Description of experiment
Below follows a plain text transcript of the selected experiment.
Needed compounds:
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sodium hypophosphite : NaH2PO2
potassium chlorate : KClO3
Class:
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elem=P,Cl
redox
Summary:
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Sodium hypophosphite is remarkably flammable. A mix with potassium chlorate is
dangerously explosive and can easily be ignited.
Description:
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Crush some solid sodium hypophosphite to a fine powder. Put the powder in a
test tube and heat the test tube above a flame: The solid loses some water
(this is normal, the commercial salt is the monohydrate NaH2PO2.H2O). On
further heating, the solid seems to melt, although no clear liquid is formed.
The material becomes sticky. At a certain point in time, it suddenly inflames.
Quickly the flame disappears again and then a lot of white smoke is produced
and yellow/orange material settles at the glass walls
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Crush some potassium chlorate and some sodium hypophosphite to fine powder. DO
THE CRUSHING IN SEPARATE CONTAINERS! Add approximately equal amounts of the two
powders to each other and then carefully rock it back and forward in order to
mix the powders. The final result must be a fine, well mixed, powder.
Put some of the powder on a spatula and put this in the flame of an alcohol
burner: First there is a loud crackling noise and then suddenly the mix
deflagrates (nearly explodes) with a peculiar fairly loud PUFF sound. A thick
white cloud of smoke emerges from the explosion. No solid matter remains on the
spatula.