Thermite reaction

flatline · Probably a bot. Joined: 29 Apr 2005 Posts: 1

Hey.

I'm doing a school assignment, a chemistry project; thermite reaction.

The only downside is, that we must require the chemicals ourselves, and here in this country, it's not possible to get any of those by purchasing them from the local pharmacy.

So, how do I get iron oxide and aluminum -powder?

Iron oxide is rust, right? So can it be created as following:

Water to a box, salt into the water, iron item to the salted water (and 9V battery's negative and positive wires attached to the iron item? -I hear this has some effect to make the iron to rust faster?)?

And how to make aluminum powder? Simply drilling through an aluminum plate a thousand times would take a while, so is there a way to get aluminum powder, or to do so with not so much efford?

And for the "fuse", what to use? It takes about 2400 Celsius to make the thermite ignite, so it would require magnesium "fuse", wouldn't it? - How to get magnesium? Or is there another way to ignite the thermite?

Thanks in advance.

RobJim · Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 8:02 am Post subject:

There are two kinds of iron oxide; rust and the black stuff you sometimes see on ironwork. The first I think is Fe2O3, the second FeO.

Instead of drilling the aluminum I'd try sanding it. The should produce the powder faster.

Sorry I can't help you more!

Frozen_thunderbolt · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:31 am Post subject: Thermite reaction

Hey flatline thermite reaction is pretty dangerous but there are good instructions on carrying it out here:
http://www.ilpi.com/genchem/demo/thermite/
also gives you a way to make a chemical fuse using potassium permanganate and glycerin - check it out

Frozen_thunderbolt · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:34 am Post subject: add on method of geting materials

sorry forgot to say your rusting method should work ok and you can make aluminum powder by buying a cheap coffie grinder and milling aluminum foil in it for an hour or so - needless to say DONT use it for food again afterwards Laughing

chemic · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:01 am Post subject: fuse

does sulfur fuse is ok to ignite thermite???please help!!!
if sulfur fuse isnt right then what fuse i can use?(exept magnesium) Confused

chemic · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:56 am Post subject:

im making iron oxide but i dont have 9V only 6V but it doesnt work. is the the problem in 6V???

oh if i electolize a nail do i haftu feel it when its under electriciti?

cobra_brad · Probably a bot. Joined: 23 Jan 2006 Posts: 1

no, it will work with any voltage. Although, more power = faster reaction.
If you put a peice of copper in with the iron, the iron will oxide faster as the copper will donate electrons to it.

I also have a question, in my electrolysis i am using carbon rods as the electrodes, if i use iron will the reaction go faster or will there be no difference?

Ringorulesall · Probably a bot. Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 1

OK first off you can get Iron oxide that works for thermite by running a magnet over some sand. All that black stuff that it picks up is Magnetite or Fe2O4 and take it from me the stuff works just fine for thermite. As for igniting i just bought some magnesium ribbon from Cannonfuse.com. The stuff works great.

jordi · Probably a bot. Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 1

First of all, please, excuse my english cuz i'm 16 old spanish guy Smile

About the electrolysis (to make separe hydrogen & oxigen) you need a carbon electrode. You can use the pencil carbbon tube, but there's a bit more resistence than an "activated carbon" that you can find in a 4.5v spend battery. You must open it and you'll find 3 little more batteries inside. Be carefuly when you extract the carbon rods, you must use clamps (and gloves if you want) becouse as you know it is full of acid. Don't squeeze the carbon piece too much with the claps or you will broke it Wink

. This "active carbond roods" are the best electrode after platinium ones (you can imagine what a platinium electrodes cost!!!). Then, if you have a movile dc charger, you can use it as power font, there is more much amps and volts, so the reaction is more much faster, with the hydrogen & oxigen separation or the iron oxidament. So, now you have the best electrodes you can get for free, next you can do the next : You know that destilated water isn't a conductor by it self, you must mixture salt, or Sulfuric acid. (with salt is enough).
Then to oxide the iron, you must use a big piece of iron (ofcourse) to get more iron oxide, and a bigger area in contact with the solution. And sue a little ammount of water and a big ammount of salts, so you must saturate the mixture. (becouse if there's alot of water, you'll g2 wait hours and hours trying to evaporate the water). When you finish to corode the iron, you'll see that your saline solution is getting yellow, then brown and finaly black. WHen it is black it means that there is alot of iron oxide and you'll g2 to wait that the water evaporates. You can accelerate that proces warming up the water to 100ºC, so the water will evaporate faster. Then the oxided iron is completed. Now i tell you how do i make aluminium powder. I get some aluminium paper and then i grim it Wink

.
And finaly, to ignite it, there's a very syple metod to do it. Get a litle light bulb, then boke the glass and be arefuly to not breake the tungstene cable. With the precense of oxigen arround of the cable, when you lgiht it at distance with a 9v battery and 2 meters of cable to it, when the cable burns against the termite, or the magnesium... it will ignite nicely !!! Soo, i hope it helps you all guys.

Regards from Catalonia!

reticman · Probably a bot. Joined: 27 Feb 2006 Posts: 1

You can easily get aliminium fine powder by a 1/4 inch aluminium plate with a grinding whel on a grinder. after about 2 hours you will have plenty of aluminium powder thats how I did it. as for rust I got a 40 gallon rubber maid tub filled it with water and 2+ cups of salt wen to home depot and got 5 1/2 inch thick 5 foot long iron rods and then cut em into 1 foot peices and threw them in the tub along with an ol rust lawn mower blade and a couple of dozen hand fussl of rusty nails after a few days every thing wilt be coverd with a thick layer of ruc particles stir it up every few days. after a few weeks when you think you have enough stirr it all up really good and fill a huge pot hith the rusy water and boil it until the rust powder is bone dry after this let it cool and scrape out your iron oxide powder. keep boiling down the rust water until you have eenough rust powder.