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Hey There
Harmless
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What is the COOLEST reaction you've ever seen/done?
Just curious 
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
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Thread Moved
20-3-2014 at 15:19 |
thesmug
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Mercury thiocyanate decomposition with heat, thermite (FeO and Al powder). So hard to choose between the two!
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gdflp
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Pouring water on burning magnesium granules in a nickel crucible. The nickel gives the fireball a green glow!
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copperastic
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Probably baking soda and vinegar.
Just kidding Im a newbie to chemistry so probably zinc/copper oxide thermite its colored green but the smoke is zinc oxide particles so you dont want
to breathe that.
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bismuthate
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BriggsRauchser oscillating iodine reaction (once using barium iodate which I may make a thread on) or some percipitation reactions such as such as
FeCl3 and ferricyanides or Pb(NO3)2 and iodides.
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Zyklon-A
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Magnesium burning in chlorine dioxide.
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bismuthate
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Wouldn't that explode?
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plante1999
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Yes, most certainly. I have doubts he even made chlorine dioxide.. It detonates for no reason.
I never asked for this.
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Zyklon-A
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Of course it exploded, that's why I said it's the coolest reaction I've ever done.
I filled a steel tube with a mixture of chlorine dioxide and chlorine, (probably made from sodium chlorite and chlorine, although I can't remember,)
then I put a burning Mg ribbon in the pipe. Boom! it was quite scary but also fun.
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elementcollector1
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Just made brass pennies today - not exactly explosive, but very fun to see the color change - although my partner kept insisting we leave the pennies
on the burner for far too long, so most of them were burnt... Got 1 or 2 good ones.
Elements Collected:52/87
Latest Acquired: Cl
Next in Line: Nd
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Texium
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I haven't done a whole lot of interesting reactions yet, although I do really like the NH4OH+CuCl2 reaction to produce Schweizer's Reagent. It's such
a nice deep blue color and it's very satisfying to see, particularly when you combine the reactants together slowly!
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DraconicAcid
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I did the barking dog reaction once....carbon disulphide burning in nitrogen monoxide. I have my students toss hot steel wool into jars of oxygen
every year, too, which is fun.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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confused
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The iodine clock reaction or the dehydration of sucrose with H2SO4
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Brain&Force
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Burning solutions of metal salts in methanol is always fun to do. But one of the coolest reactions I've ever seen is the stepwise reduction of
vanadium by zinc amalgam.
The best reaction of all time is the sudden explosion between hydroxylammonium and bromate. I seriously need to try this myself.
Dissolving gallium in aluminum and drenching the amalgam in water is quite fun.
At the end of the day, simulating atoms doesn't beat working with the real things...
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packetforger
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Well, I always thought that burning magnesium shavings inside a block of dry ice was pretty cool.
Other interesting ones to note would be adding granulated sugar to manganese heptoxide, which "crackles" with little puffs of flame and thick "smoke"
of MnO2 (don't inhale it!), magnesium ribbon wrapped in teflon tape, and the numerous thermites (exotic thermites thread on this forum is an excellent
resource on those).
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Zephyr
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The coolest reactions I have performed are a boron thermite, the Briggs Rauchser oscillating iodine reaction, and the color change of neodymium
chloride.
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DraconicAcid
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Quote: Originally posted by packetforger  | | Other interesting ones to note would be adding granulated sugar to manganese heptoxide, which "crackles" with little puffs of flame and thick "smoke"
of MnO2 (don't inhale it!).... |
I once made the mistake of trying to extract dimanganese heptoxide into dichloromethane- the reaction was similar (well, the billowing cloud of
MnO2 was, at least).
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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packetforger
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| Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid |
I once made the mistake of trying to extract dimanganese heptoxide into dichloromethane- the reaction was similar (well, the billowing cloud of
MnO2 was, at least). |
Did you perchance make the mistake of breathing it in? I was not expecting the billowing cloud the first time, and not wearing a respirator/breathing
protection. Sore throat for days 
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Metacelsus
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The reaction of aluminum and sulfur to form aluminum sulfide is probably the least cool reaction I've done.
[Edited on 23-3-2014 by Cheddite Cheese]
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DraconicAcid
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| Quote: Originally posted by packetforger | | Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid |
I once made the mistake of trying to extract dimanganese heptoxide into dichloromethane- the reaction was similar (well, the billowing cloud of
MnO2 was, at least). |
Did you perchance make the mistake of breathing it in? I was not expecting the billowing cloud the first time, and not wearing a respirator/breathing
protection. Sore throat for days |
No- this was at university, so I at least had it in the fume hood both times. (The first time was an accident; the second time was to show off.)
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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sasan
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Reaction of Mg KMnO4 and a little sulfur!very fast and exotermic(flash powder)
If you have not try this,then try with these amounts: 7gr KMnO4 and 2gr Mg powder and 1gr sulfur
The more smaller the particles,fater reaction occurs,use less amounts,0.7gr permangenate,0.2 gr magnesium and 0.1gr sulfur,use sunglasses it will be
very bright,more than sunlight!!!
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forgottenpassword
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Salt/ice is the coolest I have used at home. I hope to try CaCl2/ice sometime which supposedly gets down to -40C for use with a mercury diffusion pump
that I bought.
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packetforger
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sasan - Permanganate flash is quite potent stuff, I would *not* advise mixing up big batches of it like that 10 gram batch. Still very cool stuff
though, try iron powder and KMnO4, very very hot mix (sparks and hot fire, not "fast" like flash with my iron filings).
forgottenpassword - try a dry ice/acetone. Gets even colder than that 
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Zyklon-A
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I just found out that Walmart and Kroger has solid carbon dioxide. Not sure if you can get it, but it's quite easy to find, and much colder than ice
water with a chloride salt.
[edit: typo]
[Edited on 24-3-2014 by Zyklonb]
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DraconicAcid
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Oxidation of cyclohexanol to adipic acid using near-boiling nitric acid is also cool. Also a reaction to be done in the fume hood.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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