Chemical Reactions: Hydrochloric Acid + Aluminium Foil Bomb

This was part 2 in a series of teaching resource videos designed to demonstrate what chemical reactions are. In reality, this was just a fun excuse to blow stuff up in the name of science. It shows that when you react an acid with a metal (in this case, HCl and aluminum foil) you get hydrogen gas plus a salt, in this case, aluminum chloride.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• aluminum
• aluminium
• foil
• hydrochloric acid
• bomb
• explosion
• chemical reaction
• teaching resource

[jakeiserman]

ur really a teacher?????? any educated science teacher would realize how stupid it is, to nonchalantly pour hydrochloric acid out of a container with no gloves on?!! and plus how extremely dangerous it is to have hydrogen gas floating around you.

[year9scienceteacher]

the purpose was to engage otherwise apathetics teenagers. being dangerous makes it more fun, thus more engaging, thus more likely to results in the desired learning outcome...therefore serving it's purpose. 

[bertulforc1]

hydrogen chloride corrodes almost everything in your room, very bad for your lungs, eyes, throat, etc. you are young and more experience needed.

[bazzi54321]

That was aweasome

[jakoplant1]

What a stupid teacher...practically no safety precautions

[mattshark100]

@jonwal1010 fuck off loser

[jonwal1010]

@mattshark100 Lol you're so stupid I don't even need to argue with you anymore. Everything you said is ridiculous anybody that can use google will see all the bullshit you said is false.

[mattshark100]

@jonwal1010 I already said the hcl vapour is a risk, the hydrogen is not, the hydrogen chloride is. Hydrogen is not acid in gas form, hydrogen and water is acid, hydrogen chloride dissocaiated in aerosol is acid and hydrogen chloride in pure form is a gas but not flammable, in a liquid form it is no more than 37% concentrated approx. So to recap. No flame risk, some very minor burning risk, YOU don't know anything about chem and i don't need a video to prove it, i have maths (and no video camera

[mattshark100]

@jonwal1010 I estimated it based on about 50g of al foil which produces 6g hydrogen and would be the limiting factor in this reaction. The estimate is probably high but even if it wasn't then you'd need at least 350g of foil to produce a low flame risk in that room. The white smoke isn't 'safe' it's got aerosol hcl, which i have breathed accidentally before and it can hurt a bit, so i wouldn't reproduce it, but it wouldn't kill them or harm them significantly unless they do it repetitively.

[jonwal1010]

@mattshark100 So how do you know there is 6 grams of hydrogen produced? They didn't measure the amount hydrogen chloride used. Hydrogen is acid so if it's in the air they would be breathing it. For the last time the only way you can prove your point is if you do it so please make your own video of you mixing HCl+Al and breathing in that white smoke to show us all how safe it is.

[mattshark100]

You know its funny all those people think this is some hydrogen explosive risk. Hydrogen is flammable in atmosphere at about 4% (explodes at 18%). In this reaction there would be about 6 grams hydrogen produced. This is about 70 litres of gas. The room is more than 10000 litres of gas total meaning it'd be less than 0.7% hydrogen by volume, ie no real fire risk. The white smoke is water vapour and hcl vapour, NOT hydrogen, hydrogen doesn't have a colour or an odour.

[mattshark100]

@ash4730 ?