THE HEAVIEST GAS IN THE WORLD. Tungsten Hexafluoride. WF6

[@phimuskapsi]

Watching flowers literally melt is something I never thought I'd see. There is a quiet horror to it.

[@smvwees]

Poor roses.

[@hannahowen1801]

Beautifully worded.

[@maringantikrishnamohan6975]

True my heart broke and started disliking cruel chemistry

[@BuddyLee23]

This is just a guess, but there are probably a few other chemicals which can melt organic matter.

[@phimuskapsi]

@@BuddyLee23 oh for sure, and seeing the flower melt, all I could think about was ... you know, the flesh behind the suit.

[@PinkKittenTech]

"Cloud of HF" is a nightmare way to die.

[@FhtagnCthulhu]

My wife almost went out that way when a pressure vessel containing HF was being heated in a poorly vented microwave and burst. She had just stepped out of the room. Safety protocols were changed after that...

[@ilyabredov6567]

No one has ever received rose fluoride this way :)

[@yannickramouillet3742]

​@@FhtagnCthulhuwaw pretty scary stuff, i hope she's working in a safe work environment now

[@smvwees]

@@ilyabredov6567 Dolly pardon, i never promised you a HexaFluorRose garden.

[@Oldtanktapper]

@@smvweesinsert groan and facepalm meme here! Now I’m going to have that running through my mind all morning.

[@rimabotulinumb9096]

Imagine seeing some random dude in a hazmat suite playing with balloons in your local park

[@kaboom4679]

Also works with other props , like for say , a couple old nalgene bottles and the contents of a few dozen chem lights . Other props as necessary . Maybe some fluorescent powder ( harmless of course ) , and an ungainly looking UV lamp . The sky is the limit with this gag , and the sentences of caught might be similar , so , think hard before you do this .

[@Koozomec]

X_x

[@thomasneal9291]

Very irresponsible.

[@josslaypeg3884]

@@thomasneal9291Yes, when I see a guy in a hazmat suit and head to toe PPE, my first thought is always “how irresponsible”

[@aqdrobert]

Remember that episode of "Rick and Morty" when....

[@BlackGryph0n]

9:56 while the balloon filled with air should technically weigh 1 g more, you would have to measure it in a vacuum to notice because the balloon is also surrounded by air of the same density.

[@prid3_33]

Good point

[@xionix4]

Actually, you can see a measurable effect due to the balloon's elasticity compressing the air inside, causing it to be slightly more dense than the surrounding air. :) I have measured a balloon before and after being filled with air and witnessed a difference, and it makes sense. Unfortunately, the scale used was not precise enough to register the difference as stated in the video.

[@csquaredfilms]

@@xionix4 we actually used this in a chemistry lab to prove air had mass and, (to my surprise because i also thought there would be no detectable difference,) the ballon was actually a few tenths of a gram heavier

[@xionix4]

@@csquaredfilms Yep, we set it up for the kids in a summer program during my internship, too. Seems to be a rather common experiment, lol.

[@ceciestunpseudooriginal9837]

The buoyancy for these volume is identical

[@andrewg.carvill4596]

9:55 You forgot Archimedes. The balloon filled with 1 g of air is displacing (and being buoyed up) by an exactly similar 1 g of air to the air it contains, and so appears to weigh the same 3g as an empty balloon, while the balloon filled with 12 g of WF6 is displacing the same 1 g of air and so appears to weigh 11 g more than the empty balloon, 14 g. However, if both the scales and the WF6 filled balloon were submerged in an atmosphere of WF6, the WF6 filled balloon should appear to weigh only 3g ..... but the scales would most likely turn blue and stop working the following day!

[@GIRGHGH]

You can also think of it as if you had a rigid version of the balloon with a hole in it, of course it wouldn't weigh more cause the air is the same inside and out. Only reason the air would weigh more due to being in a closed container would be if it was at higher pressure.

[@zrath67]

The air in the balloon is slightly pressurized by the balloon. The extra density should be measurable by a more sensitive scale.

[@axle.australian.patriot]

@@zrath67 The force (stretch of the latex) of the balloon per square inch on the internal air would be extremely negligible compared to the [Edit correction -30- ] 14.7 psi atmosphere. Just the same it would be measurable on a "very sensitive" set of scales in ideal conditions.

[@Nobe_Oddy]

this is only true the the pressure inside the balloon is equal to the pressure in the atmosphere it is in..... but most balloons are blown up and stretched, and the pressure inside is higher than 1atm thus it would weigh more, but a more sensitive scale is needed..... this would be the same in the situation you stated, but as soon as the pressure is increased to higher than the surrounding atmosphere, the mass increases :) very good logical thinking tho :)

[@andyj6234]

​@@Nobe_Oddythe pressure inside the balloon is likely only 1010-1020 mbar absolute. Not enough to significantly change the density of the air inside.

[@StuffandThings_]

Tungsten hexafluoride has got to be the most unsettling gas. Unusually heavy and loaded with fluorine, will casually create hydrofluoric acid and melt things. Meanwhile its close relative Sulfur hexafluoride is pretty harmless.

[@gbyt034]

it makes sense because tungsten is not reactive enough to hold on to all that fluorine while sulfur is

[@StuffandThings_]

@@gbyt034 Oh yes it makes sense, but its still unsettling to think that a perfectly harmless gas has such a sinister counterpart. Like, imagine someone unsuspecting mistaking the two...

[@defenestrated23]

I raise you Uranium Hexafluoride. Basically the same chemical properties, but also radioactive.

[@billcook4768]

@@defenestrated23Nasty, radioactive… and really only useful for one thing.

[@Paonporteur]

​@@gbyt034it's nor about reactivity. Selenium and tellurium are more reactive than sulfur, yet their hexafluorides react with water and therefore not suitable foe breathing.

[@Groovewonder2]

I love that the container for it can only be described as "a desperate attempt to not let it kill everyone". Even if I didn't know what was in it, I would stay far, FAR away from it. That thing is terrifying. I can only imagine how heavy it is and how high of pressure is needed for the quantities you seem to be using.

[@leocurious9919]

The boiling point is ~room temperature, so there is a liquid in the container and the pressure is next to nothing.

[@eVill420]

@@leocurious9919 until you forget it next to a window on a sunny day and it fucking explodes

[@leocurious9919]

@@eVill420 Yes, except no.

[@Mumpitzable]

@@eVill420 vapor pressure! gases always have a specific pressure at a specific temperature, till critical point, after that the pressure cant rise further... it has 47.6 bar at its critical point, and for that it needs 179.6°c. you could heat it up to 250°c or something, but only cause the teflon (?!) sealants dont like more

[@gloriousmeme3960]

To think that one of the heaviest metals in the world could be a gas is crazy to me

[@RomanBekker2022]

many high-valency heavy metal fluorides are gaseous look at UF6 for another example

[@drflash36]

Well, mercury which is much heavier than iron is a liquid at room temperature, so...!

[@ancoron8257]

Note: this gas is a chemical compound containing tungsten. It retains basically no properties from the metal itself. It's very similar to how methane is a compound that contains carbon, but is a gas while pure carbon is a solid (as seen in graphite or diamond). While the components of a compound can and certainly do dictate the compounds properties, it's not as easy as combining or averaging the components properties.

[@RomanBekker2022]

@@ancoron8257 by the way, quite many metal or metalloid hydrides are also gases under normal conditions (e.g. plumbane, stannane, germane, silane, arsine, stibine...)

[@RomanBekker2022]

anything could be gas if heated past its boiling point under a given pressure 🙂 tungsten itself also has its boiling point, albeit crazy high, but still

[@jansenart0]

Tungsten Hexafluoride acts like the Chernobyl miniseries would have us believe massive doses of ionizing radiation would act.

[@libraryofgurkistan]

There is a radioactive form of tungsten i just realized (though very unstable) I wonder what that would be like inside of WF6

[@Ungood-jl5ep]

@@libraryofgurkistan technically, all tungsten is radioactive.

[@FireStormOOO_]

Ya know there probably is an amount of ionizing radiation that would reproduce the effect, and now I kinda want to know how much it is. And does it occur before thermal effects take over and melt everything?

[@djalienprime]

@@FireStormOOO_ In old soviet nuclear experiment docs I've seen descriptions of "browning of the glass effect" under the strong radiation flash, so it possibly must be at least 100000+ R/h, possibly 1000000R/h radiation fields.

[@Unmannedair]

​@@djalienprimeholy crap, that's an extreme effect and a large amount... Although, perhaps the silica is a bit more sensitive than other things? There are other reactions today so the same thing with only UV from sunlight. Also, I think the type of radiation is important. Beta radiation breaks up molecules, neutron radiation changes isotopes and creates secondary radiation effects, and gamma radiation does all that. 😅 I would be inclined to think that the Browning glass effect is the result of charges being moved and trapped in the glass.

[@huzzzzzzahh]

At first I was afraid it would be a potent greenhouse gas like SF6, and then realized I wasn’t ambitious enough with what I was afraid of. HF fog machine is… not ideal

[@m1225753]

HF for machine :) Good one

[@mumiemonstret]

I thought the same until I saw how very uninterested these elements are to stay together... SF6 has an atmospheric lifetime of thousands of years, whereas WF6 just can't wait to decompose.

[@eVill420]

the tungsten in it means it'll basically steep into the ground so it can't really work as a greenhouse gas even if it was otherwise ideal

[@viatorsimplex4524]

Hey, great video, very spectacular! I assume the boat sunk due to two possible reasons: Either a gradient or mixture layer forming, giving lower density at the surface so WF6 air mixture can spill over the rim of the small boat (due to hydrolysis of WF6 in wet air mixing should be even more favoured than with an inert gas, and give big volumes of HF, which is lighter than air, especially wet air) or minute holes forming in the aluminium foil through which the gas can enter almost instantly due to in comparison with liquids very low viscosity (the boat you covered with WF6 outside of the glass container seems to show small holes before crumbling, likely due to corrosion). I recommend throwing a small foil balloon filled with air in the gas filled glass box to evaluate the first possibility, and using the bottom part of a thin plastic bottle to test the second. In addition, filling the glass box with argon first should eliminate most of the visible hydrolysis if so desired. Loudspeakers should be largely immune to the sound deepening effects of WF6 as they directly generate the soundwave and do not rely on resonance/standing wave in air for the generation of sound (except some subwoofers), as does our throat/mouth. Blowing a flute or maybe even a whistle with a stream of air and WF6 should show a difference. The rubber balloon filled with air should likely not be 1 g heavier. According to doi.org/10.1119/1.4967901 a filled rubber party balloon has less than 5% higher pressure than an empty one, and thus assuming a reasonable 2,5l volume likely less than 0.2 g additional weight (as it replaces around 3g of air), which explains the scales not showing the difference, as they should be precise enough to show a 1 g difference. I am looking forward to the chemical reactions video.

[@ChemicalForce]

In an atmosphere of SF6, the sound from the speakers becomes significantly lower!

[@LFTRnow]

It looked like the boats might have gotten some small holes in them as a result of the aluminum reacting with the foil. It doesn't take much of a leak before they fill up with the gas and then - down they go.

[@tracybowling1156]

This was interesting reading.

[@NicholasA231]

Can confirm the part about the weighing a filled balloon. My wife is a teacher and her instructional materials had her trying to demonstrate that air has mass by balancing empty balloons attached to a yardstick, then blowing one up. I tried to explain it wouldn't work, and I got similar results on a semi-analytical balance,

[@Pgr-pt5ep]

​@@ChemicalForce Not unless the gas has entered the speaker's cavity and you are checking the bass frequencies. The gas only works on resonant cavities like human voice box or bass woofer's resonant enclosure.

[@caseyglick5957]

Your voice in the speaker didn't change because the voice changing effect of helium and sulfur dioxide has to do with how the resonating cavity of your throat changes with the different air. But the frequency of the sound produced by the speaker is the same inside and outside of the gas due to the speed the membrane resonates.

[@Pgr-pt5ep]

Precisely correct. That should have been the doubt posed instead of the obvious "why didn't the aluminum bowl float". Also he could have used a spectrum analyzed on a ported speaker with bass and noticed the reduction in bass because that enclosure is designed to amplify at woofer resonance frequency, which will shift lower.

[@roelant8069]

Wouldn't that happen to a speaker as well? They also have a "profile" of frequencies that are more or less strongly emitted after all Then again maybe the difference is smaller than in a human voicebox or the frequencies at which the difference would be audible is outside the range of chemforce's voice (although that's just me speculating, the experiment clearly shows the voice didn't notably change so something must be wrong about it)

[@peetiegonzalez1845]

Except the soft balloon is slightly higher pressure... but yeah you're 99% right. Great explanation.

[@su2so3]

@@roelant8069 human voices are resonating oscillators, speakers are driven oscillators. So the speaker will produce the same pitch as the driving frequency, whereas the human voice will produce whatever its resonant frequency is.

[@TheRealName7]

Then maybe inhaling a little WF6 would work?

[@smvwees]

Something oddly satisfying and at the same time an ominous postapocalyptic vibe seeing you playing with the balloons in full chemical suit n the big grass field with the thundery sky.

[@tracybowling1156]

Yeah, I agree. It reminds you of sad times that hopefully will never come.

[@davecrupel2817]

The most Fallout thing I've ever seen

[@EddieTheH]

My takeaway from the first two minutes - WF6 is the ideal weedkiller for everyone to have in the garden shed.

[@timelordtardis]

The weedkiller from hell!

[@kaboom4679]

WHAT garden 🔥 ?

[@Flesh_Wizard]

​@@timelordtardisthe everything killer

[@albertsitoe7340]

Monsanto would promote you to chief Chemical Engineer 😂

[@God-ch8lq]

won't the HF melt the dirt too?

[@christmassnow3465]

A safer gas to experiment with is sulfur hexafluoride. You can test how this can change your voice pitch as long as you exhale it immediately and inhale air instead, because it displaces oxygen. However, doing the experiment with the microphone would not change the pitch, because the speaker would just play the same sound which you recorded. The denser gas would mean that the microphone sound will be WEAKER but not with a lower pitch. You will hear the same pitch even if you put your microphone in water. If you want to play it safe, you can, for instance, put a guitar inside different gases, hit the string and listen to the sound.

[@DUKE_of_RAMBLE]

I'm not a scientist, but I'm glad that I came to the same conclusion, that it requires the gas passing through the vocal chords to produce the change. The guitar is a smart analog! I wonder then, if a Bagpipe would also work, having it only inflated by the WF6 canister and expelling it in normal air _(in the same way those people talk after inhaling SF6)._

[@mumiemonstret]

I thought the same about the loudspeaker not resembling how voice is produced. Even more analog to the vocal tract would be if you play a recorder (flute) with the WF6.

[@christmassnow3465]

@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE A bagpipe would work but I guess it would not hold on as was the case with the balloons. I guess he should try different materials for the bagpipe.

[@DUKE_of_RAMBLE]

@@christmassnow3465 True. It'd be interesting to see what it would do to tanned leather, or even Sausage casing (intestines). The former would presumably have minimal moisture content, so whether it would still react would be the question; whereas the latter would be _high_ in moisture content, but it would still be interesting to see how quickly it deteriorates. For that matter, throw in some pig skin, for a bit of human analog... If I understood right, the reason it's melting everything is due to the creation of hydrofluoric acid in the presence of moisture. That's the particularly nasty acid when it comes to the ones you don't want to come into contact with _(even in lower concentrations like in rust remover)._

[@derkeksinator17]

A guitar wouldn't work well either, as the frequency depends on string tension and length. Any woodwind instrument should work though, as the frequency depends on density(or speed of sound in that particular medium) and the length of the gas column.

[@psxtuneservice]

I just imagine wf6 breathing aliens watching the horrors of o2 gas

[@God-ch8lq]

these aliens probably use flourine instead of oxygen, so im pretty sure it'd be so inert to them, that they'd suffocate

[@niteshupadhyay276]

I love the cinematic experience he gives in his videos. The edits are amazing along with the sounds. Timing is immaculate

[@etch3130]

Has he ever said how he has access to a sigma warehouse worth of weird chemicals?

[@sciencoking]

Not even just how he gets ultra hazardous substances, but also how he affords them!

[@nosurprise885]

He got that in an ussr desafected chemical weapon testing ground

[@christopherleubner6633]

He is a chemist, and probably gets paid very well. ❤

[@Muonium1]

@@christopherleubner6633 This has to be a joke.....

[@SkigBiggler]

My understanding is that he previously worked for Sigma Aldrich, and still has connections alongside a well paying job, but I can’t claim that information is true.

[@dannydetonator]

Despite spending my youth doing chemistry, i never learned about this one. Makes Mustard gas look like NO or Chanell#5.. Very dystopian production, loved it. My guess about why foil boats don't float is the exact volatility, reacting with moisture and air: by being so reactive (opposed to ex.g. krypton), it mixes with air and partially converts into lighter products, (probably while heating up) rapidly, thus dispersing and losing density very quickly too. By the time you let go of the boaties, the top half of the box doesn't have enough density difference with air to maintain boyancy. The turbulence from vapour reaction disturbs the border layer with air, making WF6 transition gradually with it, partially filling the inside of the float with heavier than air mixture as soon as it's in the box. You can see it stops half way, where WF6 is still undispersed, but the floaty system is already too heavy to stay there and it drops without much of difference in density because of the weight of Al. Just like if a boat had a leak, but liquid was layered in different, turbulent densities. Funny how your speaker didn't get lower in tembre, but my uneducated guess - its both because gas instantly reacts with vapour and loses density, decreasing the speed of sound to that of air too and increasing the pitch to nearly normal - and the way a speaker generates sound, not with friction-resonating vocal cords. Also, the vibrating surface is likely not in contact with a concentrated WF6 neither, because the tyny holes in speaker's cover doesn't let much of it trough, same as netted gas lamps doesn't explode gas in contaminated mines. You should check redoing experiment with the naked speaker surface without cover in a deeper, narrower (better closed) container with concentrated WF6, with as little air moisture as possible and see if the pitch changes then.

[@lordchickenhawk]

11:12 That slow motion photography was brilliant! The music was scored perfectly, producing a pure WF6 atmosphere for your video! This production deserves at least a 9.8 on Toxic Tomatoes. This has to be the most visceral horror show cinematic experience since A Clockwork Oxidiser. Subbed.

[@DanielGBenesScienceShows]

I didn’t think the concept of Steven King’s IT playing with balloons could get anymore terrifying. I stand corrected. You couldn’t pay me enough to be in the same room with that gas, or 1/2 mile downwind of the fume hood vent.

[@sherlockholmieblitz4814]

I kind of missed some of the audio so sorry if you addressed this, but the reason the speaker didn’t work as expected (as if you breathed it in and spoke) is because the speaker physically vibrates the WF6 which lets it maintain original frequency. When you breath denser gas in, the vocal cords vibrate slower

[@Bitzy]

i was always wondering how certain gasses changed your voice

[@b1bounette951]

this guy loves chemistry but never listened in his physics class lmao

[@jamesh5460]

Fun and kind of scary. First balloon I have seen that can melt grass if it pops!

[@amiralozse1781]

the WF6 storage vessel is extremely impressive

[@darylcheshire1618]

looks evil, but the lighting and music added to the effect.

[@ddnn1142]

I wondered at the beginning of the video "How my voice would change if i inhale this?" Now i know the answer; ill be very silent.

[@OrqwithVagrant]

I think WF6 is a contender for *scariest* gas in the world too, after seeing the effect it had on those flowers. 😱

[@mumiemonstret]

I think you have an even scarier gas without the tungsten: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKW6oWdresqqqtk

[@lafeechloe6998]

The hydrogen fluoride had this effect on the flower not the WF6. If it was actual pure HF inside this bottle it wouldve been a lot more terrifying

[@modorangeorge4991]

@@lafeechloe6998 It is actually water that activated HF. Without water no reaction will occur.

[@due737ejdnd]

UF6?

[@OrqwithVagrant]

@@lafeechloe6998 Pure HF is nowhere near this immediately destructive. In fact, the effect it has on flesh is intense bleaching, it won't 'dissolve' it almost at all. The scary thing about HF is its *toxicity* once absorbed into the body. The part of the reaction that really does a number on the flower is this: WF 6 + 3 H 2O → WO 3 + 6 HF. By the time the HF has formed, the 'damage' has already happened, and it's the same 'mechanism' as concentrated sulphuric acid - it rips organic molecules apart to 'produce' the water needed for the reaction, effectively 'carbonizing' the organics. So you you have a gas with the immediate tissue-destroying properties of concentrated sulphuric acid, and you get HF poisoning as a 'bonus effect' on top. @ChemicalForce, correct me if I'm wrong. :)

[@dodgeman777]

"So how nasty is this stuff?" "It melts flowers"

[@guythat779]

For the aluminium boat experiment i think the WF6 reacts with aluminium and makes AlF3 (or some other ionic compound) which rearranges the structure and makes porus holes for the WF6 to pour through negating the effects of buoyancy, the other reaction product is depositing pure tungsten which is denser than WF6 and the boat sinks (and the more it sinks the more it reacts making it even denser and makes it sink more) What's funny is that means potentially a thicker walled boat or a glass boat could float better

[@chriskola3822]

This guy's fume hood is pulling extra duty today.

[@quinton1661]

The reason the balloon with air in it didn't weigh any more is because the buoyancy effect of the balloon volume in the atmosphere offsets the weight of the mass inside the balloon. For every liter of volume at sea level, about 1.2 gram-force is offset pushing up. The result is a balloon won't ever weigh any more than empty unless the air surrounding it is a different density. This can change slighty with breathe since the density of our breath is slightly different than the ambient air, but for all but the most sensitive of scales this will generally be true.

[@htomerif]

Just in case anyone was wondering: that is not enough PPE for any of what he was doing with HF.

[@frankmueller25]

Yes, I wondered what material can provide adequate protection against the HF produced. The things some people do to get on the internet.

[@htomerif]

@@frankmueller25 It goes through pretty much all flexible materials quickly. When I've worked with HF acid, I make it in situ with NaF and H2SO4 (or similar) to avoid the gas as much as possible. If you look at 11:51 he's just wearing a regular lab coat and what looks like vinyl gloves. At 13:26 he's wearing a two piece mask with the respirator straps going under the goggles, so the HF can get right in his eyes. Its not the worst PPE ever, but its not sufficient either. I hope he took a shower immediately after that. HF is pretty notorious for being able to easily penetrate skin as it is much less polar then things like HCl.

[@Shaheen_Hassan]

Tungsten hexafluoride reacted to quickly with moist air, so there isn't enough of it to make the Aluminium boats float. The gas in the container is mostly HF, not WF6. For the experiment to succeed, you need to first fill the container with an inert gas to displace the moist air, then fill it with WF6.

[@sankolts]

11:39 this music sync is so good

[@amiralozse1781]

your experiments and demonstration are beyond excellent ! nothing else I've seen comes even close

[@SkyChaserCom]

This guy is a legend and even experimented with rare chemicals you can't see anywhere else, even nor on Wikipedia (some not listed)! For example, he has a video of purple liquid ozone detonating. I could not find that anywhere else on the internet. Unbelievable work this guy does.

[@christopherleubner6633]

This stuff reminds me of UF6, it is commonly referred to as a gas, but is actually a solid at room temperature and becomes a gas when slightly warm. It is every bit as nasty as this gas too, with a side of being chemically toxic and radioactive to boot.😮

[@shaneanderson1229]

UF6 is an intermediary when enriching uranium correct?

[@4thium]

Yes, in gas centrifuges, where the isotopes are separated based on density. Using the fact that the density of gases is simply proportional to their molar masses. This also means that UF6 is a good deal heavier than WF6. So, not WF6 but UF6 is the heaviest "somewhat commonly occuring" gas in the world. Except that it's solid at room temperature. And probably really tough to get your hands on. 😅

[@4thium]

Correction: PuF6 is even heavier and also has an industrial purpose (though it's technically not a gas but a volatile solid at room temperature, and then it becomes tough to draw a line). Apparently, it plays a role in nuclear fuel reprocessing. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium_hexafluoride I'm guessing the same reprocessing step will also yield gram quantities of the even heavier AmF6 and CmF6 (and traces of yet heavier ones), but I have no data on that.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Pu generally forms the 3+ or 4+ fluoride salt. The 3+ salt is deep blue and the 4+ salt is brown. The PuF6 is technically a molecule of the 4+ and a weakly bound to a F2 molecule. Fluorine will take what it can get.😮

[@squishybrick]

As someone who has (digitally) worked with more hexafluorides than I should have, I can reasonably say you just really shouldn't mess with it.. The fact that people used to inhale sulfur hexafluoride for that iconic "Deep voice" parlor trick scares me. Fluorine is a very very angry gas, and anything that contains it should be respected and feared.

[@meldroc]

Can you imagine that stuff doing to your lungs what it did to those flowers? Breaks down to HF, which is monumentally nasty. Leaches the calcium out of your bones and blood until you have a heart attack and die.

[@Taygetea]

used to? inhaling sf6 is a common demo. it's obviously much more stable than wf6. like, PTFE exists. its not just about having a lot of F bonds.

[@SH1974]

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing! I think the problem with the aluminium boats is that the vessels are not tall enough to float in such big "waves". The vessels fills with gas, get heavy and sink. Try the experiment in a less turbulent environment (flat gas/air seperating layer) and/or with a taller vessel : I assume it will work.

[@adamsmith6995]

I agree with this assessment. It is exactly analogous to water spilling into a boat and causing it to sink. The buoyant force is due to the difference in density between the air and water. In this video's case we are replacing water with WF6.

[@swallerick1]

This better be a box office hit lol. My first thought is that the boat sank because the interface was so turbulent and the boat was so small, but I’m really not sure and now it’s got me thinking. Finally a “let me know what you think happened in the comments” that I’m not completely clueless to 😅

[@imnothome5961]

Absolutely amazing, you are a brave man for handling this in so many ways, despite the use of a sealed chamber for most of this video! Thank you so much, shot in excellent quality as always. Appreciated your videos almost as long as your channel has run, and will continue to do so with pleasure for as long as possible Take care 🖖

[@tracybowling1156]

You know what, Felicks? I thought you had to show violent chemical reactions to make the videos really cool. I was wrong! This video is just as exciting!

[@IncertusetNescio]

Speakers work different than your vocal cords. A speaker in Helium turns pretty quiet due to the lack of mass in the helium to push around. With heavy gases it still works. You'd have to be immune to the effects of the gas to test. The best we can do is Sulfur Hexafluoride which is fairly inert to the human body. I imagine the latex balloon had some amount of moisture in it as well and I suspect latex isn't immune to HF.

[@-RON-DOMINATION-]

Chemistry is so scary and so beautiful at the same time

[@emilssmits4437]

Nice video! The only odd thing that I noticed is that there seems to be an error in specified density terms of both air and tungsten hexafloride gas. Correct units for those values should be grams per litre.

[@Dan-vq4pz]

Thank you for the advice about wet hair! I have to go into the WF6 tank tomorrow, ill make sure to skip the morning shower AND hold my breath 👍

[@treelineresearch3387]

I don't want the life-dissolving gas inside but I'd take the sweet looking flask when it's empty.

[@QbutNotTheQ]

That’s exactly what I was thinking! 😊

[@leohd2371]

The Footage of the flowers Melting with gas getting shot at seem feels like a work of art in of itself. U can really interpret a lot of things into that, and it looks stunning, love it

[@escobar9866]

Although I still wonder: Can the Tungsten Hexafluoride sink into some kind of liquid? I think it would be great for a next video to see if that's possible, given the fact that most of the gases tend to basically go up.

[@KallePihlajasaari]

Cody's Lab did an episode on Frobscottle.

[@amittsabary3907]

The speaker works very differently from your vocal chords, it basically plays given frequencies, hence the pitch doesn't change with the gas.

[@nigeldepledge3790]

Another fantastic video showcasing a substance that I never even knew I didn't want to work with! I have two guesses about the aluminium foil boat. Either (1), the HF reacts with the aluminium and puts holes in the boat, or (2), the tungsten deposited on the boat by the reaction of aluminium with WF6 is enough to make the boat heavy enough to lose buoyancy.

[@andrewz2854]

Was not expecting to see gaseous tungsten today. How wild. The foil balloon demonstration was my favorite because it illustrates the characteristic density of tungsten. Equal size balloons yet the tungsten has so much more mass and falls quickly like a solid object.

[@Koozomec]

A gaz made of horrors and nightmares. Impressive video as usual. The air inflated baloon weight the same as the flat one because of buyoancy. But hard to weight it inside a vaccum chamber. Also your neighbours : x_x

[@MCPicoli]

IMO, one of the most surreal science videos out there.

[@hotketchup100]

I feel like the boats sank because of the WF6 above the boats sinking down onto the boat. adding more force. Just like with regular boats, if they fill with water, they sink.

[@TheLiverX]

Sounds like a perfect theme for a heavy metal band. Tungsten Hexafluoride: A very heavy metal band.

[@nirodper]

the ballon filled with air weighs the same as an empty one because of archimedes' principle

[@brys555]

It should be heavier by a tiny fraction due to air being under higher pressure than air around.

[@zychinho]

Air density is approx. 1 g/l. 1 g/ml is a density of water :)

[@youdoyouplayer8529]

Is the blueing reaction with aluminum just a layer of tungsten blue that has reacted with the aluminum? Can it be scraped off?

[@StarScapesOG]

Being trapped in a room that is slowly filling with extremely cold WF6 would be one of the worst possible ways to go....

[@christopherleubner6633]

New phobia unlocked.😮

[@collectorguy3919]

Clamoring up anything to get higher in the room to delay the inevitable.

[@olieboer]

So when you do these experiments, where does the wf6/hf go? Do you just vent it off into the atmosphere, or is there some form of recapture?

[@patrickjanecke5894]

Wacky idea: inject liquid helium into a pressurized container of WF6 (at least 80°C and 10 bar). Does the liquid float above the gas before the helium boils and the WF6 condenses? What would it look like?

[@jpolowin0]

I recall seeing a video along those lines a couple of years ago. It involved a small glass ampule which allowed the system to be above 1 atm pressure. But I don't remember what components were used. The behaviour was as you'd expect: the bubbles sank in the liquid. Unfortunately, the result wasn't as "dramatic" as one would get from a larger system, just a bubble moving around in a tightly-confining tube.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Actually those cylinders are intended to be filled with argon and helium with the WF6 gas. It is used to coat things with pure tungsten in a CVD machine. Most commonly it is used to make first surface mirrors on silica that end up being finished with gold silver or aluminum. The tungsten helps the vaporized metals stick to the mirror blanks. CVD machines use some unbelievably toxic and dangerous chemicals ime.❤

[@KitsuneCentral]

@@jpolowin0 Ah yes.. Frobscottle!

[@jpolowin0]

@@KitsuneCentral Hah! Yes, that's the keyword/clue, thanks! The video is "Can You Float a Liquid on a Gas?" from @theCodyReeder AKA Cody'sLab . The gas was high-pressure xenon and he experiments with a number of liquid phases. Plain water doesn't work because it forms a clathrate with xenon, but mineral oil / alcohol and NaK work to give liquids that float on gas. It would *not* be good to try any of these liquids with WF6, *especially* not the NaK. :-)

[@cheeseburger118]

considering helium vaporizes at like 2K or so, it would explosively boil on contact with something at 80C

[@SpencerHHO]

30 seconds in and I'm already intimidated hydrogen fluoride is scary.. Edit: how did you contain and clean up all that hydrofluoric acid you made?

[@highlander723]

Can you imagine the nightmare scenario if a semi trailer containing tungsten hexafluoride tipped over and cracked open.... anybody has Sam rainey's number or Roland emmerich?

[@craigkaufman5209]

Oil refineries use hydroforic acid in large quantities. A HF leak is an absolute nightmare as it passes through tissue until it finds the calcium in your bones and becomes calcium hydrochloride. Think boneless chicken..

[@davidblum4395]

Nice to know this guy is just pumping this stuff into the air we breathe...

[@hamishfox]

7:10 the WF6 is overflowing into the boat and filling it up. If you made it more like a balloon so the air is trapped inside, or didn't fill the container up so much so the boats don't get WF6 inside them I bet it would float.

[@hamishfox]

10:00 if you fill the balloon with the same air it is surrounded with it's not going to register any more weight on the scale because the difference in volume is being offset by the bouyancy. The air inside the balloon is the same density as the air around it so any extra volume is cancelled out by atmosphere. Basically it doesn't matter if the air is inside the balloon or above it, the reading will be the same.

[@thedownwardmachine]

I feel like that scene of flocking in a field, playing ball with a Tyvek suit and respirator, is pretty much mankind’s future.

[@Darksteelflame]

My guess why the boats didnt float is that there is a layer of less concentrated WF6 on top that the boats can fall through. That fills them with WF6 and that causes them to sink just a bit under the more concentrated layer. Thats when they float for a bit while the more concentrated stuff fills them until they just fall. But idk, could be something entirely different.

[@DanielMether]

The choice of glove color when retreiving the boats at 7:15 definitely freaked me out for a moment.

[@MadScientist267]

Feliks! Been a minute man... Good to see you.

[@pvc988]

That bluetooth speaker turned, well, blue. I am suprised its electronics didn't immediately corrode and die. BTW. The tone doesn't change because vibrations of the speaker are not caused by the gas but by magnetic force. Plastic recorder with a pump would make a better demonstration.

[@8546Ken]

This should be tested with an organ pipe or whistle.

[@prid3_33]

I couldn't imagine how hard this chemical would be to work with. Only a tiny amount of that in your lungs would be devastating, if not deadly, in just a few moments, too.

[@clownbooface2624]

Sparky here, Fun fact... its sulphurous cousin SF6 is used inside high voltage circuit breakers globaly for arc suppression when switching

[@benjaminshropshire2900]

WF₆ has a Molar mass of 297.8 and a boiling point of a slightly cool room. Depending on what you call a gas: ReF₆ has a Molar mass of 300.2 and a boiling point of the average high for LA California in July. OsF₆ has a Molar mass of 304.2 and a boiling point just above the record high for Sacramento California. IrF₆ has a Molar mass of 306.2 and a boiling point of a rare steak. UF₆ has a Molar mass of 352.0 and a boiling point of a medium rare steak.

[@KallePihlajasaari]

That "rear stake" was an unusual temperature reference. :-)

[@benjaminshropshire2900]

@@KallePihlajasaari I'm blaming autocorrect.

[@stevebabiak6997]

@@benjaminshropshire2900 - there’s still a “rare stake” typo

[@benjaminshropshire2900]

​​@@stevebabiak6997as far as I can tell "rare" is the (a?) correct spelling ... Doh... "steak" not "stake".

[@imihajlow]

Each reaction has its own specific soundtrack.

[@raychat2816]

12:19 the image of a human in such a suit, in a green field, not in clear blue skies, playing with a ball is particularly dystopian one 😂😂

[@posxd3865]

Beginning of this video looks like an opening of a good game.

[@HighOverlordSnarffieBeagle]

filling a ball shaped balloon reminds me of the tungsten baseball, there is 2.75 inch tungsten spheres you can buy and a baseball is 2.85-2.9 inches so if you sew the leather of a baseball onto it it's the same size as a baseball but weighs 6.6 pounds

[@itsRakesh]

7:10 The WF6 was really unstable at the surface, and hence when u lowered the boat in, the gas just got into the boat similar to how water would enter a boat, therefore sinking it.

[@palleppalsson]

The forbidden bass voice maker. I get one breath.

[@robmacl7]

The arugula had it coming, but the flower thing was pretty creepy.

[@THYZOID]

Crazy. Was eagerly waiting to see the entire WF6 cylinder? barrel? since you showed it

[@ChemicalForce]

Hey! This type of cylinder is actually quite common. You can see the same one in the video at this timecode (1:57): kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZDKpH6LYr6cpJo

[@christopherleubner6633]

These type of cylinders are used a lot for semiconductor fab CVD machines for reactive chemicals. Also seen them used for high purity rubidium and cesium metals as well with a built in heating jacket. ❤

[@StormTheSquid]

The reason the sound from the speaker didn't change is because the pitch shift caused by different gasses isn't due to the gas itself, but due to the speed of sound in that gas and the resulting change in speed of our vocal cords. Speakers, however, virtually do not care about the speed of sound changing, because the magnets in the speaker are stronger than our vocal cords and can actually power through at above the speed of sound.

[@Thugshaker_thequaker]

I think the reason it didn’t change the sound of your voice is because of the way your vocal cords produce sound

[@sonicblackhole3559]

I have never felt this much fear from a chemical before not even NCl3 has scared me this much I’m impressed you even decided to handle it

[@billcook4768]

Handle? He filled a ballon with it and kicked it. That’s going a wee bit too far if you ask me.

[@KYO297]

I wish it wouldn't dissolve my lungs if I tried to breathe some in. The voice from that must be mad deep.

[@anoobis117]

I don't know why but the editing at 4:45 when the flake flies away and the arrow disappears made me laugh uncontrollably

[@hamishfox]

9:45 that's not how speakers work. The frequency is determined by electrical impulses, not the physical vibration of some meat caused by air. All you would achieve is making the speaker hotter and quieter and making the sound get to you slightly faster. Since the electrical frequency isn't affected by the gas surrounding it it won't change the tone of the speaker.

[@EliasExperiments]

Wow absolutely impressive demonstrations. Thank you for sharing this!

[@studentjohn]

Just from the video, the tungsten hexafluoride in the aluminium boat experiment did not seem to have a well defined surface, with fairly large masses of it leaping up over the top of the yank. So I imagine that, for the boats, it was like trying to stay afloat on a stormy sea - they quickly filled with the gas and sank.

[@Drawgur2705]

That seems reasonable for that experiment. I did wonder if there was another reason for the boats' sinking. Now I have one.

[@Logan-ts4tf]

You murdered the food my food eats! Thanks for the lab lesson this is really cool

[@Logan-ts4tf]

With the boat, you left the gas on so maybe it submerged its self with the turbulent flow instead of at a more resting state.

[@guilhermealveslopes]

Your editing is phenomenal, good work!

[@TatsuZZmage]

so watching a rose melt was something I had never seen before. So if you filled a aquarium of SF6 first and used that as a barrier gass could you prevent the HF formation?

[@abc5228]

beautifull images, beautifull flowers, excellent photography.

[@Loschh]

Whoa. That gas is like a Necromancers spell of death and decay.

[@NikBumblewolf]

I was wondering how deep your voice would sound if you breathed it in, but then I saw the flowers melting... Screaming I will assume now. Very deep, unsettling, and agonizing screaming that I do not wish to ever hear. I am no longer curious.

[@sussybawka9999]

Warning: I haven't watched the video yet, so I might be jumping the gun. According to a blog post by Eugene Bobukh, WF6 *might* fall just shy of being the heaviest gas, with Ge(CF3)3F being slightly heavier.

[@alexpotts6520]

Is this a recent discovery? Good to see germanium get some attention, it's definitely an extremely forgotten element.

[@Yora21]

Seeing claims of a tungsten gas sounded very strange. But seeing the WF6 in the full video title immediately made sense. Though now I have to ask, what about uranium fluoride?

[@SatisfyingWhirlpools]

I think the boats didn't float because they weren't very deep boats. If the boat was wider and had taller walls it should work

[@cendre2386]

Great video, just when you show the density of air and WF6 it should be L-1 and not mL-1

[@ChemicalForce]

Before posting, I checked the formulas so carefully for errors, but I missed this point. Damn it!

[@noahwinslow2692]

God your channel scares the hell out of me. But damn do I love your content! I’m a chemistry major