Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Sodium Chlorite

mewrox99 - 23-3-2011 at 22:35

Hi everyone!

I just ordered 500g of NaClO2 from ebay. It's the 80% MM-BS stuff.
Other than making ClO2; what else can I do with it.

Does it react nicely with sugar, sulfur, Al

What proprieties does copper and iron chlorite have

Any more suggestions

woelen - 24-3-2011 at 00:16

It indeed reacts with many reductors. Be careful with chlorites when combined with reductors. Reactions can be very violent. Flash-like reactions can be obtained when it is mixed with fine Al-powder and some other reductor like S in order to make it easier to ignite. But only use small quantities and do not store mixes.

mewrox99 - 24-3-2011 at 00:20

How sensitive are the mixtures as I was thinking a nice experiment would be to hit NaClO2/S with a hammer. How risky is doing that with <.1g amounts

woelen - 24-3-2011 at 02:52

With < 0.1 gram amounts that should be safe. I'm not sure whether such mixes can explode when they are hit. It is an interesting try.

Be prepared, if your 0.1 gram mix explodes, the report will be loud, very loud. Think of many firecrackers, which just have 50 mg of explosive mix in them and already can give a loud report. Before doing the explosion tests, I first would try to ignite a mix of NaClO2 and S, NaClO2, Al and S and NaClO2, C and S.

Bot0nist - 24-3-2011 at 04:55

I can vouch for NaClO2 with dark aluminum (3micron, coated) Very fast and bright. Not like perchlorate flash of course. Don't know about shock sensitivity though. I am eager to here your observations.

[Edited on 24-3-2011 by Bot0nist]

mewrox99 - 24-3-2011 at 12:37

I'll post some videos in 720p HD on my youtube when the NaClO2 arrives.
I hope the NZ customs people don't give me any grief because the package is comming from Istanbul

woelen - 25-3-2011 at 09:56

Just out of curiosity I tried two little experiments. I took around 50 mg of NaClO2 and crushed this such that a powder was obtained. Not a really good powder, but fairly fine material. I divided this little amount in two equal piles. I used the 80% stuff from Istanbul, just as mewrox99 ordered.

To the eye, I added a similar volume of fine red phosphorus powder to one pile and a similar volume of sulphur powder to the other pile. So, by volume I had a little pile of a 1 : 1 mix of NaClO2 and red P and another pile of a 1 : 1 mix of NaClO2 and S. Mixing was done using the diaper method, just rocking the pile on a watch glass until the powders were well mixed.

Next, I put the NaClO2/S mix on a little metal spoon and ignited this. This is remarkably easy. It is not needed to keep the mix in a flame, just keeping it near/above the flame of a little alcohol burner is enough to ignite the mix. The mix burns very fast, with a whoosh sound and a bright orange flame.

Next, I did the same with the NaClO2/P mix. I can only say that the result of this is really shocking. The mix explodes with great violence. It gives a low boom/report, even when not confined, and a lot of firy material is sprayed around. I actually burnt my hand due to many very hot droplets which are sprayed around in the explosion, although I used a stick with a length of 25 cm or so to ignite this little amount of material :o

So, mewrox99, please be careful with your experiments. Even 25 mg with a similar amount of fuel already can give surprisingly large flames. Especially the mix with finely powdered Al can be really dangerous, even more so than a mix with red P, because of the huge amount of energy released by such mixes.

[Edited on 25-3-11 by woelen]