• Question: what is the biggest explosion you ever made and how did you make it?

    Asked by pineapplezzz to Cathal, Ciara, Emma, Michael, Sive on 12 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Michael Nolan

      Michael Nolan answered on 12 Nov 2013:

      Always a good question pineapplezzz!!
      we had one where we accidentally heated ether in a beaker on a hot plate (ether explodes at only 36degrees)…after a few minutes, BOOM

      caused a fire, exploded glassware and lead to evacuation of the lab

      the other one was reaction of lithium or potassium with water or hydrchloric acid. drop the Li or K into basin of water. The metal fizzes around and explodes. potassium more violently.
      In acid it is even more exciting…

      dropping a lump of these metals into the school toilet creates quite an effect :O but not recommended.

      Note that this zone is,named after lithium so we should expect explosive questions 🙂

    • Photo: Sive Finlay

      Sive Finlay answered on 19 Nov 2013:

      Hi pineapplezz,
      I only studied Chemistry during the first year of my degree so I didn’t get much of a chance to make explosions because they usually try and keep the dangerous things away from first years!
      There was, however, a big fire in our Chemistry department here last year. A PhD student was doing some work inside a fume hood (big extractor fan used to take away nasty fumes) and left a flammable gas unattended for a few minutes. The fume hood caught on fire and it spread through the entire lab before it could be controlled. I have friends who lost all their experiments and months worth of work and they’re still not able to get back into the lab!
      Fortunately studying zoology is far less dangerous although I guess that depends on what type of animals you’re dealing with!
      Sive

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