Yttrium2
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Breaking bad chemistry + fireworks from Mexico question
What's coming out as a gas when Walter white throws the red phosphorus onto the hotplate in the RV when he killed those people?
And
What's that crystal he throws on the ground that explodes, again?
Lastly, has anyone traveled to northern Mexico, like south of the S.D. border who has encountered those silver balls that start sparking once you
throw them at the ground? My family used to call them garbonzo beans due to their size/shape and how the insides of the firework looked too possibly.
I'd really like to know this, I haven't been able to identify this firework .
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elementcollector1
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Not having watched Breaking Bad in my life - P2O5 and TATP, respectively? No idea on the silver fireworks, never seen them
before.
Elements Collected:52/87
Latest Acquired: Cl
Next in Line: Nd
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draculic acid69
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The gas should have been phosphine but if done irl it would be white phosphorus in gas form or p2o5 or a mix of both.the exploding crystal was mercury
fulminate.
Elementcollector you need to sit your ass down and binge watch that shit.its a comedy about a chemistry teacher
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G-Coupled
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Phosphine and Mercury Fulminate, respectively.
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Yttrium2
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Quote: Originally posted by draculic acid69  | The gas should have been phosphine but if done irl it would be white phosphorus in gas form or p2o5 or a mix of both.the exploding crystal was mercury
fulminate.
Elementcollector you need to sit your ass down and binge watch that shit.its a comedy about a chemistry teacher |
I kind of picked up somewhere that it wasn't phosphine, but I don't remember where so I wanted to double check. Now it's driving me crazy that I don't
know where I got that feeling that it wasn't phosphine, -- maybe from watching the production of white phosphorus to red phosphorus videos.
Hasn't phosphine been known to kill a few Hi/Rp cooks, though?
Lastly -- I think those silver ball fireworks I've seen come in a brown bag of sawdust. They look like garbonzo beans wrapped in foil.
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karlos³
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To your last question, these things contain silver fulminate.
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Yttrium2
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Do you know what they are called? They look like foil balls
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Yttrium2
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Someone from reddit wrote "Need help identifying a firework from Mexico.
In the early 90's I visited Tijuana and purchased 3 brown paper bags filled with sawdust and 20 silver coated small nuts.
I wanted to get the 4 foot roman candle but my parents said no, lol.
When you threw the nut it would create an explosive sparkler effect for 2-3 seconds. These were the coolest fireworks I've ever seen. I had a great
slingshot at the time. You could arc these from a distance and scare people (saved a few for halloween). Totally illegal but so cool.
They were about the size of a chickpea and coated in a silver compound. I would love to know the name or composition on how they're made"
Does this ring a bell?
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Yttrium2
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Another writes
Garbanzo Beans"
Years ago I was in Mexico and a shop owner sold us some of what he called "Garbanzo Beans". They were metallic silver colored and looked exactly like
the beans they were named after. If you threw them on a hard surface, they skipped along and spit out white sparks for about 3 seconds.
Has anyone ever seen these or know what they're actually called? They were sold in a brown paper bag filled with sawdust, so no packaging to go by. I
have never seen these before or since, but they were really fun.
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karlos³
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Here they are wrapped in paper, and they are also sold into packages of sawdust due to their sensitive nature.
They are called "Knallerbsen" here, but that probably won't help you since you're elsewhere.
But! I saw they also have a wikipedia article in english, so look there for the appropriate name: bang snaps
There are way too many terms they could go under.
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Yttrium2
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Not bang snaps, they look like foil balls and they spark for about 4 seconds
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karlos³
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Then its not a fulminate salt.
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mackolol
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Shouldn't it be white phosphorus formed from red P as draculic acid said? How toxic is white phosphorus vapor in comparison to phosphine?
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draculic acid69
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I imagine it's pretty bad
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G-Coupled
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White Phosphorus is what the US military call 'Willy Pete' isn't it?
If that's so, then yeah - it's bad. Bad enough that the UN forbids its use against manned positions, and it's supposedly only to be used as a
signal/smoke.
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Yttrium2
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Pretty sure it reacts with oxygen turning to phosphorous pentoxide as whomever said it forms the white p, also.
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