Potassium is EVIL

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of this video or this channel, please contact me at thunderf00t@hotmail.com

Potassium has been described as 'evil', and the description isn't far off.

While the reaction of potassium with water is one of the most widely seen of all chemical reactions, with almost everyone who has sat through a chemistry class witnessing this reaction. However that doesn't mean it has nothing of interest left to offer.

Its widely stated that the reaction is mostly K + H2O = KOH + 1/2H2, but that's a heterogeneous reaction. It's very difficult to see how you are going to get a detonation out of that! Nonetheless, a reaction occurring at near the speed of sound is observed..

Further, I cannot find any reference to colored gas being evolved by the reaction of potassium with water, but it clearly is! What is this gas? What gives it it's color, well I don't know yet, and as far as I can tell, noone else does either! Welcome, to the unknown!

FYI, the 'Potassium is Evil' guy is quite right.
As is clear from the guy who actually got quite lucky with misjudging the potassium reaction. I can tell you from experience that such explosions fire molten potassium in all directions. Facemask would have been prudent, as would not trusting in long tongs and arms length (meh, everyones a general after the battle!).
University of Nottingham has a youtube site.
http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos
it's mostly good, but they do make the odd mistake.

License Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA
-attribution Thunderf00t

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Potassium
• is
• EVIL
• gas
• explosion
• detonation
• reaction
• with
• water
• hydrogen
• burning
• violent
• alkali
• metals
• molten
• research
• liquid
• boom
• metal
• chemical
• chemistry

[EuNaoBeboDetergente]

Argon walks into a bar and orders a beer.

The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve noble gasses here."

Argon doesn't react.

[Koujinkamu]

@hobblehonker Dude, not cool. This is Youtube, we're all highly civilised and very friendly. You should live up to that standard.

[mryug123]

MAD SCIENTIST ALERT

[doombybbr]

this only happens if you DROP it in water, if you use that long pincer thing and have it only thouching the waters surface, it happens differently.

[gregrutz]

There is no Good or Evil, just Power.

Starwars.

[ArsonistInUrFirewall]

@EuNaoBeboDetergente

A room temperature supra conductor walks into a bar and orders a beer.

The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve supra conductors here."

The supra conductor leaves without putting up any resistance.

[ryoshi100]

I'd like show my reply video to this, but 1 I'd likely get in trouble when someone recognizes me and 2 Tfoot calls be a n00b without a doubt...

[zacthebold]

Would the explosion be more violent if you ground up the potassium into dust and then threw it in the water? It seems like it might be able to release it's energy faster because it would have a bigger surface area to contact with the water.

[Soulfien]

this video was proven fake. potassium isn't explosive. It boils in water and flares up, but it doesn't explode.

[DaToNyOyO]

Yeah, but it ain't Caesium is it.

[Killerjosh89]

so wait.....

are banannas safe to eat?....

[HLiNaKRbCsFrUun]

@TheXenomorphZ

That would be extremely difficult to make and run, because it would not only be hard to harness the energy of such a speedy reaction, you would also have to provide a constant stream of potassium. This would not only be hard to keep, but it would be extremely expensive. Rember that alfa aesar charges about $2 per gram in bulk, excluding shipping hazards.