A nice, but much more violent variation of this experiment, which definitely must be done outside is the following:
- Take 100 ml of 10% HCl and put this in a big glass jar.
- Add 50 ml of 12.5% NaOCl, cover the jar loosely with a cap, and wait until you have a lot of Cl2.
- Remove the cap and throw a lump of 10 grams or so of calcium carbide in the acid and step back.
Bubbles of acetylene are formed at the calcium carbide, which, as soon as they reach the surface and are mixed with the chlorine gas, lead to
miniature explosions with a lot of soot. Very often (but not always), the experiment ends with a fairly large explosion, which ejects most of the
liquid from the big jar. Big billowing clouds of soot are produced as well.
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