Sometimes I worry that if I upload only once every few months, then each video will have too many ideas and distractions in them. But luckily I think I managed to avoid all tangents in this video and stay on topic the whole time! Anyway, uhh, you can buy a shirt if you want to i guess: explosionsandfire.shop/

that 2006 yellow powder recipe came to me in a dream. i'm surprised to see it still works over such a variety of ratios!

"Published in 1648" Elsevier: that'll be $35!

I reckon it explodes because when it melts the non-sulfur compounds realize they've become yellow and blow themselves up out of shame.

That last shot was a cinematic masterpiece. If I could meet the camera operator I would buy him a large burrito.

yellow powder works because potassium carbonate is too similar to baking soda and the universe hates baking

StyroPyro casually throwing Dr. &Fire with a huge grin on his face was pure magic. Thanks to both of you

The guy at 0:28 is my lecturer and he does this in one of his lectures. He also starts heating a spoon of black powder, then continues with the lecture allowing the gun powder to randomly go off five minutes later and giving everyone anxiety

"this guy" being StyroPyro is absolutely hilarious.

"It's always important to remember that in about 25% of data points, god just comes in and interferes just to keep us humble." I laughed so, so much at this.

I love the fact that the source at 7:18 is a young styropyro.

They should call it Toaster Powder because it goes off at a hot but inconsistent temperature and the pop surprises you every time.

Shirt: Want answers on the NBN? Just ask a local. Person who wants answers: So, what's the deal with this NBN thing? The locals: Oh, the NBN? It's bollocks. Person who wanted answers: Got it. Thanks.

The paper describing your experiments is pretty great, I can't see why everyone wouldn't want to publish it. These are some of my favorite quotes from it: "These rudimentary shed observations are conducted in the hope that it will shed some light on the underlying chemical mechanism." "Modern science is widely believed to have progressed since the 17th century, however, the continued inability of science to conclusively address the significant alchemist mystery of yellow powder brings this belief into question." "Surely that is worth the paperwork to bring some explosives into your analytical chemistry laboratory and load it into the most expensive equipment you’re allowed to use and just see how it goes?"

This video has it all: ✅ Pink T-Shirt about a mismanaged fiber transition ✅ Obscure Ketamine only available in one Australian city ✅ Science based on a forum post from 2006 Thanks Tom.

I did a bunch of experiments on fulminating yellow powder in my pyrotechnics obsession phase (many years ago). It is evil shit, I'd rather make chlorate cap compositions than wait for it to cook off randomly... That said. I could reliably prepare the polysulfide separately then mix it with the nitre and have it detonate at the melting point of the potassium nitrate. I could use the same polysulfide preparation that I used for senko hanabi experiments. I strongly suspect the liquid phase transition of the potassium nitrate is important. I also have a weaker suspicion that atmospheric oxygen dissolving into the polysulfide melt may be important too, probably accumulating sulfate like a glitter or senko hanabi, but I never tried melting it in nitrogen or argon to test this idea. Probably something someone should try... It definitely doesn't seem to work using sodium or barium salts, not sure why?

Am I the only one who thought just to stoichiometrically balance the reaction for complete sulfur oxidation (and subsequent reaction of SO2 with the carbonate? 2KNO3 + K2CO3 + 2S --> N2 + CO2 + K2SO3 + K2SO4 Which would give ideal weight ratios of 50:34:16 The reason for the carbonate isn't just to react with the sulfur dioxide, but to lower the melting point of the nitrate closer to the autoignition temperature of sulfur. Carbonates also form cursed complexes with elemental sulfur, leading to a 3-component eutectic liquid of sulfur, nitrate, and carbonate (fuel and oxidizer homogeneously mixed on a molecular level? +heat=Boom).

Jokes on you I’ve already been drinking all day

17:25 "What if we just edged this guy." ~ Tom "Explosions & Fire" July 5th 2024.

heroin-core is now permanently in my lexicon, right alongside the phrase 'the atmosphere is nature's bin'

There were 49.5 explosions in this video. - 0:04 x1 - 0:06-0:10 x13.5? (one happens during the fadeout) - 0:39 x1 - 1:01 x1 - 1:30-1:35 x3 - 3:30 x1 - 7:40 x1 (there's also a slow-mo replay of the same explosion here) - 7:58 x1 - 8:07 x1 - 11:11 x1 - 11:21 x1 (probably a replay of the same explosion - skip this one if you want) - 11:53 x1 - 11:59 x1 - 12:07 x1 - 12:14 x1 - 12:36 x1 (this explosion and the next two were replayed in slow-mo without sound) - 12:38 x1 - 12:59 x1 - 14:45 x1 - 14:47 x1 - 14:48 x1 - 14:56 x1 - 14:59 x1 - 15:01 x1 - 15:04 x1 - 15:05 x1 - 15:07 x1 - 15:09 x1 - 15:12 x1 - 15:13 x1 - 15:17 x1 - 15:22 x1 - 15:23.24 x1 - 15:23.67 x1 - 15:48 x0 (e&f does not consider this an "explosion" per se) - 15:58 x1 - 17:47 x0 (not an explosion but makes a "poof" sound)

this channel is doing actual science, i thought we were just messing around in the shed not actually doing nerd shit

Ex&F: All yellow chemistry is TRASH also Ex&F: I wrote a research manuscript about a yellow chemical and my work is available on Zenodo *_You have become the very thing you swore to destroy_*

18:53 "2006 was like 23 years ago." Explosions&Fire has time travelled to us from the year 2029 to bless us with advanced chemistry knowledge 🙌🏽

WAY back in the day I was the chief engineer of a semiconductor research lab for a big university in Florida. I can remember telling my boss he probably shouldn't let all of us have access to ultra-pure chemicals that we did. So much for that! We certainly had FUN! Okay, blowing up a hot plate with fulminating gold was really fun.

"Some random amount of time" is really a scary concept when working with pyrotechnics. It's really strange that no one has figured out how yellow powder works.

'Priming powder' from a French book on Black Powder variations...sodium nitrate and sodium carbonate melted together, cooled and ground to powder. Sulfur added, mixture slowly heated just until the sulfur melts. If it explodes, you went too far. Remove from heat, allow to cool. Apprentice carefully grinds fused mass into powder...explosion is likely, so don't have anyone you care about do this bit. Friction and impact sensitive, it was used in 'pull-string' igniters, needle-guns and flint-locks. It's main advantage in guns was it's nearly instant ignition...no 'hesitation' as was common with guns of the era. Chief disadvantage was the collateral damage likely with every batch produced! Shaking a jar of the stuff has been know to cause explosion. It's 'dry nitroglycerine' in terms of handling safety. Chemically speaking? I have no clue, but I did read a paper speculating on sodium fulminate.

A few months ago I was working on a synthesis for a bright blue product started to look green because some of the starting materials were degrading and turning YELLOW. Since that discovery the whole project has not worked.... E&F is on to something...

I love how at 10:34 the map of Australia doesn't have North or south Australia

I read the research paper you wrote, and the line sentence in the conclusion "It is the author's firm belief that the last 400 years of chemistry research has led us to this; a moment in whitch we as a society can finally break free of the yellow powder chains that have held us down for so long and step into a golden age of advancement"

Oh no. The yellow. It's here.

As a geologist I get unreasonably excited when a ternary diagram comes out

I knew I recognized that post! Styro is all over some early internet science forums. I ran into his posts more than a few times while looking up laser stuff in the 00s.

"It's only through hate, that one stays human" - Explosions & Fire, 2024.

We are so fucking back

Tom, I hope that when you were digging around for that shirt that you found the hearing protection also.

For Infrared spectroscopy, we sometimes use polished metal plates or metallic films as IR reflective substrates. Its cool to see it be picked up with an IR camera.

Formulation scientist here and you did more mapping of exactly where the line on each ratio is than anyone else was willing to do so props!

Can't wait for the follow up white powder episode

genuinely love your style of editing. you obviously put a lot of effort into making it look bad and stupid, and it pays off, cuz its funny as hell. this shit is ART. great job man

This is your best edited video to date, loved it. It's super cool you're back and keep on rocking

The fact E&F is wearing the NBN shirt in the last shot is pure gold. and "its always important to remember that in about 25% of data points god comes in and interferes just to keep us humble" had me in stitches.

"How much of this triangle explodes?" That's never been said before.

i have enjoyed watching you for a few years now, and some how this is one of the best episodes you've ever made..... could also be the drinking game, im calling it shot per pop

To quote a certain math video: "Let's see the R^2!. Let's not see the R^2..."

6:49 In US criminal law there is a rule called "the rule." So, "yellow powder" could be a lot worse.

I love your humor and style brother, right up my alley subbed

11:05 is a moment of pure editing brilliance

Please publish that paper, it is relevant. Science isn’t gray, it is yellow.

nice work! having done quite a bit of work in the past with molten nitrate salts (trying to reduce them to nitrite, with very mixed success), I had to point out that the melting point of potassium nitrate is around 330 °C, i.e. just above the temperature where detonation occurs - I strongly suspect that whatever reaction is taking place involves nitrate in its molten state

"my main reference is going to be myself" You know, you could start a journal.

I'm in love with this! In our lab yesterday, my post doc, research assistant and I were all nerding out about this!

I enjoy the fact that Canberra has its own version of ketamine and it's considered "slightly worse" than normal K. That might be the single most Canberra fact I have ever heard. Also, I've seen those "secret third axis" diagrams before, but exclusively in the context of people meming on the soil composition diagram because for some reason people on tumblr find loam hilarious. It absolutely is, but I could not tell you why. And congrats on Actual Data by the way!

So I have some observations based on that beautiful triangle diagram of yours: 1. Too much carbonate bums the reaction out. It looks like if the carbonate composition is above 55% then the reaction won't cook off. But the one test point at 0/50/50 confirms that the reaction requires _at least some_ carbonate to successfully cook off, so let's say more than 5%. 2. Nitrate DEFINITELY contributes significantly to the reaction, but not if there's too much so it definitely needs something else to react with it. Not enough nitrate (below 20%) or too much (above 60%) can cause the mix to not cook off at all, it seems. 3. The reaction definitely requires some sulfur. More than 10% but maybe less than 70%. The ideal mixing ratio doesn't seem to be the one cited in the 2006 forum post, but rather somewhat closer to 30%-40% carbonate, 30%-50% nitrate, and 20%-30% sulfur. Taking the averages of these ranges comes out to 35/40/25 carbonate/nitrate/sulfur, which is exactly where the purplest dot indicating the fastest cookoff time sits. But as long as the mixing ratio is somewhere in the ranges of (5,55)/(20,60)/(10,70) then it'll _eventually_ cook off with enough heat (at least 325°C but no testing at higher temperatures appears to have been done so we don't know if there is an upper limit to this).

Great tto see you back with the experiments, i take it all the studying and school work went well (from what i last remember hearing you talk about it) great video!

This was incredible, thank you. Love seeing new content

Finally, Yellow chem bad - The Episode

We found this book (below) in the reference section of the library when I was in high school. We made (and used a lot of it), and learned how to anticipate the explosion when a spoon of a gram of this powder was held over an alcohol burner. As the melting and bubbling would turn to brown, the character of the boiling/bubbling would change in size of bubbles and darkness right before the bang. We even made little holders for our burners that would hold a half gram of the stuff above the flame, to be placed outside of somebody's home at night. The explosion sounded like a firecracker and would extinguish the flame so it would be "invisible" when somebody looked out the window. We (with our excellent high school knowledge of chemistry) guessed that while the Potassium Carbonate was being heated, it was giving off CO2, inhibiting the O2 and Sulphur from combining. When the CO2 ran out, the O2 and Sulphur would combine to make the explosion. This was probably wrong. Henley's Twentieth Century Formulas, Recipes and Processes (Internet Archive) «Fulminating Powder.»-I.-Niter, 3 parts; carbonate of potash (dry), 2 parts; flowers of sulphur, 1 part; reduce them separately to fine powder, before mixing them. A little of this compound (20 to 30 grains), slowly heated on a shovel over the fire, first fuses and becomes brown, and then explodes with a deafening report. What a lot of fun! (and relative safety) Later, Carl

Loved this vid. I learned much, as a science nerd I think you HAVE given to the community! I've never seen a ternary graph let alone it being a heatmap as well, short of the (muscle / body fat / height) sliders in videogames. As a D&D nerd I can now throw more real life science into my alchemy as well. Roding the fence on entertainment and education is why I love your channel so much, glad to see whenever you have an update. The reference to throwing the pinkshirt, the pained expression due to The SuspenseTM (I *hate* being startled so thank you for enduring this), the on-point humour, the unexpected Styropyro appearance, this video was pure magic and it made my day.

6:24 So from this and personal experience, the only two things driving any chemist are hate... and alcohol. What a great combination!

This reminds me of my great uncle who did essentially the same research but for rocket fuel back before rocket fuel existed. he made the first computer database (using COBOL) of all mixtures of rocket fuels and fuel tank materials. no one had even measured the vacuum of space directly yet and they had no idea which mixture would be best or what to even make the tank out of. some fuel mixtures were too corrosive and would eat through the tank and some mixtures were not corrosive but were too inefficient. After his research, he ended up with a large table of data (much like your triangle chart) all in COBOL and printed out on punch cards, and he wrote the original technical manual for ideal rocket fuel and fuel tank material. unfortunately, all PII was removed from the TM he wrote because it was classified at the time, so all he could do later in life was claim bragging rights that he wrote the book on rocket fuel. And i still have all the punch cards because he kept a copy in his attic lol. your triangle chart will be become the new reference that people use 20 years from now and wonder "who the hell was this random guy who posted this data online 20 years ago??? I'm definitely not going to credit him though lol"

As a geologist who has somehow ended up studying cosmochemistry this summer, I'm with you on the letting hate fuel you. Fuck crystal growth, fuck wet chemistry, and most importantly, FUCK iron isotopes.

I’ve said this on your last two vids but your timing is impeccable once again. Literally was just wondering when we were gonna get another ex+f vid. Great work keep it up.

You had me fully sold on your canket rant and I was still shocked by the explosion

Interesting...it only explodes after you heat it enough to melt it and get rid of the yellow color. From now on, to correct the terrible naming, this explosive shall exclusively be known as reddish goo. Also, I wonder if this would work with different ingredients (sodium nitrate/carbonate, maybe other chalcogens like selenium instead of sulfur, etc). Might also be cool to test the nitrite hypothesis with actual nitrite and polysulfide!

I think they threw out your paper when they read: "These rudimentary shed observations are conducted in the hope that it will shed some light on the underlying chemical mechanism." Big mistake to write a pun in the introduction. You should have kept it for the conclusion.

Am geologist. Instant grin ear-to-ear when you broke out the triangle graph. I think this is one of your best videos yet!

heck yeah what a duo!!! you guys are both wonderful creators. i tend to learn alot form yall any time a vid drops! KEEP EM COMING

"Science sucks, know what I mean?"... Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

I made this mixture when I was 14 or 15 (1973 or so) after finding the recipe in an old encyclopedia. From the name used in the book I got the impression that it would detonate if you hit it, but it didn't, to my disappoimtment. Then I thought It might work better if I disolve it in water (well, not the sulfur of course) and let it dry. I waited for it to dry, but I was too impatient, so I thought I should dry it by heating it. I took a small amount and heated it on some aluminium foil over a flame. The water boiled and evaporated. And as soon as it became dry it melted and then BANG. The time from the water totally evaporating till the bang was very short, and the reason for that was probably that the amount was so small. But the bang was incredibly loud and sharp.

The Ending killed me😂. This up coming collab is going to be amazing !

that open killed me! No, literally I'm now in the hospital my liver gave out. Great times as always love you man 💕💕💕

Man, I may have said this already on another video, but it's worth mentioning again: You have a good sense of comedic timing. "What was I wearing, what is that shirt?" Next scene: "so I found the shirt..." There's something monumentally funny about an Aussie chemist working in his shed. Because the chemistry, the science of it all is very real... but you make it NOT boring. If I were a chemistry teacher in high school, I'd have my students watch some of your videos in class.

0:06 suddenly realizes I shouldn't watched this at work

Great video. Love the tangents and extra bits as well.

Great video as always

5:00 Somehow Australia and Germany BOTH made the mistake to go for a fiber-copper hybrid internet, which as a german I can confirm is absolutely horrible.

11:11 really cracked me up. I was so focused on the intesresting drugs and then that got me so good.

This was the most impressive video from this channel I've seen yet. You made a genuine contribution to chemistry. I'm now intrigued into the mechanistic possibilities of carbonate and sulfur at high temperatures. In my mind if carbonate can cleave the long sulfur chains, creating some sort of polysulfide carbonates which can get oxidized by KNO3 to the SO2 that would give extremely reactive functional groups that, once enough of them have "built up" detonate.

So many explosions. So many lols. Best episode yet. Cheers man.

"Explosions&Fire, Backyard Shed, Australia, 0999" that cracked me up

the potassium carbonate being important to the explosive makes me this thats where the focus should be. While working on a different project i found a source (Handbook of inorganic chemicals, Dr. Pradyot Patnaik) that stated that potassium chlorate (KClO3) can turn into potassium perchlorate (KClO4) and potassium chloride (KCl) when heated. I suspect that something similar is happening to the potassium carbonate and it is turning into potassium percarbonate (K2C2O6) which is a strong oxidizer. I doubt this theory is right but its my best guess. Edit: to be clear i don't think its the heat alone that is causing this, either the KNO3, sulfur or both are needed to do this. to test this you could try heating the potassium carbonate with one of the two and both and cool them. then examine them in an FTIR machine. the change bond structure for the percarbonate would show up on there.

I saw the forum post image was authored by "...opyro" and thought to myself "wow, that is really similar to styropyro, but there is no way it is him. That would be a crazy coincidence." and it actually was

What I find interesting is that it does explode using sodium carbonate but much weaker explosion. And also I did a experiment extracting potassium nitrate from grass boiled in water then letting the water evaporate .I was left with some crystals so I made a crude gunpowder mix with using those crystals and sulfur and charcoal powder then mixing then heating I was expecting the mix to just catch fire to my surprise it detonated with a very sharp bang the same as yellow powder does.

My guy has finally synthesized enough Cubane to be proud of himself once again to upload a video.

WOOT TRIANGLE DIAGRAMS!! The most interesting part of soil science!

Great stuff!

I'm not here for the chemistry, I can't understand it. I'm here for the emotional journey.

I literally looked at your channel like an hour ago and was disappointed to see no new upload in months. Now this pops up. Good day

AH! SURPRISE DRINKING!

im so happy theres a new video

With the preliminary study done, you just need to get some funding to get a PhD student into that shed as well as some analytics hardware to map the entire triangle in excruciating detail. Some nice high-speed spectrometry to see what happens when the yellow stuff turns angry.

The fact that my fave OG youtube "homebrew" scientists get to meet-up and exchange ideas is one of those odd joys that only The Internet can afford. Happy you're part of that, Ex&F since apparently the australian internet can't really afford much... 😁

If you want to measure the temperature of metal like the hot plate I find putting kapton tape on it to change the emissivity/reflectivity works pretty well, it's generally good at high temps with soldering too.

Dude. Your videos are gold. So in a way you are a true alchemist.

Ex&F and Styropyro?!? That's the collab I've been waiting for for YEARS! Make it happen!!!

"Yellow chemistry is trash." "When it goes to tar, it just fails." *heat yellow powder until it turns to tar* *POW!*

love how elegantly the shrapnel spins after explosion

ah. perfect fun. as usual. and welcome in the world of "aaaach, copper cables will be enough! Lets put some fiber where no one will notice!". Cheers from Germany!

Kicked up the editing a notch! 🤘