Mixing sodium and potassium is crazy (NaK)
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- Опубликовано: 28 мар 2022
- For a while now, I've been wanting to make an explosive liquid metal, and all I need is some sodium and some potassium. And after mixing them together, I eventually had a perfect liquid metal ball. Finally, I pulled some of it out with a syringe, because there's just one thing I have to try.
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The only thing wilder than the fact that these two highly reactive metals combine to form an explosive liquid alloy is that there was seriously a plan at some point to use it as nuclear reactor coolant.
NaK is already used in solar array generators.
@@patrickjanecke5894 I hadn't heard that! That is also kind of wild. Call me timid, but "may catch fire when exposed to air" is generally a deal-breaker for me when it comes to infrastructure.
Still, a solar array spontaneously catches fire & explodes, it's probably *not* international news.
@@KSignalEingang 😁 lol
...and now I'm reading that about 10 years ago somebody was marketing a CPU cooler that used NaK...
Welps.
It is already used as a coolant on nuke subs.
Imagine trying to put salt on your banana and it just explodes
Explosion is an adequate punishment for putting salt on a banana
if you put salt on bananas, then we have bigger problems than explosion
My banana exploded, but it wasn't salt I put on it.
@@restingsleep Salty bananas.
@@restingsleep come on, don't be salty
This was among the most visually satisfying experiments I've seen on youtube. Especially when adding the ethanol causing the metals to combine
among us
omg amogus?????????
I think his video on Ferofluid (on NileRed) is the most satisfying one I've seen
AMONG AMONG AMONG US
It's amazing how two solid metals can combine to produce a liquid alloy. That's why I have always loved chemistry.
It's called a eutectic -- an alloy mixture with a lower melting point than the constituent metals! There's solid eutectic systems too, but NaK is the most obvious example for demonstrating the phenomenon
@@actuallyasriel I remember that word, eutectic, from my Materials Science class back in college. I never thought the lower melting point would result in being a liquid at room temperature. But that makes sense now since both metals are already soft at room temperature.
Or even weirder, two gasses reacting to form a liquid (H2O)
@@Flesh_Wizard NaK is an alloy, not a compound. It is less obvious why it would have a lower melting point since no new compound is formed.
@@ShihammeDarc consider adding water to glycol. No new compound is made, but the freezing point of both is affected.
This sounds like a great idea, and surely can't result in any accidents
most definitely
Every time NileGreen wakes up 👏🏻
Accidents? What are those? Never heard of 'em
Surely
Not a chance
when you think about it, "I decided to add a small amount of pure ethanol" is an all-purpose problem-solving technique that long predates modern chemistry
Works on all types of human issues.
*if you think about it...
Probably the sole reason you are here
More like human history
@@wally7856 sHEESSH
It’s amazing how he is able to use the words ‘nice and scary’ in one sentence to describe a metal
„It took a few minutes of stabbing, but I was eventually able to break them.“ - the line every villain would love to say.
lol
Underrated...🤣🤣😅
"At this point it looks like a pile of junk"
"But this should change when i start squishing it"
sounds like a mad scientist
@@obamafriedchicken7191 he is a mad scientist
Yes😂
this guy knows how to make liquid metal really well
he's got a NaK for it
this comment deserves more recognition
Reported
You beat me to it 😂
I see what you combined there 😏
Delete this.
The only guy that both can explain chemistry to us and seems like a 20 yr old college student
I feel like all chemist are like that. Or should be. 😂 Chemistry is so much fun, when you get it. I am a total amateur! But I was best in my class practical chemistry when I was in training for my job. Which wouldn't require much lab work, but you still had to learn all the basics in theoretical and practical chemistry.
One of the teachers was so cool, and I would giggle all day long about the funny way she would try and get an answer out of us. After a while more and more students would get it and we would all giggle silently and make faces... waiting for the rest to follow mentally. Is that making sense? I shouldn't be commenting at 1a.m.🙈😅 Goood night
To be honest i was bad at chemistry in school. But now that i see your videos, chemistry seems more interesting.
The thing that caught me off guard was just how less dense sodium is. When he said 0.9 grams of sodium I was not expecting it to be this big of a chunk lol
Oh wow only 278 likes
Nice observation
Yeah, a mole of it is like 23 grams
Sodium ain't even denser than water
@@Kiromony did you just have a stroke?
this is what I love about chemistry. You mix two really similar solid metals and somehow get a liquid alloy. So weird
best example is NaCl
Hydrogen and oxygen both are gas but H2O is liquid lmao
@@klartext5806 yeah two substances that are very deadly to living things, sodium reacting violently with water and chlorine being poisonous, and they make one of the most important salts which is necessary for our survival.
@@Luffy_wastaken yes but going from a less-dense to more-dense phase isn't uncommon. Like your example, or forming a precipitate from two liquids. Going the other way without the addition of heat or other energy is not common outside of simple evaporation/sublimation. I'm only a hobbyist (and very amateur at that), but I can't think of any other "mix two solids to get a liquid" reactions off the top of my head. I'm sure they exist, but they aren't something most folks would be familiar with like creating water (which BTW, requires combustion, not simply mixing the gasses).
@@ender4555 solid-solid reactions are pretty rare in general i think
NaK was used in EBR-1 Mk.4 fuel elements. (Nuclear fuel rods) The liquid metal alloy helped conduct heat from the plutonium slugs to the uranium slugs and to the zirconium fuel rod cladding for a more even and efficient transfer of energy. There's a video on these fuel rods called "Fabrication of Plutonium" by Argonne National Labs. There's also a video on them handling these fuel rods after a partial melt down when the NaK escaped and caught fire.
"Now that I've got some NaK in a syringe, there's something I just have to try"
NileRed: drops NaK in water
NileGreen, probably: _injects NaK directly into veins._
That's some explosively red results right there!
Yikes!
NileBrown, probably: Uses for enema.
NileBlack, probably: *drops it into a lake*
That'd be a great form of torture. I wonder what would happen 🤔
"I had a bunch of small and reactive metal balls"
-Nilered 2022
Ayo i think he talkin about deez nu-
"And I eventually had a perfect ball" - nilered 2022
AaAYYOOOOO
"it took a few minutes of stabbing" nilered 2022
@@SingleAndReady2Mingle...NO DON'T SAY IT
Fun fact: nobody knew how or why it explodes like that until 2015 when a paper published in Nature finally revealed it to actually be a coulombic explosion driven solely by a massive instantaneous blast of electrons. The paper's first author was youtuber Phil Mason / Thunderf00t.
Wow, never knew that guy did something useful.
Thunderf00t, huh? I remember watching him from time to time back when I was in my anti-feminist phase. Those were simpler times.
@@adriellightvale8140 if he hadn't devoted a significant chunk of his time to making umpteen tedious reddit-level videos about why feminism is bad, he might have written more than one serious paper. twat. it's a shame, bc his science content is good.
He more recently made metallic water as I recall.
Can you link the paper? I am interested
The only thing more amazing than this is knowing that our brain literally uses this kind of reactivity of these two elements together on every sinapse.
w h a t
This is actually kinda cool. My favorite part is that the alloy looks very similar to mercury. I wonder if a mercury NaK alloy can be formed?
NaK with Thallium exists. Some other comment said it
My father has a story from back in the days when you could just buy a brick of sodium through the mail, which of course he did. He and some friends then decided to throw it into a neighbors pool to see what would happen. Not surprisingly, it blew up, half emptying the pool and cracking the plaster. Some trouble was had...
The junior high science teacher in my town inherited his chemical closet from the previous science teacher who had taught him before retiring he got most of his chemicals waaay back in the day when you could get irresponsibly large amounts of things and as part of his chemical closet he inherited a massive block of sodium metal, they won't sell that much to one person anymore but that block has been going strong for at least 30 years and is still VERY large and our teacher always joked that if he retired before they replaced or properly repaired the extremely aged public pool he was taking the sodium and as his last act chucking it snack dab into the pool when it was closed and just letting the chaos happen.... Lucky for the town they are building a new pool and our science teacher who is also part of a hair metal cover band in the city will be spared from his criminal intent
"Decided" is doing a lot of work here.
@@unixnut One can decide to have fun. Or sit around an d be bored.
Truly, a shenanigan.
@@bigbird2451 or they can not bomb their neighbours fool because as i have heard that not very "pog"
“For a while now,I’ve been wanting to make an explosive liquid metal”
Nilered-2022
dude as soon as i heard it i was like heee??
Conon's ready sir where shall we aim it just the amno is missing
Wow I heard that as well.
I think that ExplosionsAndFire/ExtractionsAndIre is rubbing off on Nile..
If he wasn't on a list before, he is now LOL
2:10 that plop of the metal drop was immaculate 😩
On watching this, I can't help but feel a tad ripped off by my chemistry lessons at school!
"It took a bunch of stabbing, but I was finally able to break them up into little pieces." -Nilered 2022
-Brutus 44 BC
Actually, 2021
@@MrApple-yw9vp et tu brutus?
fbi open up
-Hannibal Lecter 2022 😅
It amazes me that these elements actually are the main positive ions in everyone’s body.
Thank god for the difference a single electron can make.
My thoughts exactly, wonder if there is a link between low levels of NaK and hyperactivity or other mental disorders that affect humans.
Intelligent design is a great thing.
@@deusvult6920 no idea what that is but it sounds cringe
@@deusvult6920 yet atheists and agnostics still exist...
Thank God for everything!
Man im glad i found your channel, blowing my mind.
I worked on the fast reactor project until it's end in the early nineties measuring corrosion rates of boiler steels in high temperature liquid sodium. I was given a sample of NaK in the form of a paperweight by a colleague from Dounreay. Its contained in a phial under an argon atmosphere encased in clear epoxy. It's liquid at room temperature, its eutectic point. Pretty cool.
NaK is being trialled for use in heatpipes of various modern SMR designs. However, isn't the activation of the potassium into a high-energy gamma emitter a problem?
@@Shaker626 hi, I was a corrosion chemist and know next to nothing about the radioactive side of things. All choices are made with compromise in mind. NaK was used in the Dounreay fast reactor which had a short life. I worked on the prototype fast reactor, pfr, which carried on the development, but that research was ended over 30 years ago. I would be surprised if they were considering NaK as their is so little data available whereas Na as a coolant has been researched by many countries. Cheers.
@@jerryhilditch5991 Metal-metal corrosion was always interesting to me. The mechanism is different from that of acids or ions from salt. I'm currently trying to become a nuclear engineer myself so it's all quite cool to me.
@@Shaker626 Co authored some papers back in the day. I can remember one on liquid metal embrittlement but it's at least 30 years ago, the mind goes fuzzy after a while. We published bits and pieces but a lot of it was commercial in confidence. I might go up in my loft and root out my old stuff. I'm pretty sure I've a book published by the US Navy from the 60s on liquid metal chemistry. Off the top of my head I think we published in the journal of corrosion science. I'll keep you informed.
@@Shaker626 liquid metal embrittlement of 9cr steel, still on the Internet, haha
Well, all I can say is that Nile's got a NaK of making explosive stuff
Most underappreciated comment ever!
Lmaoooo
brilliant
Oof I just made a comment like this D: too lazy to find it now so E don't tell me it's copied
c'mon that pun was so basic
I like how your shorts start with "for a while now" and then just like that something completely out of the blue say something like "I've been to make a liquid explosive metal"
For a while now, I've been meaning to conquer Bulgaria and impose a new world order.
One day the man's gonna say "For a while now, I've been wanting to kill myself and everyone around me"
YES!!!!! Was hoping to see you do a NaK thing some day. To think this is a great reactor coolant is funny.
"Hey, can you tell me the symbol of Sodium and Potassium"
"Na bro"
"K"
You have a real NaK for making science fun. 😆
😑
🗿
🫢
Nice
copied comment, original by wart
“For a while now, I’ve wanted to make an explosive liquid metal,…” -Nile
*A TRUE MAN OF SCIENCE*
I bet he gets followed by the FBI everywhere he goes xD
@@vinnieg6161 I think so too
Very explosive metal balls. About about the most metal thing I have ever heard.
The potassium cut like cheese--cheese with a rind. I actually found myself wanting a taste, which I don't understand at all. I scare myself sometimes.
The forbidden brie xD
Cheese, but also the greatest source of Potassium.
Kris get the banana
I recently rewatched the uranium glass video on his main channel and at one point he is drying a uranium solution (sodium diurinate?), but while it was sitting there still wet my brain was fully like "That looks like a damn good scrambled egg" and like...no, bad brain.
The desire to taste strange object could in a way imply that your body needs nutrients. For example, I once had a strange desire to taste my orange colored citrine crystal and my other colourful crystals and it turned out that I was having a vitamin C deficiency at that time.
As someone with a fear needles seeing explosive juices in a syringe is a nightmare 💀
I could watch that metal globule bounce around all day long. So satisfying.
I love how Nile's channel are like...half crazy ass chemistry like "let's turn dirty socks into a 10 course meal that tastes like it was made by a 5star chef" and actually manages to do it. and then the other half is...let's vaporize chicken and make something that's basically a bomb purely made of metal 0.o
Hahaaa really sais it all, needed that laugh, thanks 🤣
Surprisingly accurate
I did a science experiment at work once. I superglued my holy socks. The socks started to smoke 😳🤡
1:40 the forbidden boba tea
That... was _awesome_ 😮
Wow dude. That was amazing!
Thank you very much
Some uses for NaK (found on Wikipedia):
Coolant in experimental fast neutron nuclear reactors like the Dounreay Fast Reactor. The Soviet RORSAT radar satellites were powered by a BES-5 reactor, which was cooled with NaK.
The Danamics LMX Superleggera CPU cooler uses NaK to transport heat from the CPU to its cooling fins.
Hydraulic fluid: Eutectic NaK (NaK-77) can be used as a hydraulic fluid in high-temperature and high-radiation environments, for temperature ranges of −12 to 760 °C.
NaK-77 was tested in hydraulic and fluidic systems for the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (SLAM).
That Danamics cooler was probably the most bizarre CPU cooler ever invented. It's hard to believe they thought making a consumer product filled with NaK was a good idea. If it leaks, even if there's no moisture it tends to form the explosive superoxide. Apart from the danger, its specific and volumetric heat capacities are just bad compared to water, so the cooling performance wasn't even good.
@@fat_pigeon haha yeah that’s insane actually.
It's also the revolutionary title who recently got a sequel on PS4
@@arachnid6028 knack is back babyyyy!!!
@@fat_pigeon so why was it used as a collant? the temperature range?
That was also a nice demonstration of the leidenfrost effect. The NaK was vaporizing the water it was in contact with and the resultant gasses acted like an air hockey table. Is why they were zooming around so quickly on the water
Thank you for explaining, cuz that's exactly what I was searching the comments for!
Not sure this is quite correct. The reaction takes place at room temperature so the water isn't boiling, but it produces a room-temperature gas (specifically hydrogen) so the behaviour is similar.
It is soooo weird seeing the essentially crumbs of metal start combining into shiny, perfectly round balls. Even crazier to see them merge together and be malleable
it's so satisfying watching the globs combine when ethanol is added
One of my more nightmarish moments as a lab chemist involved trying to clean up a 5L glass THF + NaK solvent still that had become clogged with insoluble polymerized benzophenone (which forms an oxygen- & water-scavenging ketyl radical with alkali metals).
Even days of soaking in t-butyl alcohol didn't neutralize the embedded balls of NaK, and the solid mess had to be broken up and chipped out mechanically under positive pressure of nitrogen, and the pieces tossed into a dewar of LN2 to freeze the NaK solid and keep it from spontaneously igniting until it could be set outside and allowed to do as its heart (or at least ΔG) desired...
" heart (or ΔG)" is such a great phrase
man are you speaking some kind of harry potter magic?
He's speaking the language of the gods
What the hell did you just say man
excuse me sir, i speak english
2:03 I like how bouncy the ball is.
its like a bubble
I want some of this even though I know it's a stupendously bad idea. Liquid metal is just a cool damn concept.
Final touch is amazing
NaK is a eutectic alloy with a lower combined melting point. As an interesting side note, if you add a bit of Thallium (< 5%), it can reduce the chemical reactivity (oxygenation) without compromising the melting point too much.
In this way, you can use it more safely for industrial applications and not worry as much about the potential for explosions and fire.
Wow that's really interesting. I know that thallium amalgam (thallium-mercury alloy) has a melting point far lower than mercury alone, but I didn't know that it was a useful alloy addition to NaK
_"For a while now, I've been wanting to make an explosive liquid metal."_
*Rico:* KABOOM?
*Skipper:* Yes Rico. KABOOM!
FIIIIIIHIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIISH!!!!
These videos made by nilered just proves how much fun chemistry is
are bounce houses fun?
A german guy called "Advanced Tinkering" managed to combine NaK with ceaseum. It was a damn good video worth checking out.
I've heard about this one. Someone in a DnD campaign used Transmute Liquid to turn a lake full of water into one filled with NaK. You can guess what happened immediately after.
@@narcuk08 the heck?
@@narcuk08 found the self-projecting incel
that sounds like it would create the biggest non nuclear/atomic explosion ever.
@@narcuk08 lol you must have some low self esteem.
since the water turned into NaK... nothing?
Adding the ethanol and instantly seeing the desired reaction is insane, that's just so cool.
I love knack. It’s the perfect thing to relax too 😊
1:26 cleanest water in Albania
I want to butter toast with that metal
You could do it with indium. Non-toxic and doesn't explode. However, you have to be rich as indium is pretty expensive.
@@fat_pigeon not as fun without boom kaboom
never give this guy an unlimited budget, he can destroy the whole solar system in just a couple of those reactions
Couple of some of
I have an inkling that he's already lined up a few of the things Randall Munroe described in his What If series.
100
@Microwave Transformer nah styro builds a nicoll dyson beam
@Microwave Transformer don’t let them meet it will only end in deadly lasers or a huge explosion
-NaK, NaK!
-Who's there?
-Nilered.
-Oh sh*t, RUN!
2:46 “Uhhh i used the wrong fireworks and my whole neighborhood is on fire-“
The sodium and potassium form a eutectic mixture, ie a mixture which has a lower melting point than either of its constituents. Many mixtures form eutectic systems, but probably the most familiar for normal people will be ice and salt. A mixture of ice and salt will stay liquid well below the normal freezing point of water, and this means if you add salt to ice it will melt, which is why it is used to clear icy roads.
Never really understood why it’s called eutectic mixtures, aren’t azeotropes more general?
@@turbotaleggio8425 If they melt/freeze at a single temperature (which is lower than either ingredient) rather than a range, it's eutectic.
Another common eutectic mixture is tin/lead solder
@@abpsd73 Actually the most common solder, 60/40 tin/lead, is *not* eutectic. The eutectic solder is 63/37 which is much less common.
@@amouse6931 Given that 60/40 melts at 200C and >300C, I would say it qualifies. Even if you find an optimum ratio with an even lower melting temperature.
Sodium and Potassium are the two elements that have completely different names in English and German, even though the original German names would work perfectly well in English too.
Natrium and Kalium are where the symbols come from.
Awesome videos man!
Alkali metals: I'm soft and shiny. I must be friendly and nice!
Also alkali metals:
I feel like these experiments are getting more and more ambitious.
Either you’re going to go out in some monstrous accident or you’re eventually going to become a supervillain.
He shall be called _Nile Dark_
'Ambitious'... Hmmm, that's one way of considering the mindset at hand...
Nice Film! Ya'll Take Care and be safe, John
You either die a chemist
or live long enough to see yourself become a mad scientist
Those aren't mutually exclusive.
You either die a hero, or you live long enough to become a villain
2:51 now i know how mario kart fire engines work underwater
Well worth the wait!😮
Ok wow.
So it’s basically Sodium on water but on steroids.
Guess you could say it has a NaK for being highly reactive.
I suspect that the kerosene-ethanol solvent was protecting it, because normally, NaK will react violently with AIR, as in it will burst into flames on contact with atmospheric oxygen.
NaK just does not want to exist.
Nice one
That pun was abismuthal.
That was potassially the best pun I've read today. Have my upvote.
@@jamesharding3459 1ò
2:45 I guess that’s what happened to those who called him a nerd in school
So salt and a banana will make my stomache explode 🤯 absolutely astonishing
The quality and information that we new gen are getting for this channel and this comment section peps are commendable
I mean, I'm a big fan of NaK, but I think I can speak for everyone when I say I'm just counting down the days until NaK2
2:11 "blob"
y e s
That was really cool!
😂 bro I love your videos! You and your experiments are amazing! Bravo! Thank you for sharing your experience with us Mr. Mad Scientist!
Nile: For today let's try mixing a highly active metal inside a beaker full of kerosene.
Me: Yeah... wait what!
My exact thoughts too
This is why I love chemistry
It's reactive with water, not kerosene.
kerosene, used as rocket fuel, is actually used to store the most explosively reactive metals in it
My mind blown moment was when I found out concentrated sulfuric acide is used as JOIN LUBRICANT/SEAL in chemistry apparatuses
Explosive liquid metal, sounds like a new genre of music
What is that username!
@@adarsh_1 Any guesses?
@@ArghyadeepPal Na. Too lazy to map each letter to each script.
@@adarsh_1 It is Arghyadeep Pal
“911 What’s your emergency?”
“Yeah my neighbor just set off like 10 minimums in his house.”
For a project of mine, i wanna specifically
know 'Knowledge the Ancient-People WISHED they knew". Whetever its through Rebirth or Time-Travel, i wanna explore what pure Knowledge can theoretically do in a Bronze-Age-Setting!
ANYONE got lifehacks or pro-advice that isnt Soap?
Yo nile thank you for the tutorial on how to make fireworks it really helped
So that’s Mario’s secret underwater. Always wondered why he was able to use fireballs on the underwater levels
He legit unintentionally created a firecracker with the reactive metals, and it was quite the show too.
Wasup bro
Just some guy without a job
how exactly was this unintentional? The whole point of this alloy is that its extremely reactive with water
Notice me senpai
“Legit unintentionally” just needs to be removed, and you are correct.
🥳 Who needs fireworks when you have this guy! Looks like a lotta fun!!!
You are DEFINITELY on some kinda list, NileRed. You mad lad.
The way the small droplets all merged when he added the ethanol was super fascinating to me. And then the way it jiggled in the kerosene when he was poking it… I dunno if I’ve ever actually see a liquid metal inside another liquid like that before. Very cool.
You have a Nak for making the most interesting things!
Damn... Beat me to it!!! Lol
Definitely worth the effort
Wow great job man
This stuff use to be used to cool nuclear reactors and transfer the heat to the boiler for steam production.
It is also highly corrosive and eats through almost any piping used to circulate it.
What could possibly have gone wrong?
I hated chemistry Until I came across this channel. Thanks for making my chemistry lesson ✨interesting ✨
So amazing!
Bro i just found him on RUclips shorts and couldn’t stop watching.
0:52 it kinda looks like a rocky beach and a sunset!
I see it now
1:00 "This other tool" - NileRed
Thanks for this bomb-marking tutorial!
This came in VERY handy!
Papa painting melong sugar high
This was infinitely fascinating.
Was I the only one who thought how cool it was how fast the NaK combines with each other when he added the ethanol
Used this alloy to cool an e-beam acellerator target holder. Stuff is crazy dangerous but it is one of the best heat transfer fluids known. 🤓
When it looks like Mercury, and is somehow even scarier... That's pretty metal.
Happy new year 🎉
"For a while now, I wanted to make an explosive liquid metal"
Yeah, I am not surprised NileRed wanted to do that tbh