I got bored in the lab... Chemiluminescence!

I got bored in the lab one day and while the boss wasn't looking i decided to mix a few chemicals without permission.

Start with Diethyl Phthalate, add bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate, stir in some hydrogen peroxide, a bit of sodium acetate to improve the effect of the peroxide and a dash of bis(phenyethynyl)anthracene for color.

First picture is the vial with the flash on, the second picture is the vial with the flash off. Its hard to see, but those "rocks" in the bottom are actually pure crystals of bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate. if you look closely, you can tell its not the crystals that are growing, but the surface as the crystals dissolve and react with the peroxide. It doesn't look like much, but there is enough in there to give a week of useful light, and a month of detectable light.

third and fourth pictures use 9,10-diphenylanthracene for blue color. I like the last picture the most since you can clearly see the crystals and the "glow layer" as they dissolve.

It is beautiful!

When I was young my friend and I made rockets that blew up and bombs that went up. Usually we made our own gun powder then progressed into iodine-phosphorous or something. When it dried overnight then it made crystals that spontaneously exploded! The house didn't burn down and we are lucky we weren't injured or killed.

One of our friends made his own model airplane fuel with nitro-benzine. It killed him.

I always did admire people who didn't stop for anything to achieve their goals and desires, even if that cost them their lives, they are men who will truly live forever.

audioguru said:

When I was young my friend and I made rockets that blew up and bombs that went up. Usually we made our own gun powder then progressed into iodine-phosphorous or something. When it dried overnight then it made crystals that spontaneously exploded! The house didn't burn down and we are lucky we weren't injured or killed.

One of our friends made his own model airplane fuel with nitro-benzine. It killed him.

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Sorry to hear about your friend.

The problem with chemistry and kids is that kids are mostly interested in blowing stuff up or causing destruction. So they mess with explosives, acids, and other destructive parts of chemistry. Problem is, destructive chemistry is dangerous chemistry (duh...) and they get themselves injured or killed.

Whenever i tell kids i'm a scientist and i mess with chemicals for a living they invariably ask: "Can you teach how to make a bomb?"

.... and then they wonder why i spray em with a stink liquid to make them go away.

Glyph said:

.... and then they wonder why i spray em with a stink liquid to make them go away.

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You are a nasty skunk.

audioguru said:

You are a nasty skunk.

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A glow-in-the-dark nasty skunk!

audioguru said:

One of our friends made his own model airplane fuel with nitro-benzine. It killed him.

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Poor guy! He should have used nitromethane like everyone else.

I was a little surprised about the explosion. My memory of nitrobenzene was the great smell it gave shoe polish. It is also a good solvent, as is nitromethane, but we considered it less explosive than nitromethane. (Nitromethane is sensitive to pressure and is very unstable in the presence of base. In fact, the yellow appearance of commercial nitromethane is an acid-base indicator. Yellow = OK)

Of course, nitrobenzene is no longer used for shoe polish, as we don't want a bunch of kids getting high from sniffing shoes. I suspect it would make a lousy fuel additive as it should produce sooty flame, even if it didn't explode.

John

I did some checking.

Nitrobenzene isn't known for being explosive its actual danger lies in its the toxicity and that it absorbs through the skin very easily. Maybe Audioguru's friend was killed by poisoning rather than explosion.

That's correct, the nitro-benzene was absorbed through his skin and it poisoned him.
The fuel burns but doesn't explode.
All us guys used his fuel for our model airplanes and spilled the fuel all over us. We survived but our friend who made the fuel got poisoned.

Glyph said:

I got bored in the lab one day and while the boss wasn't looking i decided to mix a few chemicals without permission.

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I hope you didn't use a workplace PC to post this thread of disapproved behavior!!!

HiTech said:

I hope you didn't use a workplace PC to post this thread of disapproved behavior!!!

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From my laptop... using workplace internet and workplace electrons!

(hides from boss demanding those electrons be put back)

You best hope your work place doesn't use cached servers!

nah, they're not going to bug me about it.... too much.

If they were that zealous of making sure their employees stayed on-task all the time, they would soon have no employees.