How to light a grill in 2 seconds

[logik316]

I think I'll stick to my charcoal chimney, thank you. It may not get the coals lighted quite as fast, but it's more environmentally friendly and won't annihilate my beloved grill.

[Aidster20]

the reason it burns so well is because of the 100% oxygen consentration at the fire the temperature of the oxygen is irellavent if you could get a 100% consentration of oxygen gass at the fire it would burn about the same (a little faster because of collision princeples) but because of the high concentration of o2 compared to in air which is some where around 20% objects will spontaneous combust so ur diamite will explode much more powerfully

[jccw227]

More like how to burn down a park in two seconds.

[farcepest]

Whoever flagged this as inappropriate is a vegetarian

[jsamue12]

How to light a grill in 2 sec?

More like how to disintegrate a grill in 2 sec

[Ammit5]

Dammit, I wanted my steak RARE!

[xucam]

Oxygen boils at -297 and freezes at -369*

Nitrogen boils at -320 and freezes at -346*

So above -297 both are gasses

Between -320 and -297 O2 is a liquid but N2 is a gas

Between -346 and -320 both are liquid

Between -369 and -346 O2 is a liquid but N2 is a solid

Below -369 both are solids

* According to wikipedia 

[shankman2000]

so isn't liquid oxygen colder than liquid nitrogen?

[rnedisc]

still gta try this when someone is bbqing in the pakr on a sunny day and having a good time then i run in poor a bucket of liquid onto it and melt it and then look at their faces =D

[iTzMist]

I'd like my steak raw thanks..

[Dreance]

lol nothing to eat, i'm still hungry!!

[hyrael2]

Auto clean mode !

[propyropower]

what kind of grade C would this make if this was used to speed up the C pyro/blackpowder grade C ?

[01DarkKnight01]

i have a question where is the grill?

[ichich94]

ämmmm AMERICANS ?!

[lololol835]

:D Pyro FTW

[mikeflbiker]

Web classic indeed, I think this might have been the first video I ever saw on the net.

[khpn666]

Genial, das ist so zieblich das Dümmste was ich je gesehen habe, mit Abstand.

[hibob841]

There's another clip of the same group trying the experiment with a cheap, table-top grill. They again succeeded in lighting it within 3 seconds--and also vaporized most of the grill!

Good stuff.

[mrsgupta]

Goodness me, Mr. Gobel!

You are my hero! You can light my BBQ anytime!

Just make sure you do not accidentally bbq my faithful water-buffalo "Steve"- it is forbidden to bbq cows in my land.

This is clearly explained in my mrs-gupta web-sight!

[churchladies666]

@mrsgupta

MrsGupta? You told us (the churchladies) that you were a VEGETARIAN!

You will not be invited to any more of our picnics!

And stop imbibing that Pinoqachole!

[migkillertwo]

that's incredible

[nukepwetty]

that ought to cook a few burgers

[djade2]

Central Indiana isn't exactly the "deep south!" ROFLMAO

[siy1414]

this is also how you can start californian wild fires.

[cccspizza]

LOL this is cool

[Brazucaman]

very very nice

[mburch1974]

that got hot! I bet 3000-4000 degrees

[MonoblocII]

The grass in the video doesn't catch fire at all. It simply vaporizes. Leaves nothing but soil afterwords. The smoldering cigarette or a burning briquette is the key. If you simply soaked the briquettes in LOX without an ignition source, they would explode.

George knew exactly what he was doing. This isn't some pyromaniac out for fun.

[alyl603]

it does its hard to see its a low qul cam so

[djade2]

This vid predates Youtube by quite abit. It was done by a Professor at Purdue University to amuse his research group.  The city of Lafayette, IN. eventually passed a law against it.

[Shaddow1966]

This video was originally on a link on the Library's website, unfortunately the ATF said you have a bomb here, remove the link LOL

[GuerrillaForce]

I'm guessing this was somewhere in the deep south or the far northeast.

[slurpy911]

the title just made me laugh

[OS253]

Crazy idiots! I hope they burn the whole park.

[seakid132]

i realize that... but my dad is high up in the research part of MUSC... he even has his own lab, and i know he has liquid nitrogen that he works with...

[seakid132]

um... where do you get liquid oxygen?

[thunterful]

you need to be a scientist it is not easy to come by and really flammable. Besides if you do manage to get some, you might have homeland security up your ass.

[TruthNerds]

Pure oxygen (whether liquid or gaseous) is not flammable meaning it does not react with air. However, it reacts violently with flammable substances. The tragic deaths of the Apollo 1 crew and cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko were caused by fires in high-oxygen atmospheres. In the second half of this video, it's the hot steel that burns (and melts) when coming into contact with the liquid oxygen.

BTW the guy is an idiot for not using any kind of body protection.

[Machimachina]

Thier Chemistry Students.

[TheHunter2008]

That was longer than 2 seconds... that's too slow!

[IIIJFRIII]

that was fucking awsome.

[rlt94]

HELL'S KITCHEN!!!

[GlennMagusHarvey]

"no cleanup"

LOLOL

[KinkyNappy2]

Just damn...

[DickyRoss]

How HOT is that fire?

What's the temp?

[douglasskemp]

Well, considering LOX is an element of most rocket fuels, and many rocket fuels burn in excess of 2800 K (4580 F) I'd be willing to bet pretty darn hot!

[ddrl33tz0r]

engineers.

the "fun" scientists.

[godthegourd]

so i dont know how many of you have seen oxygen fires but they are ridiculous. this video doesn't do them justice. when an oxygen fire burn it literally sounds like you stuck your head out the window of a flying airliner. the heats blooms into your face even from 20 feet away and (given enough oxygen) the roar is deafening, even though it is simply burning in an open room (just 6 gallons). i wish i could have seen that... :)

[underdogphoto]

I thought Engineers were supposed smarter than Red Necks, but this video proves other wise.

[akulkis]

Was anyone hurt?

NO

Was anything caught on fire which wasn't meant to be caught on fire?

NO?

I know the guy personally, and even though I haven't seen him in about 15 years, I would trust him with my life.

[fritsie123]

Don't know the guy, but the video shows him having a fair bit of respect of the liquid oxygen. It's clear he is careful and plays it safe.

Not sure about the trusting with my life part, but he can light my grill anytime!

[godthegourd]

that was uncalled-for, mate.

[senorhindenburg]

How long to get a medium rare steak?

[ilbarbecubo]

ha ha ha chemical........

[sorich]

its like the Mahabharata in a sandwich!

[claudia9N]

<3 i love u y

[admotion26]

really stupit..

[xucam]

Umm, I think you meant 'stooopit'

[rmfyt]

LindaMarie1955:

What was the point? Are you kidding me?

[georei]

waste of good charcaol.

[empachers]

These are engineering faculty and grad students from Purdue University. At first, they were trying to speed up the process of lighting a grill, but they got lost somewhere along the way in the sheer pyrotechnic joy of it all and decided to try using liquid oxygen,with the "cool" results that you see here.

There was a Dave Barry column about this "experiment." You can search the web for "purdue grill liquid oxygen" or something like that.

[blogologist]

Children and matches. A BAD combination.

[bensonchad]

Yeah, bet that grass looks nice

[kamakazicow]

You aren't honestly going to justify stupidity vs. boldness on the completely unnecessary starting of fires with chemicals are you? When did boldness involve doing things in the most foolish way possible, rather than the most practical way? I think the smart way to start the fire would have been the safest way, which wouldn't have involved a 6 foot board between the starter and the materials involved. It wouldn't have been quite as cool, but lets not start trying to call this intelligence...

[at7000]

These engineers must have been the same ones who designed the "O Rings" on the Space Shuttle Challenger...

[vickiedavis]

Anyone seen the original lately? It seems to have gone into the proverbial bit bucket. :(

[jdg241]

@vickiedavis

The original was the highest-traffic site on the entire web, with dozens of still photos and two or three versions of the video. Purdue put up with it for more than a year, but then disabled it. I'm sure there are sites that could host it now, but not for free!

[fefrie]

They should have shown this video to the engineers of Apollo 1

[leslihilton]

I really think the cowboy way is a much safer and controlled way of doing it!! thanks for viewing my video and please pass it along to your friends.

Lesli

[LindaMarie1955]

What was the point?

[LostInAnIceDesert]

want to get a saussage?

[ProthSteriel]

a grill wyparował ;)

[mizfits666]

now thats epic

[Saphalicia]

These were a bunch of chemical engineers. The bet was who could get the charcoal ready in the shortest amount of time without poisoning the charcoal. The guy who won is the guy who has the patent on the Freon 12 replacement, R 132A

[yuandrew]

That would be George C. Gobal. Originally started with a propane torch, then they stepped up to blowing on the charcoal with fans and a leaf-blower, then compressed oxygen in gas form (safer but takes about 20 seconds) to finally dumping a bucket full of liquid oxygen.

Lesser know is that he also invented an alternative drop in replacement refrigerant for Freon R-12. It's sold under the brand name "Autofrost". The actual R-number is R-406A though, not R-132A

[akulkis]

Yuandrew is correct. GHG's refrigerant is R-406A. He developed it after the Air Force discovered that R-132A is an extremely dangerous substance (odorless, colorless and poisonous just like carbon-monoxide, but also EXPLOSIVE like pure propane or butane). I was in Purdue's HKN lounge when GHG converted the refrigerators from R-12 to R-406A. This was around 1988 - 1990.

[akulkis]

Wrong. I personally know the people involved here. George Goble, and all of the people at this picnic were (are?) associated with Eta Kapp Nu (HKN), the ELECTRICAL engineering honorary fraternity.

Yes, GHG has also done work in refrigerants, (ChemE), but there were NO chemical engineers associated with this event.

[raijmondk]

It does not even light up the cole. What a waste.

[PAiNther]

r0fl, so funny, handling with liquid oxygen needs a little bit courage..

[MukashiOlin]

Never underestimate the stupidity of scientists when around highly flammable material.

[JodasPinkt]

Stupidity, or awesomeness? This seems more like the latter than former.

[akulkis]

Wrong. Stupid would be NOT using the 15-foot board to hold the LOX vessel. GHG new exactly what he was doing (note that he did NOT catch himself on fire, nor did he ever come close to doing so). I know the man personally. There's a difference between stupidity and boldness -- learn it.

[jdg241]

@akulkis

Exactly. If you don't use the pole, you'll be in the middle of the fireball. Worse yet would be to pour in the LOX and *then* light it: charcoal that's been soaked in LOX may as well be dynamite.

This kind of stunt is something to stay far away from unless you have experience working with explosives.

[SmiertSpionem]

You should re-title it LonelyGrill15.

[BlkSerialKilla]

what gril? lol

[mikebw]

That looks like a few more than 2 seconds, but by far the fastest charcoal light to cook time I have ever seen.

[SmiertSpionem]

Those kids were like beavis and butthead, YEAH, FIRE, KICK ASS!!

[msdnvp]

fuck yeahh, kick asss yeahhh lol funny shit

[SmiertSpionem]

hehe, heh, heheheheheeh. Settle down. heh.

[mekewl2]

....

[ClaudeBalzzzz]

Holy shit, isn't that the stuff they launch the Space Shuttle with? -Do they have a barrel of this stuff lying around?...lol

[brainiacaholic]

rocket fuels requires liquid hydrogen aswell, and if you really wanted to know the liquid gas is available for scientific licenses so if you have one, go ahead, buy some!

[Ownedy]

man thats amazing, where do you buy these stuff? Though I think its not for public sale in my country anyway :P

[laughingman8]

ya, its rocket fuel so i dont think its really available to often

[andrext]

It isn't 'rocket fuel', it is liquid oxygen. The guy is a professor of applied physics. The video was originally on his university website but he was asked to remove it for both bandwidth and safety concerns. I have been looking for this video for ages!

[mjedelman]

That's George Gobel. He's not a professor, but a staffer at Princeton. One of those guys who metamorphosed from grad student into eternal lab assistant.

[cjdrover]

Purdue, actually.

[DeadCatX2]

1) He is a staffer, as mentioned below

2) LOX is used in some rocket fuels

3) George Goble's license plate is "UNIX"

[andrext]

OK, let's nail this. George Goble is a Senior Systems Engineer at Purdue. His expertise with UNIX administration and UNIX systems. He drives a Hummer and He currently holds 7 US patents on refrigerants, alternatives to Freon. Each year, Goble and a bunch of other engineers hold a picnic in West Lafayette, Ind., at which they cook hamburgers on a big grill. Being engineers, they began looking for practical ways to speed up the charcoal-lighting process.

[andrext]

We started blowing the charcoal with a hair dryer, then figured out that it would light faster if we used a vacuum cleaner. Goble then used compressed pure oxygen, which caused the charcoal to burn much faster, because as you know, fire is essentially the rapid combination of oxygen with something that burns.

[andrext]

Thus Goble hit upon the idea of using liquid oxygen. This is the form of oxygen used in rocket engines. It's 295 degrees below zero and 600 times as dense as regular oxygen. Goble used a bucket attached to a 10 foot wooden handle to dump three gals of liquid O2 onto a grill containing 60 lbs of charcoal and a lit cigarette for ignition.