Extracting Silicon Dioxide from Dirt

[@qm3ster]

2:13 Dry the wets (or they won't sieve) 3:07 Wet the drys (4 times) 3:48 Dry the wets 4:16 Wet the drys 5:16 Semidry the wets 5:22 Wet the wets 5:36 Dry the wets 5:49 Superdry the wets 7:44 Superdry the superdrys until they're wet (?) 8:35 Wet the drys 9:38 Wet the wets 10:54 Dry the wets 11:09 Wet the drys 11:12 Dry the wets ...

[@MemzDev]

nice

[@PotooBurd]

Beautiful 😂

[@tatatugapro6462]

Awesome

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

Life of a Chemist.

[@RussellTeapot]

2:34 "... .999 Laboratory-grade analytical dirt" ok, I'm subscribing

[@dancoroian1]

The cops didn't really like my answer when they caught me digging in the woods late at night and I told them I was simply doing "peak chemistry"

[@Delta7Smith]

I like how you're honest about personal failures and how you resolved those.

[@ixrer]

At the beginning with the music, I thought I'd somehow ended up on a Dankpods video lol. But I adore your chemistry, gonna toss a subscribe

[@j.kakaofanatiker]

I wish I had huh duh six hundos to listen to that.

[@PixlRainbow]

You probably know this already, but the ground is made up of multiple layers. The surface layer, topsoil, is rich in organic material. You probably want to dig a bit deeper, or find a patch of eroded soil, to get some dirt that doesn't start out with nearly as much organic impurities.

[@ElementalAer]

Yes, digging down until the soil is lighter than the top is good, just mineral soil, almost no organic junk, a good place to pick up too is on river beds, the water already do the work on washing it up.

[@MGSLurmey]

Even better, just go down to a beach to gather your dirt there and- oh. The point is to extract the silicon dioxide from regular, dirty, topsoil. Filtering off the organic material is part of the journey.

[@ElementalAer]

@@MGSLurmey eh, dirt in general have a lot of non organic contaminants, like metal oxides, who are tricky to remove from the silicon dioxide, but in a way, the organic junk add a bit of fun for the extraction (and beach sand has contaminants too)

[@GodlikeIridium]

Analytical grade dirt 😂 You are funny. And brave! I wouldn't dare to touch grass, especially without PSE! 😮 Nice video 👌 Edit: Fun fact: That's pretty much what NIST Standards are. Standard products, but maximally homogeneous and tested a huge number of times for statistical use for analytical labs, to compare results to see how accurate they are. So you can buy a jar of NIST peanut butter... For 100x the usual price. But it's fair, for use as standard for fatty acid analysis for example.

[@mastershooter64]

100% pure cookie

[@TheTubejunky]

That earned my sub!

[@Leadvest]

1:20-1:45 This is groundbreaking content!

[@sebastianmolas9347]

Im amazed of your Channel, I've got only few chemistry practices in my biochem eng undergrad, therefore I have to educate myself with Channels like yours, nile red, that chemist, etc. Thank you for contributing to my learning,

[@demandred1957]

also Nurd Rage..

[@qvatch]

for our soil labs we always started by putting the sample through a furnace to destroy any organics. Also lets you get a nice dry weight

[@dominiklukacs7677]

so silicon dioxide is dirtn't

[@rogerkidd6103]

Not exactly, this is one of the ingredients that make dirt

[@kid_missive]

why is this so satisfying? Maybe because I did not expect you to be able to remove all the soil coloured components so easily.

[@ChemicalEuphoria]

awesome video! just a few useful tips: it will be easeier to melt the hydroxide first and then add the raw SiO2, then also its quite bad for the glass frit to filter the silicate-silicon dioxide-hydroxide mix because there is some hydroxide left so i'd use a buchner instead.

[@IR2D2I]

@Amateur.Chemistry thank you for the thanks at the end of the video :) I'm looking forward to your next videos, especially the spicy ones ;) the first one was great... Alfred N would be proud of you :)

[@Kevin-cq5dg]

A chemist touching grass? Asteroid incoming...😂

[@robertolimadaconceicao4658]

I cant believe he touched the grass😮

[@MarianLuca-rz5kk]

Why chemists wouldn't touch grass ?!

[@phjV2]

@MarianLuca-rz5kk just an silly joke that scientist didn't have contact with nature. In my opinion, be far to nature is what make people sick and out of natural resources of healing that the body have...

[@StanleyMec]

Me watching this vid: "Huh I've never seen this guy yet. Good content!" "Damn god quality" Seeing PLN in the patreon in outro: "HE'S POLISH?!? Jakim cudem znalazłem dobry kontent z chemii u Polaka?!?!!" You're one of a kind I guess :)

[@matix1818]

też o tym pomyślałam gdy zobaczyłem na pompie polszczyznę

[@Alnidru]

I just found you, but you edition is really clean and nice to watch, and the content is awesome

[@Amateur.Chemistry]

Thanks!

[@ingenitussapientia]

Privileged to see this rare event, surely you are a pioneer and many chemists will now work hard to aspire to also touch grass.

[@kennethjanczak4900]

You got my attention, this was interesting.. Thanks for taking the time to make the video and share it.

[@Metal_Master_YT]

there is a way to avoid the sodium hydroxide step, which involves either crushing the sand to a very fine powder, or finding very fine sand. the particle size simply needs to be smaller than the crystal size of the minerals in the rock that the sand came from, this means that every individual mineral is exposed, and can be reacted with. and the only thing that will remain is the silicon dioxide grains, which are already silicon dioxide, which means no sodium hydroxide necessary.

[@saching2121]

Can this be done in Pre Wash state as well, i.e grinding into a fine powder ?

[@duncanfox7871]

Your filming is actually really high quality. I would like to reward you for the value you've given me and encourage you to keep going, do you accept donations? Even if it's small

[@Amateur.Chemistry]

I am glad that you like my content! I don't have something like paypal for one time donations, but I have Patreon, and the first tier is $3 so if you want you can support me this way.

[@SomeoneProbably-cf9es]

just sign up and emedietly stop @@Amateur.Chemistry

[@chemistry-experiments78]

Nice! Your videos are like NileRed's with those transformations like eggs to chloroform.

[@yogurtColombiano]

Such an amazing channel, thanks for the video!

[@nedisawegoyogya]

I like that you make something so mundane as dirt to be something many people interested in

[@nedisawegoyogya]

Hey here's a challenge: make a geopolymer

[@Metal_Master_YT]

Dude, I've always thought that this might be possible if only I had the resources ad tools to do it xD and you proved it!

[@GodlikeIridium]

4:44 Ahh, the poor mans reflux condenser! Love it. And use it too, despite working in a professional lab with lots of different reflux condensers. But time is money 👌

[@photonik-luminescence]

Pleas keep on doing such simple experiments. You use stuff that i can actually replicate and many other ! Pleas keep finding cool recepies to do with regular-ish compunds !

[@gocrazy432]

I always wanted to process dirt into chemistry magic

[@Coastal_Cruzer]

The raw masculine urge to process resources

[@anisbidran2733]

I love your channel , every thing. Speachily your funny humor jokes 2:36

[@PotooBurd]

Love your work! Comenting for the algorithm 🌻

[@1O3683e]

Nice video! I remember trying and failing to automate the opposite process in Minecraft a decade ago

[@zebusaqua4415]

Nilered be slacking. Keep up the good work!

[@THYZOID]

Interesting project!

[@Amateur.Chemistry]

Thanks!

[@LiborTinka]

You can make water glass or silica gel - there are many 'recipes' in various chemistry textbooks (e.g. Armarego, Brauer, Vogel). It's relatively easy to make and much cheaper than professional chromatographic silica gels from chem suppliers. Various types of aluminas are also worth of exploring.

[@Taras195]

You could hat treat the soil as a first step, to get rid of organic materials faster/easier. Awesome vid, you've got a new subscriber!

[@qm3ster]

Can I use this for baking?

[@tjeepert9782]

6:19 I thought silicon can't form double bonds? Can this exist because there is a constant equilibrium where the double bond is between the 3 oxygens? curious.

[@LuaanTi]

It really avoids forming double bonds, which is where we get the wild variety of silicate minerals. Quartz does not have double bonds - each silicon atom is actually covalently bonded to _four_ oxygen atoms (but each of them is shared with another silicon atom). But molecular silicon dioxide does exist. And it indeed has two double bonds, and it is linear just like carbon dioxide. Of course, that's not what was produced here; that would be your typical SiO4 (4+). But I don't think it's all that wrong to draw molecular silicon dioxide - it does _form_ , it's just that it polymerises very easily for obvious reasons. The double bond rule is not a rule; more like a... guideline. You'll find there are many molecules where silicon forms double bonds, and they aren't _unstable_ , really - they just polymerise easily and lose those double bonds.

[@ralfvk.4571]

Great Video. I also would like to see, what we can get out of the first HCl-wash. For sure, there are Elements like Iron and some more inside. The next step we need, is to produce our own HCl and H2S04 from the stuff, we find in nature. 🙂

[@cameronhunt5967]

If I had access to a furnaceand was doing the same project, I think I would have put the dirt in a furnace first, maybe with an oxidizer to burn off the organic material. Would that have made any of the next steps easier or require less caustic chemicals for cleaning?

[@vnuendru1]

Do you have any thoughts on what particle size of final product did you get?

[@guardiangamer2695]

Why you didn't just burn your technical grade dirt? It is like half of the work eliminated by just burning it

[@ricardosefa4186]

Can you use hcl instead of sulfuric acid?

[@Amateur.Chemistry]

yes

[@ricardosefa4186]

@@Amateur.Chemistry thanks it worked

[@accnumlike15thisyear]

can sulfuric acid be used in place of the hcl?

[@1495978707]

Aren’t the other oxides present, like aluminum, magnesium, iron, etc oxides going to come over as well?

[@Pseud0nymTXT]

I did the sodium silicate reaction in water and it seemed to work fine, just took a while, I did contaminate the solution with (i think) chromium ions after I couldn't find glass filters and tried to use stainless steel wool to filter off undissolved debris (like bugs) after I realised why my filter paper kept self destructing

[@BunnyOfChaos]

Czekam na materiał o ciekawych Aminach :P

[@victorgonzalez-lf7le]

How are you sure that you removed Al2O3? Since it reacts just like SiO2

[@zekiz774]

I find it so hilarious that you're basically making stone from dirt

[@rexhavoc5643]

Could you sum the energy inputs needed to convert clean "sand" (not dirt, such as a nice mineable deposit) into silicon dioxide, in optimal conditions? Include the energy production of the reagents. Then, the energy needed to convert SiO2 into metalloid silicon - for use in building solar cells. I suspect a solar cell will never return more energy than was needed to produce it.

[@AppliedCryogenics]

Some hot piranha solution would have removed all the organic bits prior to the conversion to silicate. Your sand would have been almost snow-white and have none of those black bits.

[@Hati321]

Does this remove the alumina and aluminosilicates as well?

[@droga_mleczna]

It should, as alumina reacts with HCl creating AlCl3

[@MrRajsta]

What size do you think that the silica is ?

[@ElBoboMan]

This looks like something you'd do in a modded minecraft skyblock

[@LuaanTi]

You'll find it in modded Factorio :P Even fairly hardcore minecraft modpacks, like GTNH, still rely a lot on magical electrolysers and the like which give you pure products for magic. Though with GTNH, fewer and fewer of those remain with each update, replaced with more realistic processes. I'm actually working on a game where separating things is a major part of any refining and you're always working with complex materials rather than pure molecules/elements; I'm sure there's around 100 players in the world who are really going to enjoy that ("Pyanodon's mods are _way_ too simplified!") :D

[@laharl2k]

you should try electrolysis on whatever the acid got out of the dirt to see which metals it had :P

[@ElementalAer]

It'll mostly get alkaline and group two metals, like calcium, sodium and potassium, and maybe a bit of transition ones like iron... But unless he get it to a specialized analyzer, we would see just a mess of combined metals, hydroxides and oxides.

[@djbojlerszaggato9602]

What kind of vacuum pump you using? I'm currently looking for one and i think this will be great.

[@vidyagaems4063]

I don't know much about chemistry, but wouldn't adding hydrogen peroxide in the hydrochloric acid wash step help? Shouldn't it burn some of the carbon, so that you don't have to filter so much?

[@spiderdude2099]

Very brave of you to touch grass, I could never. My lab efficiency would suffer

[@swoonerlg]

I dont understand ... what is grass ,outside, im soo confuse

[@simplydarkhalf3974]

Love the boots 1:52

[@R-Tex.]

Make TLC plates with it!

[@Metal_Master_YT]

I will also mention that if you simply make some piranha solution, it will do pretty much every step for you all at the same time, except for removing the iron impurities. there may also be titanium and feldspar impurities.

[@r0cketplumber]

Heh. I have plenty of sand in my yard with little organic matter- but in the Space Coast of Florida, most of the sand is just weathered coral and thus mostly calcium carbonate. I'd have to go a few hundred miles to find actual silicate sand.

[@sheerazhanifgul]

Is it hydrophobic?

[@JKKnudsen]

Sooo, you should have used some water, as a flux, to get the reaction going in the can. What you where left with was still sodium hydroxide and silicon dioxide . What dissolved was the sodium hydroxide, and when you added sulfuric acid you made sodium sulfate. The solution already being saturated, it came out of solution immediately. And at no point later did you add enough water to dissolve more than ~50g of sodium sulfate. So if there was 66g before you added 150ml water, there would still be 16g sodium sulfate undissolved in the solution. Just think about it, granular sand has about 160g/100ml, but after the "reaction" you still had almost 200ml of sand, where is the product coming from? If you stir all your product in a 500ml beaker of water, how much remains undissolved?

[@scottbruner9266]

“.999 fine, laboratory grade, analytical dirt….” Can’t stop laughing…..

[@diob.b.brando9202]

To get SiO2 you can add H2SO4 to liquid glass which is Na2SiO3 disolved in water

[@ابومريم-ط3ض]

very beautiful

[@smithsosian1671]

i swear your dad is a wizard

[@weemanling]

I have never seen dirt turned until sand. That was cool as fuck.

[@TheDuckofDoom.]

Depending on the crystaline structure silicon dioxide dust can be very damaging to breath. The amorphous structure is not terrible, but fully crystaline silica dust is very hazardous.

[@silizimon1293]

You could also try to do column chromatography with your silica. It might not be the right particle size but it would be really cool if it worked.

[@samarchist74]

Are you going to make elemental silicone via thermite?

[@Amateur.Chemistry]

Yes :)

[@samarchist74]

Noice!🫡

[@easyBob100]

When you say "dirt" you remind me of Ze Frank saying "birds" :D

[@derchromebacher4366]

It's the tactical chemist boots for me. And liking your own video. Sigma behaviour😌👌

[@R-Tex.]

Shout out to dads fixing stuff!

[@the_real_aristotle]

you gotta try to make ur own hcl and h2so4

[@HappBeeH]

Touching the grass cracked me up

[@unlockeduk]

not outside nooo im not doing it

[@nunyabisnass1141]

...i was thinking, you could have burned off the majority of the organic materials and washed the remaining salts away with water. The acid wash at this point would ne optional, but probably not necessary unless there was some really wierd contamination.

[@MaherSabbagh-de2vl]

3:12 T H E F O R B I D D E N C O F F E E

[@nekomasteryoutube3232]

TBH I never thought of dirt being a mix of sand and other stuff, it just always seemed like its own thing. To see the result after cleaning it looks like the sand I see at the lake shore beach in my city

[@bilbo_gamers6417]

awesome video! would it be possible to make a video about extracting the pure clay minerals, like kaolin and serpentinite, or at least removing the metallic impurities from a good quality reddish clay? Apparently oxalic or citric acid is good at dissolving metal impurities from clay. I've wanted to know if this was possible, so I could make my own crucibles without having to order in a bunch of stuff. the big thing i worry about if you were to try and refine clay minerals is that i feel like they're more delicate than just normal silicon dioxide, and using acid and heat might damage them and weaken them somehow. A well made kaolinite ceramic crucible with pure silicon dioxide as grog can withstand the temperature at which pure iron or platinum would melt. And crucibles for that sort of work are a pain to get.

[@Amateur.Chemistry]

Thanks! I could make a video about extracting some minerals form clay, and making some elemental aluminum but as of now I have a ton of other thing planned, but maybe in the future I will find some time :)

[@bilbo_gamers6417]

@@Amateur.Chemistry lol making aluminium is a tall order, i wouldn't recommend it unless you really wanted to do it. thanks for replying :)

[@rocketpadgamer]

5:57 average sand is actually grey and the dust is a lot larger

[@unnamed8395]

i am da 2nd patreon :)

[@Amateur.Chemistry]

Thank you very much!

[@edgeeffect]

"technical grade dirt" made me laugh. I find cut-down butane cylinders make excellent "cans" for chemical reactions and melting low-melting-point metals.

[@experimental_chemistry]

Better do not use a sintered glass funnel for filtering silicic acid because it might block its pores forever... 😲

[@Metal_Master_YT]

oh my gosh I hate that green iron chloride, it comes with every sample of sand/dirt/clay that you put into this reaction xD

[@fasted8468]

Silicon dioxide is mentioned in genesis 2, along with gold, and aromatic plants. "The gold of that land is good, there is onyx and aromatic plants there also" It's like they wanted us to build computers.

[@ElementalAer]

Well, mentioning almost any rock you are mentioning silicon dioxide, it's the most common compound in the planet by mass...

[@fasted8468]

@@ElementalAer good point. Makes we wonder why would they mention that the most common mineral on earth? Maybe something special about black onyx.

[@hunnybunnysheavymetalmusic6542]

HEH!!! WHERE I LIVE, SAND IS MORE OF A PROBLEM THAN A SOLUTION!!!

[@CShand]

Please do Lithium from Mica

[@DimasFajar-ns4vb]

peace be upon you sir and zamzam water

[@camj4631]

I would never ever put NaOH through your sintered funnel!

[@gmsaba9998]

Can you make a video about methanethiol. I heard it is a very stinky chemical😅.

[@tednelson5277]

But sand is not necessarily silicone dioxide. If ir is inorganic, it will almost certainly be a silicate mineral. Pure silica (siO2) sand is very uncommon.

[@Sleepy_zzzzz]

Step 1: weigh out 300 g of analytical grade dirt.

[@faq_is_love]

Aluminium oxide is as common as silicon oxide in dirt. And no, it doesn't dissolve in hydrochloric acid because it's embedded inside the crystals of sand. It reacts with sodium hydroxide and precipitates when adding acid the same as silicon oxide, so it does come over in the end product. But even ignoring that, you can see by the colour of the end product, that it is not pure in any sense and is contaminated with iron oxide and other contaminants. I expected more purification steps after that.

[@allangibson8494]

Most Glass isn’t silicon dioxide - it is mix of sodium silicate and calcium silicate. Lenses are often Calcium Fluoride (no silicon at all). Glass is actually a state of matter…

[@ushiocheng]

oh dear lord the moment I saw the title I was like you are super not suppose to do this at home. My father is in semiconductor sector and he took me to every plant on the steps except for the one that does this if that says anything as to how dangerous/dirty this stuff was. to be fair, it is not complicated and people do that on a industrial scale regularly. it just involves so much hazardous chemical and super dirty in terms of pollution (well low profit margin + not give a shit about environment back in that time) that very few regions allow those factories to operate (in a profitable way) iirc they essentially dissolve the pretty pure stuff in large amount of HF and get high purity silicon that way. also while you are at it how about try to grow some single crystalline silicon and cut them into wafers? that would be cool edit: after watching the video it isn’t as bad as I expected, glad that is the case edit2: did some quick research on how they do it. NOW I know why my father won’t let me there. Think about huge reactor vessel filled with heated H2 and SiH4 to get 11N Si. If that thing bursts the plant explode kind of stuff. closest I have been to SiH4 is in a CVD line and single crystalline silicon growing column. Yeah also have seen multiple vets of HF in half inch thick teflon and other stuff that are safe until anything went wrong. Also get to see SiH4 blow up once in the CCTV recording of an accident, nobody is hurt too bad though. scary stuff Also for anyone curious the 7N silicon pallets I get to see is a beautiful light blue color in a styrofoam texture. I am sure someone can figure out which process does that come from

[@thelonelybritV2]

1:29 Careful there, you might accidentially become a biologist.

[@Aligartornator13]

You have the fanciest aluminium foil in all of youtube!