Going supercritical.
5,427,772
Published 2020-01-24
For a while now, I've wanted to make aerogel, but for that, I needed to use supercritical CO2. I didn't really know what that was though, and I figured the best way to learn about it was to make it myself.
My first video on supercritical fluids: • supercritical fluids
My main channel NileRed: youtube.com/c/nilered
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Nile talks about lab safety: • Chemistry is dangerous.
All Comments (21)
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2022 Nilered/blue: "I've been thinking a lot about fission bombs. The materials for that are really expensive but... I bought some."
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"it didn't blow up and kill me, so huge thanks to Ben"
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I love it when a scientist says "I have no idea what's going on." That's when REAL science happens.
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The Beads suffered "Thermal Shock" which resulted in them shattering internally. Those iridescent looking bits are the surfaces of internal fracture plains refracting the light. You can often see this in natural crystals (eg: Quartz).
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Ben: "it's somewhat dangerous and might explode if you aren't careful" Nile: shakes it around in his hand while it's pressurized
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"and it didn't blow up and kill me so.." that's what I love about science.
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NileRed: strict and is usually safe NileRed Shorts: has a little fun, and edges the line of dangerous NileBlue: "I've been thinking alot about Neutron Bombs, the materials for that are really expensive, but..."
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That multicoloured opal-like feature in the silica crystals is called the Schiller Effect. It’s common in a lot of gemstones.
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NileRed: this is basically a bomb also NileRed: *shakes it
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NileBlue: “I did a pressure thing and it didn’t explode so I shook it around. It still didn’t explode so I shook it harder. It was still fine so I came in with a hammer-“
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The cracked silica beads would probably look pretty interesting under a polariscope. Also having one is useful for seeing stress in your glassware so it might prevent the need to smash all your beakers again in the future.
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Watching Niles videos is like watching a suspense movie where you know the hero survived (because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to make and post the video).
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“Let me pay for shipping” “no.” “But i-“ “no.” “Come on Ben.” “nope.”
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"This thing is practically a live bomb" starts violently shaking it
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I love how he goes from being really cautious with the chamber to shaking it violently like 10 minutes later
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i used to work in the compressed gas and cryogenic liquid industry. my manager told me of a story once where an entire semi-trailer load of liquid CO2 was lost because the driver left the pressure relief valve open, and it all turned into a block of dry ice. that sounded like fun times!
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NileBlue’s channel in a nutshell: “he warned me that in theory it was kind of like a bomb and it could explode at any time, but it should be safe”
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The rainbows look really similar to the rainbows found in stress-fractured Quartz. The rainbows are probably caused by the cracks made by a very high pressure environment.
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Nice seeing this video featured in PBS Space Time! I've always wondered why supercritical fluids exist, and what they are like.
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It looks like the liquid slowly changes refraction index, until it becomes invisible to the eye. Stunning
