Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Factice rubber-based propellants from vegetable oils

Factice rubber-based propellants from vegetable oils

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blogfast25 - 23-3-2015 at 08:56

delta, with regards to that paper you're using the term 'soap' very loose and fast. So the RSO is a mixture of triglycerides and free fatty acids, that then makes it a Mg soap on treating with MgO? I'd say: 'prove it'.

I'm not even convinced that cooking MgO with pure fatty acids would yield Mg soaps. Just consider the many inert commercial oxides out there that don't even react significantly with strong mineral acids! So why assume that unspecified MgO would react with very weak fatty acids? Because it says so in some paper or other? Pffff...

Displacing sodium or potassium from a water soluble soap with a calcium or magnesium salt is a different proposition altogether, of course.

Re zinc oxide, all I can say is that you won't find a single rubber sulphur + accelarator system (whatever the base elastomer: NR, SBR, NBR, EPDM whatever) that doesn't incude it. For the rubber industry specific grades are sold but I believe that's more about marketing than science.

Any fairly fine, dry ZnO should work, IMO.

[Edited on 23-3-2015 by blogfast25]

deltaH - 23-3-2015 at 09:30

Perhaps. Anyhow, not too perturbed by it as I prepare it by ion exchange/precipitation and I fairly confident I have mostly magnesium 'linolates'. The ferric system is too messy for my liking, so I think for now, I'll be working with the magnesium soaps and add my ferric nitrate prior to baking the final factice. That will simply generate magnesium nitrate and the ferric soap in situ. Thanks for the ZnO tip.

[Edited on 23-3-2015 by deltaH]

aga - 23-3-2015 at 13:50

This paper is fascinating :-

Attachment: 09_chapter1.pdf (3.5MB)
This file has been downloaded 733 times

deltaH - 23-3-2015 at 21:49

Thanks aga, that is a nice review of oil derivatisation. I was amazed by the HCN content of rubber seed oils

I noticed something interesting, something called 'golden factice', which they say is factice made by using lower temperatures and accelerators.

blogfast, I happen to have zinc chloride so could potentially easily prepare the zinc 'soap' using my ion exchange salting-out method. Do you think this material added to my magnesium 'soap' would be a more effective accelerant than ZnO powder? The zinc soap will probably be soluble in the molten Mg soap.

It would be nice to try to make these so-called golden factices. I wonder what the lower temperature they speak of actually is, 120-130°C?

[Edited on 24-3-2015 by deltaH]

deltaH - 24-3-2015 at 12:35

I'm happy to see aga has managed to prepare some sulfur chlorides, excited to see/read about white factice making.

Meanwhile I've been soldiering on with my 'linolate' soaps:

[1] The setup, uses a small sausage of Mg 'linolate' with 50ppo sulphur in a test tube with a small 1mm hole drilled in the lid. Ordinary sunflower oil in the oil bath. In reality, it's more than 50ppo because of the water content of the Mg 'linolate'

[2] From 100°C, bubble, bubble, toil and trouble :mad:

water evaporating!

[3] Nearing 170-180°C, the mixture starts to darken rapidly. Left it there for several minutes, poked it with a glass rod to break bubbles.

[4] The product is hard, brittle and glassy. Upon exposure to air, this white ash layer formed, very thin. Probably something to do with the magnesium in there. If I had saltpeter in there, I think this could have burned nicely, but that's for a later stage, just happy I got the oil to set hard.

Notes:

I've got way to much sulphur in there, it really is in excess, so I will start to tone that down.
Also really need to dry the Mg linolate soap before doing these experiments, the frothing is annoying.
Stench was minimal, almost none. I was working indoors in front of an open door with a gentle breeze.
The test tube has a slight H2S smell to it when you sniff it directly, but I suspect that's because of the water drops that kept refluxing back onto the hot sulfur below.

Verdict:

Mg linolates and linolate soaps really does seem to help a great deal with odour control and hardness!

Still pleased and having tons of fun!

[Edited on 24-3-2015 by deltaH]

aga - 24-3-2015 at 13:42

Cool ! So it has actually gelled and is a Solid ?

The pong doesn't worry me too much personally.

Today i acquired some Linseed oil, but it's intended to be used as wood preservative.

The label says 'Linseed Oil with drying agents included'

It also says that if any fibres including are soaked in it, they can auto-ignite.

So do i separate out the acetone, benzene, tolunene, xylene etc before trying the Factice process, or leave them in there to maybe more directly achieve a solid rubber-ish rocket fuel ?!?!

deltaH - 24-3-2015 at 21:55

Aga, at high temperature its a tar-like liquid that could still be stirred. It solidified to a brittle hard mass on cooling. I think the brittleness is due to the huge amount of sulfur I have in there, over 50 pho! I'll try dropping that to something more respectable, like 30 pho, next time around, as well as precooking my Mg[Lin] to dry it, it melts and boils water from 100°C.

Most of your acetone, benzene, toluene and xylene will boil off before hitting the vulcanisation temperature IMHO, unless the metal accelerants also catalyse vulcanisiation at a lower temperature. I'd say try it as is first.

In my efforts to make a hard factice, I might have overshot the mark. I don't want a brittle glassy material, so I might need to start playing with the formulation now. Perhaps a blend of Mg[Lin] and raw linseed oil would make a more rubbery product, i.e. using the Mg[lin] component to harden it.

Anyhow, still to early to understand what's potting...

[Edited on 25-3-2015 by deltaH]

aga - 26-3-2015 at 10:29

It must be nice to have made a factice that isn't still a liquid !

Funny thing happened today: i have a power hacksaw, and used it several months ago to chop some steel up.

At the time i lubricated it with lashings of whatever was on hand, which happened to be Sunflower oil.

Digging the machine out today, the oil has become a pretty solid rubbery mass !

Granted, there are steel & aluminium particles mixed in there, and i suppose that the cutting edge of the saw added some very localised heating.

Stored for a few months and it's gone solid, maybe due to Oxygen as well (?)

I couldn't help thinking of the 6-legged Fe beast you posted earlier.

Edit:

WOW ! SCl₂ goes APE with Sunflower oil !

It instantly gels the oil.

Gets too hot though, which ends up with burnt patches.

Hard to Stir too, as it becomes a gel ...

[Edited on 26-3-2015 by aga]

deltaH - 26-3-2015 at 11:20

Pfft, still not sure if the hard was not just all the sulfur in there forming poly sulfur :mad:

Interesting what you said about the oil and iron you had standing. I'm leaving mine to stand as well, I REALLY wish I had something that needed painting!

As for the white factice... please post some pictures when you can and be safe!

BTW, for white factice, aren't you supposed to use sulfur monochloride? Does it work with both types?

Curious to see what it does with your linseed oil.

I still need to boil up my Mg[lin]2. I think there's tons of water in there and it's throwing off my sulfur formulation.

I'll be repeating my experiments with dry soap in a wider test tube and scalling up a tad while dropping sulfur to 30 pho. If that holds up, I'm going to try a little with NaNO3...

[Edited on 26-3-2015 by deltaH]

Fulmen - 26-3-2015 at 12:29

I'm glad to see you are making progress.
Could I ask how much solid (calculated as MgO) the magnesium soaps contain? Solids are not beneficial, neither as a fuel or as a constituent of the exhaust, so keeping this low should be a goal.

As for sulfur chlorides I'm sure it's fun science, but if the goal is to develop a binder for amateur propellants it might not be the most useful approach. If all you want is something useful to yourself that's fine, but in my mind the quest should be a binder that can be bought or made with simple equipment from OTC materials. Remember that characterizing a propellant is hard work, the more people that can replicate your work the better.
Don't get me wrong, I love throwing science at the wall to see what sticks. And pursuing a wild hunch sometimes pays off in unexpected ways. But you should also remember why you started this quest in the first place.

aga - 26-3-2015 at 13:18

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

Interesting what you said about the oil and iron you had standing

I think an experiment with some Iron or compond thereof (i have a few g of iron acetate) mixed with veg oil should be left to have air bubbled through it for a few days, and will set that up tomorrow.

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

As for the white factice... please post some pictures when you can and be safe!

BTW, for white factice, aren't you supposed to use sulfur monochloride? Does it work with both types?

S₂Cl₂ versus SCl₂ will have to be a different series of experiments.

All i have is the red stuff i made, mostly SCl₂ by guessing.

Safe ? I'm still able to type, despite a burnt left hand, but that was being foolish with molten metal, and not chemistry.

You can't really get very far any time soon being 100% safe.

blogfast25 - 26-3-2015 at 13:38

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

blogfast, I happen to have zinc chloride so could potentially easily prepare the zinc 'soap' using my ion exchange salting-out method. Do you think this material added to my magnesium 'soap' would be a more effective accelerant than ZnO powder? The zinc soap will probably be soluble in the molten Mg soap.

I think it's worth a try but I have no direct experience with it.

Apart from the unavoidable ZnO, rubber sulphur vulcanisation systems nearly always (99 %) contain some stearic acid. It's often been 'theorised' that combined they form zinc stearate and that this is the real active ingredient, not the ZnO on its own.

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 04:26

Thanks blogfast. It's just that I noticed with all this oil chemistry that the metal additives thrown in, like for example the accelerants for fake 'boiled' linseed, are metal soaps. I figure their solubility in the oil is the key factor.

I'm gonna give the zinc soap a shot. It would probably work better with zinc sulfate, but I'm sure zinc chloride will be fine for the ion exchange and salting out.

I'm sorry to hear about your hand aga, burns suck.

[Edited on 27-3-2015 by deltaH]

Praxichys - 27-3-2015 at 06:32

Quote: Originally posted by Fulmen

Could I ask how much solid (calculated as MgO) the magnesium soaps contain? Solids are not beneficial, neither as a fuel or as a constituent of the exhaust, so keeping this low should be a goal.

Linoleic acid I feel represents a good average (C₁₈, polyunsaturated) fatty acid to use, formula (HCOO)C₁₇H₃₁. Magnesium linolate is therefore (MgCOO)C₁₇H₃₁.

4 MgCOOC₁₇H₃₁ + 101 O₂ --> 72 CO₂ + 62 H₂O + 4 MgO

Looks like the exhaust would be 3.6% MgO, and the rest gas. Just for giggles, here are the calculations for the linolates of Ca, Zn, and Al:

4 CaCOOC₁₇H₃₁ + 101 O₂ = 72 CO₂ + 62 H₂O + 4 CaO (exhaust 5.0% CaO)
4 ZnCOOC₁₇H₃₁ + 101 O₂ = 72 CO₂ + 62 H₂O + 4 ZnO (exhaust 7.1% ZnO)
4 Al2(COOC₁₇H₃₁)₃ + 303 O₂ = 216 CO₂ + 186 H₂O + 4 Al₂O₃ (exhaust 3.1% Al₂O₃)

Note that zinc, having an amphoteric oxide and subject to coordination, probably does not form this 'idealized' soap but rather some nice coordination-oxide-complexes with linolyl- ligands, based on the stoicheometry.

Also note that this assumes your oxidizer does not contain any metals, something probably unrealistic unless you plan to use ammonium perchlorate/nitrate, or else something exotic.

That said, the high ΔH_f of Al₂O₃ and low mass percent make it look like a great choice from an energy standpoint. Mechanical properties would remain a deciding factor.

Fulmen - 27-3-2015 at 07:22

3-4% seems quite acceptable assuming it performs well otherwise. Have anybody considered other metals to provide color to the flame? Imagine a lithium-based soap producing a brilliant red flame...

blogfast25 - 27-3-2015 at 08:12

Quote: Originally posted by Praxichys

Linoleic acid I feel represents a good average (C₁₈, polyunsaturated) fatty acid to use, formula (HCOO)C₁₇H₃₁. Magnesium linolate is therefore (MgCOO)C₁₇H₃₁.

Mg is bivalent, fatty acids are monoprotonic, so these soaps are of the general formula Mg(OOC-R)2.

Your formulas for Ca, Zn and Al soaps are also wrong.

[Edited on 27-3-2015 by blogfast25]

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 08:14

Thanks Praxichys, I saw Fulmen's question a little late and was about to do the tedious calculation and lo and behold you did it for me :cool:

Now that made my day! Fulmen, I think ultimately I might need to blend a mix of Mg[lin] and raw lin to give the binder some flex, my last batch with neat Mg[lin] came out really hard and brittle, too much so, but then again, as I've said before, that might have been the large excess sulfur.

The final mix will probably contain linseed oil, Mg[lin]2 for hardness, Zn[lin]2 for vulcanisation (as I understand it, makes shorter S bridges = better 'rubber'), Fe[lin]2 as burn catalyst, S and NaNO3 as oxidant. I don't think I'll be able to hit 50 pho S because of the brittleness that results in, might have to be something like 30 pho, which means that some of Na from NaNO3 will land up as Na2CO2.

With the iron in there and the fact that I will run fuel rich, I'm hoping to get water gas shift catalytic activity to form more H2 in the exhaust. That equilibrium is not favoured at high temperature, but but but... if I can sink some CO2 as Na2CO2, then I can help pull the equilibrium to form more H2... yay. Anyhow, will also be playing with my EXCEL formulation spreadsheet to work this out.

[Edited on 27-3-2015 by deltaH]

aga - 27-3-2015 at 13:54

Seeing as you are already at hard rubber stage, and me understanding nothing of the seriously complex chemistry going on, i'll post my own factice results (if any) under Beginnings.

Thanks again for the factice intro !

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 14:04

Nooo, please don't, there's nothing wrong with your results or understanding!

aga - 27-3-2015 at 14:14

All i'm doing is trying to make a solid rubbery thing from some Oil.

Your efforts are far more involved and complex, in that you're doing that *and* adding ingredients to make a propellant.

Anything i come up with will just be Rubbery, and that's the Limit of what i wish to do.

Beginnings isn't such a bad neighbourhood, and it's only two streets over from here.

You can always visit !

[Edited on 27-3-2015 by aga]

Drying of Mg[lin]2 soap

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 14:16

Today I undertook the drying of my wet Mg[lin]2 soap. 181g crude material was placed in a 500ml beaker and heated on a ceramic gauze over a bunsen flame. This took hours to fully dry with much mixing and watching because it tends to want to mushroom up. Eventually, everything turned into a beautiful amber coloured gel which is really quite spectacular and the drying was stopped when the gel hit a temperature of 190°C. From the mass of the product, I calculated that my crude Mg[lin]2 contained about 32% moisture

The material is slightly soluble in hot water and feels very caustic to the touch. Thank goodness for that, else I would have battled to clean up.

Pictures:

[1] Crude material, looks like butter
[2] This is what it looks like when drying is underway, notice the translucent amber coloured gel near the base and sides, this is dried material and ultimately all will look like that.
[3] The end-point.
[4] Nice amber setting around my thermometer... isn't it pretty? Luckily soaking in hot water and some scratching with my nail got it off easily.

[Edited on 27-3-2015 by deltaH]

aga - 27-3-2015 at 14:24

Nice !

It even looks removeable !

Cleaning up after failed tarry-possible experiments is a real PITA.

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 14:30

Thanks, I really love the colours, it just screams poly-alkenes.

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 14:48

Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25

Quote: Originally posted by Praxichys

Linoleic acid I feel represents a good average (C₁₈, polyunsaturated) fatty acid to use, formula (HCOO)C₁₇H₃₁. Magnesium linolate is therefore (MgCOO)C₁₇H₃₁.

Well spotted blogfast, I missed that. That makes the corrected metal oxide values really small. Thanks!

[Edited on 27-3-2015 by deltaH]

blogfast25 - 27-3-2015 at 15:06

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

Well spotted blogfast, I missed that. That makes the corrected metal oxide values really small. Thanks!

Welcome.

Looks to me your Mg[Lin]2 is already crosslinking during drying. That would make sense, of course.

Ever considered transesterifying that linseed oil to methyl esters? Separate off glycerol and then dry with desiccants?

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 21:31

Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

Well spotted blogfast, I missed that. That makes the corrected metal oxide values really small. Thanks!

Transesterification would be great fun, but I don't believe transesterification would give as much odour control compared to saponification and would detract from hardness, but thanks for the suggestion.

The thought of using the Mg[lin] 'as is' also crossed my mind, it's brittle and glassy, cracking and shattering on cooling very much like a glass.

I'm going a little overboard with isolating all these soaps and purifying them individually, but that's because I'm researching each's behavior. Ultimately, when I come to a formulation recipe composition, it will probably be done in one step with the salting out/ion exchange, i.e. the solution used will be a mixture salts, e.g. MgSO4, FeSO4, ZnCl2. So you will only need to dry once and all-in-all, it would be very amateur friendly. Plus, while you have it hot on the pan at the end-of-drying, after a little cooling, that would be a good time to add the other ingredients and cast.

[Edited on 28-3-2015 by deltaH]

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 21:39

What I need now is a plasticiser for these brittle glassy linseed soaps, one option is using free fatty acids of linseed oil in my formulation. My strategy will be to use a salting out/ion exchange of the Na[lin] with NaHSO4, which is obtainable cheaply as pool dry acid.

Aside: theoretically raw linseed oil could also work as a plasticiser, but I want all the glycerine OUT for odour control!

Does anyone know any OTC sources for zinc sulfate? It would be nice if that was available easily, because all the other metals have easily available sulfates.

[Edited on 28-3-2015 by deltaH]

Chemical conflagerations

deltaH - 27-3-2015 at 22:51

Now that I have some brittle glassy dry Mg[lin]2, I could not resist performing a small and crude conflagration test.

I ground up roughly by volume (too small amounts for my scale) 1 part sulfur, 2 parts Mg[lin]2 and 4 parts NaNO3. This didn't burn very well in small amounts, so I added a pinch of ferric nitrate nonahydrate and ground further. This formed a waxy moldable 'dough' of which I could light a small finger-rolled bead. Photo's below (note the photo of the yellow powder in the mortar and pestle is minus the ferric nitrate).

At first, heating with a lighter causes the mix to gel and darken quickly, presumably vulcanising in situ. The blackened material can be lit when concentrating a flame on one spot, first fizzing a bit, then takes off and makes a steady flame and smoke. The burn was very nice, controlled and steady, it's also quieter than candy burns (doesn't have that roar). Beautiful bright yellow from the sodium.

Early success, yay!

PS: do you like my 'witness plate'

PPS: burn and residue, it smells like old-fashioned rubber elastic bands, not very foul but rather sharp and distinctive.

Pictures:

[1] A tiny chunk of Mg[lin]2. This amber-like material is easy to break with a spoon, very brittle and glassy.
[2] Mortar and pestle grinding with added sulfur and NaNO3, no ferric nitrate nonahydrate yet (that imparted a reddish-brown tinge to the grind).
[3] Enflammer!
[4] Residue, note the small amount of carbon and red tinted blobs of molten Na2S residue. All-in-all, not a bad guestimated formulation, a little more NaNO3 perhaps.

via Imgflip GIF Maker

Just made an animation of some of the photos.

[Edited on 28-3-2015 by deltaH]

blogfast25 - 28-3-2015 at 06:16

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

What I need now is a plasticiser for these brittle glassy linseed soaps, one option is using free fatty acids of linseed oil in my formulation. My strategy will be to use a salting out/ion exchange of the Na[lin] with NaHSO4, which is obtainable cheaply as pool dry acid.

That won't yield the Na soap but the free fatty acid, as it is insoluble.

deltaH - 28-3-2015 at 06:39

Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

That won't yield the Na soap but the free fatty acid, as it is insoluble.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to make with the NaHSO4, the free fatty acids:

Na[lin](aq) + NaHSO4(aq) => H[lin](l) + Na2SO4(aq)

Normally I'd simply use HCl, but I figured NaHSO4 is more practical and I'm having so much fun with these duel salting out ion exchanges, was keeping with the theme

[Edited on 28-3-2015 by deltaH]

deltaH - 28-3-2015 at 07:11

BTW, the burn posted earlier was really freakin' bright (yellow), I think it could make a nice flare at night time. The animated gif was done in daylight and even there you can see how bright the light is, it's really something.

blogfast25 - 28-3-2015 at 07:27

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH

BTW, the burn posted earlier was really freakin' bright (yellow), I think it could make a nice flare at night time. The animated gif was done in daylight and even there you can see how bright the light is, it's really something.

Well, that's lovely but isn't it thrust you're looking for?

Might be an idea to stick some of that formulation into a cardboard cylinder, light that candle and see how fast it burns.

deltaH - 28-3-2015 at 07:32

Yeah, never had much love for physics though, having too much fun with the chemistry. I'm focusing on developing the propellant for now, I'll leave the rocket building to the rocketeers

As for just sticking it in a tube, that I think I will do when I'm happy with the formulation and not in my apartment

[Edited on 28-3-2015 by deltaH]

aga - 5-4-2015 at 11:16

Quick update on my own feeble factice experiments :-

SCl₂ dosing works quite well, although all the reagents need to be really cold to avoid it running away and burning the rubber.

Today's attempt to make SCl₂ in situ by adding 30% w/w S to 50g of Oil, then bubbling Cl₂ through it just made a thin brown tar.

Adding a pinch of ZnO immediately formed a thin layer of Brown Stuff on top of the Oil/S mixture, so looks interesting.

APO - 19-4-2015 at 22:58

Very nice work everyone! I'm curious to see how much the burn rate would increase for an already vulcanized sample. Also interested if an already vulcanized sample would maintain it's previously mentioned brightness during deflagration. If the un-vulcanized sample ended up burning brighter and slower, then maybe it could be a flare comp, and then the vulcanized sample could be a propellant comp.

DeltaH, do you still plan on revisiting the ion exchange using ferrous sulfate instead? Propellant made from Fe[lin] sounds like it would be very good, as it would probably have a quicker burn rate due to the amount and intimacy of which the catalyst would be mixed.

Assuming any zinc oxide or stearic acid additives leads to more complete vulcanization, and that more complete vulcanization leads to higher burn rate, then maybe the inherently higher burn rate of the Fe[lin] based propellant could give it an edge compared to other [lin]s. Meaning that maybe Fe[lin] based propellant made with no additives, could be as good or better than other [lin] based propellants made with additives. Assuming all that were true, then Fe[lin] based propellant could be even more amateur friendly, as the additives could be considered more optional.

Using ferric nitrate instead of ferrous sulfate and boiling down to have premixed the sodium nitrate all in one step sounds like it could be even more amateur friendly, if it could be done in a more feasible manner as to not defeat the initial convenience. If done in a certain way, it could even end up in the oxidizer being more efficiently mixed, leading to a better overall propellant.

Also, I thought about use of mixed nitrates to form a eutectic mix with a lower melting point, to aid in mixing of the oxidizer, but I think 220C is still too high to be of any use.

Anyway, I look forward to your guy's progress.

deltaH - 20-4-2015 at 22:08

Thanks APO. Yes, more on the ferrous sulfate will follow soon. My work needs to take a pause now for a little while, but it's far from over. The use of ferric nitrates in an ion exchange made a hell of a mess, so I really wouldn't recommend that, but simply mixing the crystals into the final composition with oxidant worked well i.t.o not making a gloopy mess

aga - 25-4-2015 at 14:41

Somebody suggested that i made S₂Cl₂ last time rather than SCl₂ so i made some more today using 10x the quantity of Sulphur and a different method.

The product is similar in appearance, yet is more orange rather than a definite pink.

Reacting with Sunflower oil, it is radically different.

The First pink liquid sizzled and scorched the oil as well as cross-linking it into a solid mass.

This Orange liquid has a much gentler heating and cross-linking behavior, also producing a solid.

Linseed oil (tin says it has drying agents) reacts faster with today's Sulphur/Chlorine product than Sunflower oil and more completely forms a rubbery solid.

This reaction is more exothermic than with Sunflower oil, yet never got too hot to touch (small scale test).

Now to go out on a limb to see if my thinking is correct ...

The First product reacted faster, and the reaction released more heat.
That is due to greater changes in Oxidation state of the involved species (Sulphur)
Therefore the First product would be SCl₂ (S+2

and Todays' product S₂Cl₂ (S+1

.

Today's product appears more promising in converting oils into factice.

[Edited on 26-4-2015 by aga]

blogfast25 - 25-4-2015 at 15:13

Great! Any pics of the actual factice?

Factice Experiments #2

aga - 26-4-2015 at 05:36

These experiments were done to determine the quantity of S₂Cl₂ required to convert liquid Linseed & Vegetable oil into a rubbery solid factice.

In addition, 4 experiments use FeCl₂ and FeCl₃ to see if they have any effect at all.

12 plastic cups were pre-filled with 10 to 11g of oil and chilled in an ice bath.

Varying amounts of ice-chilled S₂Cl₂ was added to each one, with the mixture being stirred vigorously by hand, then left to react for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes each sample was photographed normally and under a microscope, then the solid/rubbery portion of of each sample was extracted (where possible) washed in detergent, rinsed in DIW, dried then weighed.

Attached is a spreadsheet of the results and some pretty pictures.

Attachment: Factice #2.xlsx (11kB)
This file has been downloaded 357 times

blogfast25 - 26-4-2015 at 08:03

How flexible are these samples? Literature that's been linked to above mention low Shore A hardnesses in the range of 'floppy soft', gel-like materials (for commercial factices).

This is the first time I've seen anyone having a go at preparing home made factice. Well done.

[Edited on 26-4-2015 by blogfast25]

aga - 26-4-2015 at 09:51

Sample # 3 was most rubber-like and certainly bendy, yet if bet too far it broke in half.

Sample #8 was very similar, yet very sticky on the upper side.

#4 got burnt to buggery by the heat from the reaction and basically had almost no flexibility at all.

#5 was extremely sticky, with the appearance and stickiness you find from a well chewed soft sweet.

Packaged correctly and this material could easily make SpiderMan's web work.

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