Aluminium Powder Ignites in Slow Motion - Periodic Table of Videos

Latest in our videos from Aluminium Week!!!
See more: bit.ly/Aluminium13 (and more to come)
Slow mo music by Alan Stewart: bit.ly/1sdwTHF
Real time music by Vate: www.vate.com.mx/en/
More chemistry at www.periodicvideos.com/
Follow us on Facebook at / periodicvideos
And on Twitter at / periodicvideos
From the School of Chemistry at The University of Nottingham: bit.ly/NottChem
Periodic Videos films are by video journalist Brady Haran: www.bradyharan.com/
A run-down of Brady's channels: bit.ly/bradychannels

[@HackingDutchman]

When it's burning at the end, it's look like the cosmos or some space pictures. Beautiful.

[@CaitlinD1997]

Completely reinforces the fact that I wish to study chemistry. Absolutely incredible.

[@DudokX]

Neil can create supernova on demand, there is even "black hole" in the middle :)

[@9sec93lx]

I remember our Science teacher back in high school igniting some sort of Spore in a similar fashion. He did it to prove how "dust explosions" occur. Years later when I worked for UPS, I had to deliver paychecks on Fridays, to a Feed Mill (Sorghum I think). They had no smoking, no open flame, explosive hazard signs posted everywhere. I remember there being a fine dust in the air, with a sickening sweet smell, as you walked through the place. Must have been an awful place to work.

[@beepIL]

Neil, the bad ass of science, the creator of nebulas, the master of valve turning, a god among men.

[@irlshrek]

I dont understand why slo-mo burning aluminium motivates me to the point of tears...

[@lukabotic]

Love your work, I just have one question is it wise to aim the ignited al at the gas line of the Bunsen. Perhaps you could aim the other way?

[@wonderstruckwow]

Beautiful! What camera are you using for the hi speed shots?

[@doodskop89rs]

Yo I got my hands on some of this stuff, I want to make a small rocket. What would be a good oxidizer? Thanks

[@chuckydickens7258]

1:30 Wow, that's beautiful. It almost looks like some kind of nebula.

[@andrestrujado]

Is that paint grade aluminium flakes? or just a high mesh aluminium powder? Have you tried it with Aluminium Black? often used in pyrotechnics and exploding targets.

[@kwinvdv]

Is the flame from the aluminium powder bright enough, such that the high speed camera doesn't register the bunsen burner flame?

[@PinkChucky15]

Very cool

[@olanordmann2450]

That`s beutiful, how many microns was that Al? Was it atomised?

[@skinnyjohnsen]

Was there an initial burst and then an explosion later?

[@josefkayri3752]

Hi, I know that I am off topic but could you please answer this? Can any element become radioactive if applied enough heat?

[@Chaosdude341]

Not sure if I liked 5 or 6 better, but they were gorgeous as could be.

[@TigerFont5]

Which track is it you use of Alan Stewart? I love it but I can't seem to identify it :< I beg you, let me know! It sounds beautiful! :D

[@Infloresence]

Fascinating, beautiful, your usual great work etc. etc. so hard to criticize but I have to say the exposure was not quite right since the flame was so bright maybe you got it right by take 10 or so and you will release the final cut sometime in the future ... AND the back drop ??? fume cupboards are great and very contextual but if you had something for the flame to play over just at the end of it's 'spurt' then it would be truly awesome. After watching it a couple of times that was the best I could do. Sorry.

[@lunhil1264]

How hot is that plume or what temperature is the powder burning at?

[@Geroellgeraet]

The last one is really good

[@MrBoegela]

I wonder, these sparks, you can compare them with actual stars, the big bang is the chemical reaction, and explosion, and the stars are the sparks, while the dust are the planets and astroids, but since it's so big in size, it seems to take longer. Like, a fly sees everything slower then us because it's smaller. Idk seems like an interesting comparison

[@kolnder]

First of,flies font see stuff slower than us, they may see more individual frames that they can distinguish from each other in one second if you play a video to them, but thats not because of the size, its because of how their eyes work. (if they would see everything slower, than after 1 real hour, they would need to watch say 2 hours of "video", which would mean that they would be out of sync with the real world and when they die they would the how things were half of their live ago) Secondly, the big bang isnt a chemical reaction and the stars are neither. Stars dont "burn" in the chemical meaning of it (oxidisation), they fuse Protons together to create Helium atoms, which has nothing to do with electrons (which is chemistry).

[@Nardypants]

There is no explosion per se. The pressure in the tube propels the powder through a flame. You could hardly compare a flame thrower with the big bang.

[@amazingman63]

deep man....dust in the wind for real

[@LeCheeseMaster]

amazingman63 you got a laugh from me :P

[@RedTriangle53]

Martin Hergeth Flies have a slower perception of time than us, because their nerve signals have a much shorter travel distance, and thus, all their processes are much more reactive and things appear slower to them. The same works the other way around. A blue whale will see us as flies, zipping quickly around it with a seemingly impossibly fast reaction time.

[@jdgrahamo]

Some of those images could have come from Hubble. Great stuff.

[@temialchemy2440]

What song is playing on the slow motion bit.

[@timstring0902]

Amazing 😲.

[@ProfessorPancakes420]

That guy's got some steady hands.

[@Nilguiri]

Beautiful. It looks like galaxies colliding with new stars forming. 1:20

[@ducomors]

any idea why the particles reflected light burning in many different colors?

[@cuteisjustice8208]

Looks like a cluster of stars.

[@NeonsStyleHD]

Two things. Is the Aluminium melting during the burn? I've seen a caravan burn and wow those things go up like a fireball, I was amazed at how fast the entire caravan burned to the axels just from someone falling asleep smoking. Fortunately he got out, but lost everything.

[@4Gehe2]

Neil is a really a wizard.

[@realspacemodels]

Aluminum Powder is a component in advanced solid rocket propellants - usually mixed with Ammonium Perchlorate.

[@FrozenAmy]

take six was awesome!!

[@bensons999]

How many fps?

[@lauriemontague5132]

anyone know what the piano song is?

[@rooiakkidis1]

Take 5 and 6 was the best.

[@JGAN]

why have some external light source? i mean yh, its slow mo we need more light but this is just bright by itself. It makes just like a white smush instead of a more contrasted image isnt it?

[@voveve]

The explosion look a lot like the first Star Wars ones!

[@PedanticNo1]

My god! It's full of stars!

[@robroysyd]

Reducing exposure so more detail can be seen in the fireball would have helped.

[@Stabacs]

The music by vate sounds a bit like the portal 2 soundtrack.

[@Shaun60230]

Like a million of stars...

[@sparkyhasarrived]

Science in slow motion is a beautiful thing!

[@LynneSkysong]

Chemistry is beautiful.

[@ellharrep]

holy cow igniting aluminum powder produces dramatic music

[@KafshakTashtak]

That was cool. Please show burning of hot iron in pure oxygen. That's also very fast and bright.

[@gabrielrmattoso]

Wow! Sometimes seems like it'd been recorded from the space. Seems like galaxys, stars...

[@James-eh1ob]

can someone explain why it is we see red green and blue specks around the explosion?

[@jaydavis2839]

A) Science is beautiful. B) I would've liked to see the pressure decreased and the powder projected vertically from underneath the flame.

[@GeFlixes]

There you have it - science is beautiful

[@MickOhrberg]

Neil Barnes reminds me of Paul Brackley from Wheeler Dealers - a silent hero. :)

[@RagingDong]

Does it make me a bad person if i always think of how to weaponise the chemichal reactions i learn

[@Sabdacrab]

Anyone know the name of the song used during the slow motion scenes? Can't seem to decipher which song it is from the itunes previews :/

[@periodicvideos]

have you bought the album? Poor old Alan, everyone seems to go look at it, and no-one ever buys it! :) I have it (bought it) and it is great background music to work to! (in this case I used two tracks, not sure if they are from the album)

[@Sabdacrab]

Might just go ahead and buy it, all the previews (whilst short) sound pretty great!

[@ModernSkylight]

Take 5&6 where my favourite

[@jazzpi]

Takes 4 and 5 created a super short-lived star that went straight to Nova and then planetary nebula. Obviously.

[@radguitar1]

Each tiny light Each beginning, ending Like stars, like our lives.

[@NeonsStyleHD]

The end of the final shot was like a nebula and stars. Would've liked a photo of that.

[@eshwarseplay]

do a calcium week next

[@robbygottesman4449]

What chemical reaction is taking place? I thought most metals weren't combustable.

[@hoosherdaddy]

2:00 the Deathstar explosion

[@smaakjeks]

Maybe try with a shorter exposure time for the frames, if possible? Neat video all the same, though :-)

[@CHAS1422]

Big bang, Glowing galaxies. Then darkness

[@Shadranat]

1:56 Star Wars explosion!

[@magottyk]

Maybe I'm being silly, but directing the burn towards your gas line seems somehow unthinking. I'm sure the lines can handle the high temps, but it does seem to be an unnecessary added risk.

[@TiborRoussou]

The reaction is quick, and the quantity of aluminum is small. The heat generated is not enough to be a fire hazard, in a controlled environment.

[@penfold-55]

i guess the good thing about being a chemist is that you must know all the good tips for cleaning!!!

[@KingOfChaos213]

Could have done with an even mix of iron oxide :)

[@Kram1032]

All this overexposed explosions make me wish there was a way to do these in HDR and to remap such that all the details become visible. It's pretty insane just how low the exposure has to be to even see details: In all those slow-mo shots you can't even see the Bunsen burner flame. That flame, of course, isn't too bright to begin with, but still, the Aluminium looks mostly just white except for the very edges where the cloud cools, where it still is pretty darn bright.

[@puupipo]

The dynamic range that modern cameras are able to capture increases every year. 5 years from now this problem might not even exist anymore, as long as Brady keeps upgrading his gear ;)

[@Kram1032]

Joonas Puuppo achieving this kind of thing with a high speed camera like Brady is using is rather difficult though. This is obviously completely burnt out. There are probably two or three orders of magnitude to be bridged and on top of that it has to be recorded insanely quickly. natively, Eyes can still vastly outperform (single exposure time) photos and this stuff looks purely white to us too, probably even if we kept being exposed to it so our eyes would have time to adjust. Instead of adjusting, we'd just go blind.

[@xgamer120]

Reminds me of nebulas

[@periodicvideos]

I thought that - was telling the astronomers all about it straight after filming!

[@Kram1032]

***** xgamer120 that's not particularly surprising though, is it? The nebulas are quite literally huge clouds, aren't they? Their density might be way lower than that of the atmosphere here but their sheer size makes the very same ripples and vortices and cloud patterns appear. Not that it looks any less awesome because of that. Our universe is amazing. At each and every scale.

[@SnakeVash]

It's like a universe being created and destroyed in mere seconds.

[@tmiller4996]

love the comments on these videos there not filled with crap

[@lizzyvainne]

so pretty

[@devilmastah]

That looks like nice nebulas

[@obsidianwing]

i thought the same, looks like galactic nebula

[@noname2useable]

Charmander used ember

[@PMW3]

damn that's fast

[@Hobypyrocom]

make flash powder out of that Al powder and make slowmo of it burning pls

[@thejerrymobile]

1:52 "Let's blow this thing and go home!"

[@DrxSlump]

Doc Brown, is that you?

[@chaim0001]

It is not dangerous to throw the burning aluminum powder over the gas hoses???

[@ShadowPoet174]

Makes me a bit nervous, as I work in a metal fabrication shop that works with a large amount of aluminum.

[@icejokerj]

what if we are are that explosion, It really looked like a universe in one of those shots for me, deceived by our own knowledge of time and space. It started by a big bang and still burning up today.

[@SuperHddf]

mix it with Kmno4!!!! :)

[@albertanguttitauruq4484]

How can they make it look so graceful when it's used in bombs?!

[@lukak.3532]

Try same thing but with Mg Powder.

[@xlorion]

I want a 21 Aluminum Powder Gun salute at my funeral.

[@inchicago]

music during slomo parts of video is very unnecessary

[@supreme_nova]

1:45 supernova

[@Morhua1]

I have tried this. The flame is really bright. I was over-sensitive to day light a few days after. Don't recommend it.,

[@EliteGeeks]

Anyone else see a Deathstar Blow up?? 1:50 2:25

[@666Tomato666]

take three looks like a nebula

[@SeanBZA]

That is why they call it flash powder.

[@ChitrakChattopadhyay]

but....aluminium is a metal no? so why is it burning?? is it reacting with oxygen or smthin?

[@Mellosaxsexy]

Wow...I finally figured out why there is a compressed air spout next to the hoods. Im slow.

[@Modenut]

Purty

[@Commander_McFluffypaws]

2:48 - Kamehameha!!!!!!

[@Markus9705]

I fucking love scienceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[@punishedexistence]

It would be cool to use pure oxygen to blow the Al out with, I bet that would be a really nice poof! Cool video!

[@magicalpencil]

Those sleeves got longer and longer lol

[@ericsbuds]

why is he shooting the sparks at the hoses on the wall? its like the only thing in there and hes burning them up! jk.

[@ShindenZero]

Expelliarmus!

[@deaderdeadbpu]

The video is cool but what is cooler, the guy looks like John Malkovich

[@THEWATERENERGY1]

Nothing, Burns like Hydrogen,...