Back in the old days, used to make amyl-nitrite from nitrite salt and iso-amyl alcohol. The hippies used to incorrectly call it amyl-nitrate and wanted some to use as a type of aphrodisiac. I obliged them and synthed up a batch. I never understood until one day after a synth I washed the reaction flask with some hot water in the sink. Only then did I finally understand why it would probably work for that purpose.

I must have been a chemist in a past life - I found that really interesting! Great presentation - thanks!

Vacuum grease can be easily cleaned with cyclohexane but if you like the cheesy smell of popper, who am I to judge?

2:00. "And then the sodium nitrite is slowly added." FOOMP!

Nitrite esters generally smell very SWEET and FRESH when first made. If they are NOT pure, they will not smell this way. They will have off odors of bitterness or acid or unpleasant, adulterated base alcohol odors.

You need USP grade SN to make consistently good ester nitrites. Once opened it needs to be protected from O2. If the SN isn't good, the reaction temp will spike and you will have all sorts of horrid impurities making it impossible to preserve. You need to absolutely keep the reaction temperature as close to 32F as possible.....a range of 25 to 35F might suffice. Keep in mind that when you mix SN in water, it sucks up heat fast. You need to factor in this temperature change. The temp can drop 10F in a heart beat. If the temperature is too low, the yield will be scant and you will gets tons of thick precipitate.

I have a friend who used isopropyl nitrite recreationally. I had heard of rare eye damage issues but thought them insignificant. The very next day he woke up with a permanent weak spot in his vision that never recovered. You have been advised. I always use an ice bath and have to babysit lest the ice run out and things overheat. I once realized too late that I had added way too much water to the nitrite soln. but as I was now out of nitrite I had no choice but to use it. Besides, the reactant would oil out anyway. But I found for the first time I no longer had gassing and overheating issues even when I became quite liberal with the HCl flow. So the extra water aided in maintaining a higher nitrous acid content and obviously more time for reaction before gassing off. Now I swear by excess water. Someday maybe I will even learn to feed in the sat. carbonate soln. slowly instead of always dumping it and then fighting the foamover. Lol!

also known as "locker room"

Nitrite esters can be incredible aphrodisiacs, but they have to be pure. They are unstable and do decompose fairly rapidly. Furthermore, the sodium nitrite used to make them is very sensitive to oxygen so it's important to use fresh sodium nitrite of KNOWN purity or you will end up with lots of impurities that will interfere with any desirable effects.

wow Doug is back :)

You can use 15mls 70% rubbing alcohol and 10 mls muriatic plus 7 grams food grade SN. No need to prechill this amount or add more water. But do use an ice bath to perform the reaction. Neutralize on baking soda and it's good to go.

Homemade poppers. :)

Amyl nitrite should smell fresh like camphor or have a medicinal scent. Butyl nitrite should smell fresh and VERY sweet like a thick candy liquor. Isobutyl nitrite should smell fresh and like peppermint or wintergreen. Any odor that isn't like these....or any "off" odor of any kind means there are impurities that are not good.

I tried this and either my alcohol was weak or the acid was too strong. Make sure to not overdo the acid addition. Maybe check the pH every once in a while. Using Doug's measurements I actually got a runaway from the nitrite decomposing after it got too acidic. I had a scrubber in place so it's not a big deal but still. I tried again and it happened again but instead of adding more acid like last time I immediately separated it and washed it as fast as I could. It worked after that haha.

@ 0:40 why are those sticks throwing a kid?

I put isopropyl alcohol through electrolysis one time & what happened was the electrons pushed everything to the left side & the right bottle was just water,BUT the weird thing is that it turned from clear to a green color. Which made me think that's how they make menthol rubbing alcohol.

Super! Beatiful! Thank you very much!

Edit at 9:03 :D I forget to take the stopper out of my sep funnel all of the time too hahaha

Great video!

Using HCl in place of sulfuric acid, don't you take the risk of chlorinated compound as impurity in the final nitrite ?

If the starting alcohol smells better than the finished ester, then something went wrong. The ester should smell better than the base alcohol, absolutely no unfresh, bitter, unpleasant odor.

Will this unstick stuck glass connections that have petrified vacuum grease on them?

Wouldn’t nitric acid + alkyl-OH (all chilled and w ice bath) achieve the same end? I have some references on old ways to make ethyl nitrite and several of them go that route then distill into cold ethanol.

Love your channel 💖

Wondering if you would make 2EHN? I'm interested in it as a cetane booster in diesel fuel. And could this Isopropyl nitrite be used as a cetane booster in diesel?

Hello awesome work...wondering if you can show the whole process of ammonia to nitric acid

9:53 and a good vasodilation agent too...

how to make poppers/head cleaner at home

Hey Doug, thx for the awesome videos, I've been learning a lot, though in future could you please begin with a few uses of what it is your making? This is great stuff but I'd love to know more about what they do or could be used for, even if it's trivial. THX!!

A high purity sodium nitrite will produce a deep royal blue nitrous acid that strongly effervesces and is nearly transparent in clarity. Once the sodium nitrite starts to degrade, almost immediately once you expose it to air, it will produce less and less nitrous acid and the color of the nitrous acid will become hazy and light blue and then greenish once the sodium nitrite has totally bit the dust.

hi Since the end of the panic virus leather cleaner quality has gone to hell. Does anyone know what process changes the usa makers have made to their products??? AND does anyone know what shops are making good leather cleaner today?

Is it possible to get Acetyl nitrite with this method?

You are hired!

Why would you put the funnel in the freezer

I hope ill get my answer, can I use potassium nitrate instead? It's rly hard for me to get my hands on sodium nitrate

doesn't it make nitrosyl chloride which then adds the nitroso group on to the isopropyl alcohol?

What was the damp residue on the hotplate after you ignited it?

No gases are evolved during the addition of ispropyl alcohol right? If I make this I'll use a 3 necked RBF with a pressure equalizing addition funnel and a thermometer. Since it's a closed system I'll be able to minimize any vapors very well.

My yield is much less that the yield in the video, but i follow everything correctly. Could you tell me why ? Thanks 😊

Where do you get sodium nitrite? Does the food-grade stuff (99%+) work?

hi, thanks for good vids. Just wondered if your square tunnel, leading to the external wall fan, is just as effective as a fume hood??

prior to this, why most of the article im reading are using battery acid so i used it, but after 2 attempts, it's a fail. Could that be the reason why nothing happend? No oils floating on top, the result is all an aqueous compound. Do you think CHI will make my third attempt a success?

why isn't any 2-chloropropane formed? Thinking through the mechanism (assuming an electrophilic addition of the H+ to the delta negative O, forming water, then nitrite ions joining to the carbocation) could it not react with the chloride ions in the mixture as well? Thanks in advance if anyone can answer this.

hi 3.14 Do you mix it with water when preparing sodium chloride?

could this stuff be made by simply dripping cooled nitric acid into cooled alcohol (while its being cooled by ice bath and stirred properly so it wont start popping around and kill everything in sight) if one would have acces to 60% nitric acid but not sodium nitrite. Would that produce isopropyl/isobutyl nitrite or nitrate? And how would one tell the difference? Isopropyl nitrAte is apparently toxic rocket fuel, but is it distinquishable from the nitrite version?

I would like to see isopropyl niTRATE synthesis

Ammounts would be nice

I was wondering if you could help me, Im using a good grade sodium nitrite and a battery acid electrolyte and its giving me a product that is clear and not yellow. is this correct? what % of sulphuric acid should I use?

saturated sodium chloride is also called Brine - you should prepare a solution and store it in a jar, so you don't have to keep preparing it all the time when required

Did you put sodium nitrite solution in freezer also

Is there any reason the isopropyl nitrite was not neutralized with a sodium bicarbonate solution?

What's the white chalk looking thing sitting in the flask ?

Poppers :D

What can you use it for Doug?

How dilute can the whole reaction be?

ok, so the commercial brands have that "power Pellet" do you know what tat is, why it is, and is there a way to stabilize the product more then a week or so???

What happens when you sniff final product ? :)

??? all the other formula say mix the acid with water, and alcohol, chill, then other beaker add nitrite to water chill to nice slushy state?? you just add the alcohol and nitrite chill, and add chilled acid, no water till in separation beaker??? interesting, I may need to try this way.

sorry but about the washing part...is washed by sodium chloride solution...NaCl ? I dont see how NaCl neutralize HCl... I saw in another similar video that it is washed by sodium bicarbonate to neutralize residues of acid...dat make more sense to me.

I so want to make this, but I just cannot get my hands on any lab grade NaNO2 - any suggestions on how to synthesis sodium nitrite?

Surprised you are making something like... this

What does it smell like?

Hey mate, love the channel! Just want to ask you about that grease you tested the stuff on. Whats the name of that product and is it easily available? Where can I get that grease? It seems like the ultimate grease! :-D

I would like to know a simple way to test sodium nitrite for purity? I would like to know at what purity the sodium nitrite has to be in order to get a high purity nitrite ester. I would like to know what sodium nitrite degrades to and what chemicals are produced during an ester reaction once this decomposition has started to occur. My hunch is that sodium nitrite has a limited shelf life and is not stable when exposed to air; hence, high grade nitrite esters are very difficult to make consistently.

So, guys. I have some questions. 1) Do I have to use technical grade NaNO3 ? 2) I do not have HCL 30% I do have H2SO4 98%. How much i will have to dilute my H2SO4 to make it match the diluted HCL 3)Wich temperature do you recomend to freeze the Sol 1 (NaNO3 + IPA) and the Acid in Item 2 4)The H2SO4 will react with the NaNO3 and form HNO3 therefore react with the IPA forming Isopropil Nitrate (which difference with the 30% HCL or a 30% H2SO4) 5) people often recomend an additive to prevent acid degradation i have heard about sodium carbonate, please recomend. @John John

Nitris acid, or nitric acid?

because nitrous acid reacts with hydrochloric acid to make nitrosyl chloride

What better solvents could you use for lab grease?

Isopropyl nitrite? Sounds explosive. This stuff blow up?

Why didn't you extract it using an organic solvent?

does it work if i use bacon instead of sodium nitrite? *comment.rage* ^^

can we replace sodium nitrite by potassium nitrite

Con I use potassium nitrite?

Can you use regular hardware HCl?

which one the acic?

You need USP grade sodium nitrite for this reaction to work. If you get degraded SN, you will get all manner of impurities and not the nitrous acid you are hoping for.

Possible to use kno3 instead nano3

In other KZfaq videos H2SO4 is used why did you choose HCl and what are the pros and cons of each Thank you

This patent: www.google.com/patents/US2927939 claims that alkali carbonates can be used to stabilize short chain alkyl nitrites, has anyone tried this, does it work? i plan on making some but don't have any immediate use for it and weekly pressure venting due to the short shelf life sounds like a pain. Does anyone have experience with this?

it work with Kno3?

So.. would a different salt work for this reaction? ( AN, kno3, ect?)

can use phosphorus acid instead sulfur acid?

Can't tell if this prep was successful or not unless the product is tested for purity and compare that to what should be expected.

Isopropyl is the primary cause of degenerative eye site

😬 please don't pour all those organics down your drain

alsome

also3

Chemistry is fun when you don't have to do a bunch of meaningless math and terms nobody's hear of nor really matter

''isopropyl''

Isopropyl nitrite awful stuff it's to acidic for poppers

Jesus christ, people will use absolutely anything to get high. It's really depressing.

alsome