinguish with water

Pretty sure we covered clean group 2 metals with water at room temperature in a level chem class, and it Effervesces. suprised the prof never thought of it

as allways nice video. I've heard that if it wouldnt be for a layer of oxygen two pieces iron would instrantly weld together, is that true?

The Class D fire extinguisher also puts out metal fires. USE THE ENTIRE EXTINGUISHER even if it looks out.

He just broke a major rule in chemistry @ 0:35

Am I the only one having issues watching these on a cell phone? The audio is always messed up. The audio sound like it's playing at 1/10 speed, but video is fine. I used to watch these workout any issue, but a few weeks ago this started.

Wont play after repeated attempts. It was more than happy to play an ad before the error the first time though -_-'

It is kinda strange to me that the professor didn't know about this. As a kid during the 4th of july my family would go down to the beach to watch the fireworks show. Other kids would toss sparkers and other fireworks into the waves and you would see them light the whole wave up. My uncle told me it was the magnesium in the fireworks that caused this and I assumed it was common chemistry knowledge.

We done this is chemistry and you just use magnesium that's been stored in oil and then quickly toss it into the oil and boom, one if the first experiments we done

you need to use way more light for those slowmo shots!

I learned this in boy scouts, I think it's common knowledge there. Boys would get a magnesium bar and scrap off shavings to get a larger sliver burning, then throw it in a creek or lake and watch it burn underwater.

Can you help me What is the difference between dry distillation and destructive distillation?

Ever consider doing a time-lapse video showing a room temperature reaction of magnesium in water over the course of a month? You could show the hydrogen gas being collected somehow... just a thought.

Just a thought, what if you lower the magnesium ribbon (cleaned of oxide layer) into the water and passed an electric current through it?