He Made Chlorine at an Arby's

[@That_Chemist]

I will gradually edit and post most of the other Patreon chempilations, but there is some stuff which will *definitely be edited out* - if you want to see the unedited ones, you can go watch at www.patreon.com/thatchemist

[@aqdrobert]

"That Chemist: Outtakes and Gag Reels?"

[@ElektrischInkorrekt]

2:58 When do you go to university in the US? I'm working for a University at a Department, which does nearly the Same. And I would not one of them describe as 'kid'. (I would say, mean is 25-30y)

[@justarandomswed]

As a non chemist the biggest thing I have learned form this series is to fear bleach\chlorine and never mix it with anything

[@That_Chemist]

Valid tbh

[@That_Chemist]

@@ChemEDan yeah that combination would form acetyl hypochlorite

[@the_inquisitive_inquisitor]

@@That_Chemist What happens if you mix concentrated sulfuric acid with bleach?

[@amanawolf9166]

You want to send a shiver down your spine, look up the USCSB video about the mixup at Atchison, Kansas where some morons pumped some acid into a tank of Sodium Hypochlorite. Let's just say some bad, BAD thing happened.

[@pedrovargas2181]

@@That_Chemist What bubbles off when you pee on dilute bleach?

[@MushookieMan]

Chemicals in a workplace: Have to have a MSDS Chemicals in your cabinet: "It's a trade secret. Call poison control"

[@ebnertra0004]

Honestly, half the MSDSs I've seen say something like 'proprietary mixture' too

[@RobKaiser_SQuest]

Chemicals in a workplace *legally* have to have an MSDS

[@petevenuti7355]

What about inmates working in jail? They usually just give people with 70 iq's poison and tell them to go to hell if they question it...

[@ticklezcat5191]

@@RobKaiser_SQuest I once worked at a place where some smartass found and printed out the INDIVIDUAL SDS's for EACH separate colour of crayon and put them with the rest.

[@bestaround3323]

​@@ticklezcat5191 That is absolutely hilarious.

[@Alcorenshi]

EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT ARBYS

[@boldCactuslad]

cocaine on the chair? oral segs in a bathroom? chlorine gas? radioactive orphan source on the desk in the back? yeah, im thinkin arbys

[@1224chrisng]

Waffle House is a force of nature, and Denny's is a force of man. I couldn't imagine what kind of Frankenstein Arby's could become

[@petevenuti7355]

@ 2AM

[@lechking941]

but they also got some really good customer servace. like REALLY good. if i remember it right.

[@eVill420]

@@boldCactuslad oral sex in the bathrooms happens in every single place where they have doors in the stalls

[@klikkolee]

That dosimeter story pisses me off. The OP demonstrated that safety procedures were being violated and didn't harm anyone. At absolute worse, the OP stressed out the safety guy, but given that the safety guy was evidently not doing their job, I am disinclined to care. It is 0% appropriate to threaten any kind of sanction toward the OP, let alone expulsion. The absolute most the dean should've done is say "please just tell us if something like this is happening instead of causing a scare. If the safety guy isn't responding appropriately to reports, talk to XYZ"

[@PsRohrbaugh]

Glad someone else pointed this out.

[@davidg4288]

Scaring the hell out of the guy was harassment and tampering with safety equipment, and the perpetrator(s) are lucky they weren't expelled. The "victim" was also lucky he wasn't expelled for flagrantly and deliberately violating safety procedures. Back in the late 1970's some college classmates of mine interned at a nuclear equipment company. An employee at that company was an obvious spy and "accidentally" left his dosimeter everywhere so he could snoop in radiation areas and not get caught. The interns didn't have access to nuclear areas but did have access to x-ray equipment. So they put the spy's abandoned dosimeter right in from of an x-ray tube for like 10 minutes. The spy picked it up later, and when it was processed he was sure he was going to die. He was making his peace with his favorite deity when they quietly told him. He immediately ratted them out, but they denied it, said he must have done it himself to try to drum up a lawsuit. The company gave the interns the benefit of the doubt and the spy never ever entered their work area again. Needless to say this could have ended a lot worse!

[@christopherleubner6633]

Back when I used to work with radioactivity and x-ray equipment I would use both a digital electric dosimeter and an electroscope pen analog dosimeter. If you can get one, get the pistol like piezoelectric charging tool. They work with health physics 0 to 200mR and 0 to 500R doomsday dosimeters.

[@FayeVert]

I'm pretty sure they have to report dosimetry readings to a government authority of some sort, and the reason they were freaking out was because they were gonna have to explain to some guy from a humorless government agency why they had that dosimeter reading...

[@robertlapointe4093]

The story of neutralizing sulfuric acid with sodium hydroxide in a volumetric flask reminds me of the time I was preparing a solution of sodium oxalate for an undergrad lab (my freshman work study job was prepping solutions for the introductory chem class lab). The problem was we didn't have any sodium oxalate solid. When I asked the instructor, he said just mix oxalic acid and sodium hydroxide. So I weighed out enough of each compound to make 2 liters of 1M solution, and added the solids to a 2 liter volumetric flask. Then I started adding water. The first few milliliters went in fine, but that was enough to get the neutralization cooking and the result was an inverted steam rocket, which made an appropriate roar and blew a hole through the suspended ceiling in the prep lab. I am still amazed (this was 45 years ago) that the flask didn't burst, it just sat there imitating a jet pack at full throttle for way too long (maybe 10 seconds or so, long enough to get 4 moles of super-heated steam through the narrow neck of a volumetric flask).

[@the_inquisitive_inquisitor]

I don't know why, but there's a bottle of sulfuric acid under my kitchen sink.

[@earkittycat]

​@@the_inquisitive_inquisitor 😏

[@the_inquisitive_inquisitor]

@@earkittycat I bought it for a reason (using tannerite and sulfuric acid to make nitric acid to make nitrocellulose for model rocketry), I just don't know how it got from the basement to the kitchen sink.

[@petevenuti7355]

​​@@the_inquisitive_inquisitor clog? Cleaning the coffee maker? Hard water stain? De-calcinating the airator? Heck, precision addition of sulfate ion to alkaline hydroponic nutrient solution? So many uses!!!

[@the_inquisitive_inquisitor]

@@petevenuti7355 we do have a lot of minerals in the water... Lol

[@RobKaiser_SQuest]

It doesn't matter what field you work in, some fast food worker can match your craziest work story.

[@That_Chemist]

sagatheyoungin

[@tyrannosaurusimperator]

For sheer craziness with chemicals, nothing beats a pool. Evacuate because an acid tank sprung a leak? Been there, done that. Corrosion finally gets to the automatic chemical pump and it feeds base all night? Try explaining to a little kid that they can't get into the pool because it's basically a lye bath. There was a leak in one of our acid lines, and when the manager went into the pump house to adjust the chemicals, some dripped onto her. The safety shower worked and she was fine. Except as the manager, first responder, and victim, she had to fill out an incident report in triplicate. She also made staff run around the city searching for sufficient quantities of baking soda to clean up another acid spill. Words were exchanged when one of the staff returned and saw her sitting on a pallet of sodium bicarbonate, waiting for the baking soda. Also the rust. Turns out that giant tanks of acids, bases, and chlorine are not good for metal. Cast iron pool heater? Has more pitting than a golf ball. Chemical rated plumbing fittings? Replace annually to prevent leaks. Chromed wrench left in the pump room overnight? Covered in rust. Stainless steel? More like stained steel.

[@flickcentergaming680]

​@@tyrannosaurusimperatoronce when I was taking swimming lessons, the pool we were at had ALL the chlorine in it when we showed up. No swim lessons.

[@SmolPotatowo]

When I worked at McDonalds a couple girls smeared their "fecal material" all over the washroom. We had to get an outside cleaning crew to come in and deal with it.

[@MoonberryJam93]

As someone interested in chemistry, but with very little lab experience, I think these videos have done more to increase my awareness of the necessity for proper safety than any safety lecture I've had.

[@That_Chemist]

Thank you! That is very encouraging to hear :)

[@flickcentergaming680]

Couldn't agree more.

[@adamkrizek7596]

Hell that's true

[@JamesJames-r8t]

13:49 😂😂😂😂

[@onemoreguyonline7878]

Every food service worker is secretly a chemist when cleaning

[@amanawolf9166]

All fun and games until you make a crude form of phosgene and nearly kill yourself.

[@maxdelaney2184]

​@@amanawolf9166 as a food service worker thats when its the cleanest

[@Mr_Bedlam215]

On the subject of labels not listing the chemicals inside their containers: It's rampant here in the USA. I work at an auto parts store, and almost none of them list what's in the bottle. P.S. good luck with your PhD defense!

[@That_Chemist]

Thanks! Auto parts stores are one of the worst offenders

[@lechking941]

this is a lawsuit waiting to happen for you, then its sent to suppliers.

[@Mr_Bedlam215]

@@lechking941 It would be nice if that happens, but I'm not gonna bank my future on it lol

[@SeaSqueeze]

The Arby's story reminds me of when one of the assistant managers at the Taco Bell I used to work at mixed most every degreaser and cleaning fluid we had into a mop bucket and started cleaning up an exploded soda syrup box off of the floor. I was tasked with cleaning the walls and ceiling afterwards and my eyes were burning the entire time from whatever was coming off of that floor. I don't remember a lot of the product names anymore since they were all in plain EcoLab packaging but I do remember finding out that some of the cleaning products on their own were pretty nasty while reading the SDS binder after the soda syrup ordeal.

[@stefangadshijew1682]

Degreaser shouldn't be too bad. "Cleaning fluid" is quite ambiguous, if it was just a tenside solution, nothing much would happen. Problem 1) "cleaning solutions" lose their ability to function if they are not at the right pH. If you mix anionic and kationic tensides, they are not going to work. Problem 2) If one of the cleaning solutions happened to be bleach, you would have had a really bad time. Mixing bleach with _anything_ is a bad idea. Mixing bleach with hydrochloric acid produces chlorine gas, mixing bleach with ammonia produces toxic and explosive chloramines that react further to carcinogenic hydrazine. Depending on the concentration and the ventilation in the room, this could be quite dangerous. The best way to clean up exloded soda would be warm water, by the way.

[@the_inquisitive_inquisitor]

EcoLab's EcoSan for food preparation surfaces is a chlorinated bleach solution; the floor cleaning solution has a "powerful blend of surfactants" so who knows what that means.

[@SeaSqueeze]

@@the_inquisitive_inquisitor The SDS usually says what it is if you can find it. I hate that they don't list the ingredients on the packaging. Seems kind of unsafe to not know what you're dealing with while cleaning. The packets of gel concentrate especially.

[@stefangadshijew1682]

@@the_inquisitive_inquisitor A "powerful blend of surfactants" means that they put whatever soap-like compound in there that they can get for cheap. :D Most likely completely benign unless you get it into your eye. The chlorinated bleach solution is of course potentially dangerous if mixed, especially with toilet cleaner (Hydrochloric acid), certain window cleaner and sink cleaner (ammonia).

[@dantefernandez2455]

With the sheer amount of chlorine huffing that happens on this channel, I honestly think you should just take the audio clip "sipping on straight chlorine" from that 21 pilots song and play it every time someone almost turns their lungs into an opp. It'd be hilarious!

[@emrilbennett8704]

Lol

[@Envrionmela]

"let the intrusive thoughts win" is the famous last words for anything chemistry-related.

[@drrocketman7794]

I've used the chemical heaters from Army MREs (Meal, Ready to Eat) and made bottle bombs out of them. You slice open the packet inside the bag and pour the stuff out, add a couple ounces of water and cap it, then shake it up really well. I don't know what's in them, some reactive metal like magnesium (when you burn an unused heater pack it burns with a whooshing sound and a blinding blue-white flame). It goes just like the HCl/aluminium foil bomb.

[@guy-sl3kr]

I love how the song that came to your mind when you read "boss music" was Guile's theme 😂

[@That_Chemist]

I’m glad somebody recognized it :)

[@05Matz]

Yeah, consumer stores selling stuff without a composition listed is inexcusably dangerous and also extremely common. I want a composition for everything I work with, at least, preferably an MSDS too.

[@jlp1528]

Wow, thank you for featuring my story! It was even more satisfying than I thought it would be to have it read back by someone else, and i feel like you were born to read these. The personal quirks and comments you add are just the right mix of amusing and informative. The tier lists are good, but these are my favorite among your videos. Keep doing both and more though, and thanks again!

[@noahater5785]

Ah, kind of sort of reminds me of the story from a few videos ago where someone was working on a project where bromine was involved, took a lunch break at a nearby Arby's (?) just down the street from the building housing their labratory, the project was left unattended and still going, and upon returning back to work accidentally filled the building with a gigantic vapor cloud of bromine gas.

[@That_Chemist]

ah yes, 'Bromine Burns'

[@tomkerruish2982]

The end of the first one reminds me of a saying from my (first) college: 90% of a lethal dose of anything will get you off.

[@That_Chemist]

A friendly reminder that an ld25 exists below an ld50

[@tomkerruish2982]

@@That_Chemist Sure.. if you're a 🐈.

[@petevenuti7355]

​@@tomkerruish2982 Cheshires or Schrodinger's ‽ Nevermind, Maybe best you don't look...

[@Kizunaut]

Speaking of accidental chlorine gas production, this didn't happen to me, but to a friend of mine. I have a buddy who is into home brewing, he makes all sorts of alcoholic drinks by fermenting various berries and fruits and malt. One time he was cleaning out a batch of bottles he had used to store some sort of berry wine. The bottles were empty, but apparently some of them had a very small amount of liquid residue at the bottom. Since sterilizing the gear you use for fermenting and the bottles you use for storage is pretty important he used a mix of water and some sort of chlorine based disinfectant for cleaning. He had used it several times without problems, but this time around he put the cleaning mix into one of the bottles with some leftover gunk without properly emptying the bottle beforehand. The miniscule amount of leftover berry wine reacted with the chlorine and produced some sort of noxious gas. It wasn't bad, he suffered only minor irritation but he had to open all the windows and get out of his apartement for a while. Lesson learned, apparently chlorine reacts really agressively to even small amounts of contaminants.

[@etuanno]

The stuff I brew by stuff in at home isn't cleaned properly, I have to admit. I just rinse it out with boiling water after it's done. The mayor contaminants are from the brewing product, probably leftover yeast (that survived the boiling water).

[@zeeky7172]

the only thing i’ve learned from all of these is don’t mix things with chlorine and always wear gloves and goggles if you’re even thinking about working with chemicals of any kind

[@That_Chemist]

those are good things to take away!

[@angelcruz4870]

I'm not a chemist, and neither is my mom. But, she works as a maid at a nearby house in our neighborhood because it's near and they give us free food everyday (the food is amazing not gonna lie). So, she doesn't really want to leave even if this was happening to her. Basically, just like the customer in the pool shop guy story about muriatic acid in a previous episode, her boss would use COPIOUS AMOUNTS of muriatic acid on anything she can clean with it, and not only muriatic acid, but also bleach and several other disinfectants. As a result, the hinges of bathroom doors at their house are literally degrading and their family has a history of diseases. What makes matters worse would be her boss' sister who used to mentor my mom around the workplace said "Why are you covering your mouth? This doesn't kill you." WHILE POURING LITERAL MURIATIC ACID AND BLEACH INTO THE TOILET WITHOUT ANY PPE. When I first heard about this, I GOT REALLY MAD KNOWING WHAT COULD HAPPEN WHEN YOU DO THAT. So, my mom just doesn't use the stuff and only uses like drops of bleach after I told her, but her bosses keeps on insisting to use bpth bleach and a possibly ammonia containing disinfectant (which, you guys probably know produces chloramine gas) and SOMETIMES EVEN MURIATIC ACID ON TOP OF ALL THAT. I still hate it to this day and wish she could get a new job.

[@laurdy]

I'm sure i've posted this before but, This reminds me of an incident at secondary school: Our teacher did the elephants toothpaste experiment then decided to show us that the gas produced was oxygen by plunging a lit splint into it, the splint just went out due to the water also produced. So he decides to retry it this time adding some denatured alcohol to the mixture. I point out that this seems to be a bad idea (fuel vapour combined with pure oxygen), He denies this and continues. This time when he brought a lit splint to it, it exploded and I said: I told you so! Luckly the only real damage was some stains on the ceiling.

[@plagvebaby]

Sir, this is an Arby's

[@That_Chemist]

Argonby's

[@alvg153]

Reminds me of that time where I was in a lab with a classmate and we where using ammonia. Teacher tells us to put it back under the fumehood once we're done using it because it's irritating. Dude turns to me and says : "Wait ammonia smells bad ??" so I'm like "yeah, wtf how can you not smell it" so he tells me to bring some for the experiment but before he wants to try out what it's like. So I'm like "uhhh yeah sure", I bring some and idk if it's because of the mask at that time but he can't smell anything. I was like "tf??? how is that even possible". But anyway we needed to get some again so I went back and tried with him again : "nothing dude" I'm like "no way you're just kidding me bro". Turns out we failed this one so I went AGAIN to grab some and we tried one last time. So dude, not having smelled anything on the past attempts, sniffed as hard as he could and I immediatly understood that this time it worked. Dude dropped the test tube and starts holding his nose, saying slurs in a hoarse voice, regretting his poor life decisions. He told me the next day that he had flashes where he could smell it for an instant. I've had the same experience with tryethylamine so looking back it it seems fair.

[@williamlux]

I discovered why bleach and vinegar dont mix today. I was cleaning out a chest freezer (it was empty but had sat for like a year and needed to be wiped down) and used bleach, and after i was done there was some stains left and i thought "hey, vinegar should get rid of that" but had the brainpower to attempt to get rid of the bleach by pouring water into the freezer and wiping it out. I apparently didn't get all of it out as like a minute after the vinegar was added and I was scrubbing, my eyes started burning (I was wearing a respirator with P100 filters to reduce the bleach I was smelling (worked very well)) so I walked away and got more water to wash it out with. Came back like 5 minutes later after leaving the lid open to air it out and dried it and called it good. Very fortunate to have been wearing that respirator in case there was a damaging amount of chlorine made.

[@YoungGandalf2325]

I just assumed that this is where Arby's Au Jus dipping sauce comes from.

[@acrothdragon]

One incident I remember told to me was a lab where a guy was distilling mercury which required that the mercury be boiling. While everything was set up correctly the glass the mercury was boiling in exploded and burned through his PPE with some splashing on his hand causing a nasty second degree burns. Luckily this was under a fume hood and didn’t inhale the fumes. But the clean up took days to pull up all the tile to recover the mercury.

[@Drag0nmaster]

Never mix cleaning liquids. This one woman at a target accidentally made MUSTARD GAS!!!

[@OverNine9ousend]

Came to say new logo slaps! Anyway, love the videos. I have 0 chem knowledge, tho after watching your channel i am "starting" to grasp concepts. I did go thru your chem for beginners, no luck.. Would you be willing to re do the 101 but with actual real life examples of reactions and exchanges occurring? Regardless, thanks for spreading knowledge my dude, good content!

[@KYO297]

Nothing happened when I was in any lab at my university so far but once I had a lecture at the chemistry department and when we were leaving after it ended some of us could feel the faint smell of H2S (or something similar). The next day it turned out there was an evacuation 15 minutes after we left because a fumehood failed

[@mr_fishpockets]

I was doing a high school lab once (so minimal ppe/just goggles) and my partner and I spilled a little HCl. It got on top of our setup - which was a concave watch glass and not a huge deal. Later, when we had to move the dish, my partner lost her grip on the watch glass and it started falling towards the floor. On instinct, I caught the glass, but stuck my fingers into the HCl and my palm onto the junk on the underside of the glass. It taught me to just let things fall, especially if I'm not wearing gloves.

[@GypsyDanger2000]

I loved your channel, but ive gained a new appreciation for it after im in a cbrn job.

[@7636kei]

Gonna admit your chempilations got me thru my rehab phase after I broke my upper left arm, even though I'm not a chemist by trade (majored CompSci, now a govt employee (civil registration)).

[@okboomer6201]

Place a small (50 mL) Erlenmeyer flask half full of Pine-sol in the back of your lab fridge to keep it smelling fresh. This works in incubators too.

[@EdwardTriesToScience]

sealing a bottle with toilet cleaner and foil to make it explode is surprisingly common that it has a name, "the works bomb" (named after a brand of toilet cleaner), teens make them and bomb mailboxes usually and they are really powerful since soda bottles are designed to hold pressure, they're actually bad enough that they are illegal here in the states (alongside dry ice ones and pool chlorine ones or any bottle that explodes due to gas buildup). they are reportedly as loud as a shotgun and is able to easily mangle a mailbox, definitely something not to mess with at all for the arbys one i would have a guess that the phosphoric acid used in drinks just caused bleach to make chlorine, a worker for transporting soda concentrate once said that the syrup would burn holes through clothing if they weren't careful

[@crash.override]

I'll give The Works credit, it actually works at removing stubborn toilet bowl stains. Bleach and CLR are weak sauce. But yeah, there's a good reason the directions call for GOGGLES and gloves! And ventilation. Fucking HCl as the active ingredient; I've seen enough Periodic Videos to respect it.

[@PsRohrbaugh]

Good luck with that Pretty Huge Dissertation

[@That_Chemist]

thanks :)!

[@CoolguyMcCool]

My parents decided to sell their house a couple years back. I was helping them clean, and made a homemade floor cleaner from a recipe I found online. As I recall, it was vinegar, water, isopropyl alcohol, and essential oils of some kind. We move the washer and oh boy there was mold. No big deal, I'll add bleach to my mop bucket, nevermind the fact that it's got vinegar and alcohol in it. I'm told I made chloroform and chlorine gas. I should have known not to do that, I am a chemistry major after all.

[@ucitymetalhead]

I definitely found out how stinky vinegar is and I remember one time as a janitor at a college being sent to clean up a spill in a chemistry lab and praying that that what I was mopping up really was water.

[@noxthemc7717]

The legend of the Spicy Puddle lives forever

[@koled224]

This is why I do quantum/computational Chem lol. Also: petition for a ThatChemist "never ever do it it is death" sound drop.

[@Lemubaby8]

Also an Arbys employee here: the bathroom cleaner we use is mainly bleach so its entirely possible that was what got mixed, and I don't know what nincompoop thought bathroom cleaner was the appropriate chemical for a soda spill, but we will hire just about anyone...

[@arcturax]

Love this channel! I have a pretty good one, you are free to use if you want for a vid in the future. I live in a small suburb near the countryside and we get the usual problem you get in such places, ground moles that tear up your yard by leaving tunnels and piles of dirt everywhere. I had a neighbor who was obsessed with having a super clean yard and he decided to take action. He told me that in his youth he worked at a store and decided to clear a floor and used a mix of ammonia and bleach and it had felt like his lungs were turned inside out and put him in the hospital. Flash forward to today, he decided this mishap of his teen years back in the 60s would offer a solution to his mole problem, and he proceeded to pour a jug of ammonia and bleach down one of the mole tunnels. First off, I am really glad I live upwind of his place because holy sh*t! He said he waited a few minutes and claims he heard the moles "going crazy down in there" trying to escape this cloud of death he had filled the tunnels with. The sounds of their death throes he claimed to hear apparently gave him such nightmares he couldn't bring himself to try to kill them anymore. What can I say, this guy was a real character like something out of a sitcom.

[@That_Chemist]

💀💀💀

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

I meant over at work, and my pedometer got in between the x-ray source and read head of a trauma radiographic image intensifier, didn't notice. Until my dosimeter got read at the end of the week, that gave me a great deal of respect for our medical physicists.

[@XPimKossibleX]

For thr fridge acid situation, the humane thing would be to attach a note to the outside, to let the movers at least know to check if it the acid was left and they were in danger.

[@FayeVert]

Yeah the chemistry specialist, the supervisor, AND the guy telling the story are all guilty of putting those guys' lives in danger.

[@TheVodkaSniper]

Heres some funny stories from when I worked in an electroplating factory. This was back before I went to university, so I didnt know anything about chemistry. We used sulfuric acid to dissolve silver that would aggregate on the steel racks during the electroplating process. Unfortunately, I dont know if there were any additives to the sulfuric acid, it if it was pure. All I knew was that it needed to be heated in order to strip the racks of silver. At room temperature, our giant vats of sulfuric acid didnt emit any gasses, so we could work around it without out full face respirators. However, once it started to get up to working temperature, sorry I forget exactly what that was, it would start fuming like crazy, so we'd need to wear full face respirators while working with/around it. Proper procedure to check if the vats were up to working temperature is to don the respirator well away from the vats, walk over to the vats, and then take the temperature with a probe. Me, having no hazardous chemical training whatsoever, would walk over to the vats, Inhale deeply, and if it felt like I got sucker punched in my stomach and started violently coughing, it was ready to be used! It was at that point I would get my respirator and go about my business. Another thing I learned via observation was adding metal substrate to heated sulfuric acid produces an exothermic reaction. I didnt know that was what it was called at the time, but I observed it. I was on third shift, bored out of my mind. I found a railway spike with my buddies earlier that day and had the bright idea of chucking it into the sulfuric acid to dissolve all the rust on the thing. Thankfully I was smart in my horrible decision making, so I filled some sort of small handheld container with heated sulfuric acid, and chucked the railway spike into it. Immediately the thing started violently bubbling over the sides of the container, but right under my feet was a grated pit where acid falls into anyway, so I was unconcerned. Que me a few months later, my supervisor instructs me to dissolve the silver off of some parts that were scrapped due to defects. These are copper bars were plated with nickel and silver. I failed to realize 2 things here: 1) the reaction between metals and hot sulfuric acid was exothermic 2) the thickness of silver buildup on the racks could be measured in mm, but the plate thickness on our product was measured in µm. Its important to note that even though this reaction is exothermic, when we strip racks without scrap there isnt enough metal to really make a difference in the large vats. So, I chucked all the parts onto a rack, lowered it into the sulfuric acid, and then walked away to go electroplate more parts. I came back 10 minutes later and holy shit, the sulfuric tank is boiling over VIOLENTLY. To make matters worse, it was all draining into a cyanide drain pit. To those that dont know, when an acid and cyanide are mixed, they produce poisonous gas. Thankfully none of this gas was produced though. So I start freaking the heck out. I sprint back to the lab to grab my respirator, sprint back, and theres a maintenance man standing OVER the BOILING sulfuric acid, with his hands on his hips. I have no idea how this guy tolerated those fumes, but I grabbed his arm, yanked him away, and tried to shout through my respirator for him to get the absolute hell out of there. He did, and I shut off the heat to the tank, and used the crane to pull the racks out. Pulling the racks out with what should have been 12 ft long x 1/2 foot thick copper bars, there were wires left. What had happened is the sulfuric acid dissolved the silver, the nickel, and then started dissolving the copper substrate. I rinsed all that sulfuric acid on the ground into the acid drain all while the big wigs of the factory stood around talking about the incident and staring at me. I was union though so thankfully I didnt lose my job. It was a funny thing though because when I went to university, one of the labs had me doing that same process except on a smaller scale. At that point I still had an industry mindset and self identity, so I had a good time pipetting a drop or two of sulfuric acid onto my skin and thinking of all the acid covered nights I spent in that factory. I'd never do something like that now a days though!

[@MH-wz1rb]

On chemicals that are just in the store - I grow pepper plants, so I know a bit about gardening chemicals. Some seed coats are thick and won't germinate without softening, which is often done with 1% potassium nitrate solution. In peppers, they germinate better after a soak in this solution because it mimics a bird's digestive tract. The capsaicin ensures that mammals stay away and birds, who are unffected by capsaicin, will eat them. To get KNO3, it's available as stump remover, and comes with quite a lot in a not particularly thick plastic bottle. Of course, mixed with organics, that makes hobbyist rocket fuel. So in case of a fire, I decided I should get just 100 grams from the chemical supply in a much sturdier screw top jar instead of a huge bottle of caustic stump remover hanging out in my apartment

[@MH-wz1rb]

And on labeling, often the percentage of KNO3 in the stump remover is not listed. The other advantage of going to the chemical supply to get more than I will ever need but not so much that a building fire becomes extra dangerous, and can get the solution correct without guesswork. A shot glass of 1% solution will do it, and 100g then will make 10 liters. So, enough to garden for a lot of years, if not my lifetime, in a secure container

[@aqdrobert]

Sales pitch for Healthy Ozone: Guaranteed to contain 33 percent more healthy oxygen than generic O2. Operators are standing by.

[@crash.override]

✌️"Negative ion generator"✌️

[@rue6914]

Me asking chat gpt what chemicals will form when I mix Bleach with [insert common household cleaner chemicals]

[@dani.2479]

”Sir what the fuck is that-” *COUGH COUGH* *”WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!?”*

[@VoidHalo]

First story highlights the importance of wafting rather than directly smelling a compound, if you need to smell it.

[@GhostOfJulesVerne]

A few weeks ago I accidentally mixed bleach-based toilet bowl cleaner with HCl-based toilet bowl cleaner. Big mistake! Had to evacuate the house for a couple hours.

[@quinnzykir]

Peggy. That’s the recipe for mustard gas

[@cidi08]

one time in a high school science class of mine (i was taking biology but the room was used for all kinds of science classes) someone accidentally hit the switch that opened the natural gas valves. sometime later (who knows how much later), during my period in that room, gas started coming out of the valves. there was a substitute that day so no-one knew what to do. everyone just grabbed their stuff and ran out into the hallway, and the sub got another teacher from down the hall who locked up the room. it was the day before spring break started and the last period of the day so i don't know what they did afterwards, but as i was leaving the building i ran into the principal who was freaking out about where the smell (and it SMELLED) was coming from. everything was fine as far as i know, and they didn't cancel any after-school stuff that day.

[@torinnbalasar6774]

Did they not have an emergency shutoff in the room? Unless they left the windows open, I would think closing it up just concentrates it into a bigger boom.

[@cidi08]

​@@torinnbalasar6774 i'm not sure if they did have one. if it did exist no one knew where it was (the actual teacher probably knew where it was but like i said, there was a substitute that day), but someone might've gone in and used the emergency shutoff after i had left. and hopefully they also opened the windows while they were at it, lol

[@JooshMaGoosh]

lesson of the video: Breaking Bad was all an arby's employees fever dream.

[@jastintheceooffinanasapost6204]

I still can't believe i was slowly inhaling chlorine gas from electrolising for a couple days

[@derrickhageman1969]

Btw thick layers of lead dose block most forms of radation but gamma ray radation can pass through lead however concret is better

[@PaulSteMarie]

These people are allowed to order strong acids without any scrutiny from the school administration? Not even asking "How will you clean this up if you spill it?" I've seen to many labs with 2L-5L bottles of acid on high shelves with no apparent consideration of the target area.

[@kingofthend]

5:30 a fellow Ingress player quite nice innit.

[@adamlopez2275]

Man, I’ve missed these Chempolations!

[@NormReitzel]

Good Luck with your Defense!! Seriously!!

[@That_Chemist]

Thank you :)!

[@amanawolf9166]

Had a few close class myself, but I tell ya, none of them came close to these stunts. Well, except for one time involving an acid spill being cleaned up with paper towels. *sighs *

[@huzzzzzzahh]

For the Arby's thing I wonder if it reacted with acids in the concentrated soda syrup

[@Law-and-Disorder]

Not at an ARBYS :O

[@hungryburger1170]

Chlorine at an Arby's? Did he eat the food?

[@callusklaus2413]

Have mercy, this is one of the more demonic episodes. The suicidal lab tech and bottle bomb are top tier.

[@tungstendeliz4960]

"Sir, this is an Arby's"

[@joshuawalters8790]

Good luck with your defense!

[@That_Chemist]

Thanks :)

[@ortholux2343]

Accidentally mixing sulphuric and formic acid by dropping them on the floor. Auch that sounds CO bad. Definately evacuate the building.

[@jercos]

Guile's theme goes with massive acid spills.

[@whoever6458]

My best friend was hired as a teenager to clean out houses for someone who was flipping them. Knowing nothing about chemistry, she mixed bleach and ammonia while cleaning in the bathroom and standing on the toilet to reach something high up. She said she immediately lost consciousness but was lucky because she had opened the window in the bathroom since the chemicals stunk and so she woke up on the floor. Luckily for me, my mom took chemistry in college and told my brother and I about the fact that you never mix chlorine cleaners with ammonia cleaners because it produces a toxic gas. I have to be honest that I was always curious about this and tempted to produce it, although perhaps outside, but I never did because I wasn't quite that curious. Making flame throwers out of hairspray ended up sufficing for my dangerous chemistry experiments as a kid.

[@sceneCatgirl]

Sometimes I'm really not sure whether me not having a sense of smell is an advantage or disadvantage when it comes to chemistry. On one hand, things that would make other people give up on certain projects entirely don't have any sort of issue for me, on the other hand, the fact that I could be accidentally generating something actually dangerous without knowing and not realize it until I'm about to pass out is always a scary idea. Most dangerous gasses I can at least tell are there because even if I can't pick up on the actual scent, I can notice a decrease in air quality that can raise alarm bells, but that can only go so far

[@FirstLast-oe2jm]

Christ about Canadian vendors: I bought off the shelf sulphuric acid and checked their safety sheet, which read 98% sulfuric acid. There is no chance in hell that it was 98% because my 500mL bottle should've been just shy of a kilo, but it was only ~0.75kgs, which is worrying.

[@That_Chemist]

🙃

[@ThatJay283]

do you wanna hear about that time i made HHO gas? so i was excited because i just learned about electrolysis. i learned that if you mix salts into water and run an electical current through them, all sorts of reactions will happen in the water. such as delicisious chromium salts from steel electrodes, iron salts, copper salts, and when aluminium elextrodes are used, aluminium salts. i also experimented with graphite electrodes, which didn't result in the water changing colour. but what i was more interested in was the salts themselves. like if you run a current through table salt, you get gasses produced: hydrogen, oxygen, and chlorine gas. honeslty even today im not sure what the slurry of chemicals in the water i even ended up with, but it's totally possible that i also made bleach. the fun really began when i started using other salts, such as sodium bicarbonate, and i nologner just made stinky water (which also nolonger corroded the electrodes ABOVE the mixture due to chlorine lmao). i also increased the electrodes surface area, using a mess of steel nails, steel wire, and wood (which would've just made my chemistry coctail very messy), and i got gas produced that didnt stink. it was HHO gas. anyways, dumbass me decided to collect it. using a bottle, a mess of hot glue, and a hose, i ran that gas into another thing of water and detergent to make bubbles. i decided that since i made HHO gas, the bubbles should just pop altogether and it'd be really exciting. it should just be like the flame test i did at school but larger scale, i thought. it would be proof that i had, in fact, made hydrogen. i put a match to the bubbles (and also recorded it). it was a really loud BANG; it was literally the loudest sound ive ever heard in my life. my ears were ringing for abit afterwards and i regretted the fact that dumbass me didn't wear any hearing protection. but yeah, i got a really neat flash on camera, so i decided to move to the hose bit which hadn't exploded yet. so, i pulled the hose out of the water, lit a match, and put it to the end of my (while running) HHO generator. again, no hearing protection (because i didn't learn lmao). again, BANG. it was much quieter this time, even though more gas was burned, possibly due to gas escaping for a less than optimal explosive mixture? or also the fact that the hose muffled the sound? but yeah, my HHO generator mostly survived it, with just me needing to reseal my seal made of hot glue. and the fact that it wasnt even worse would've been thankfully due to the surface area not being as high as it could've been, like say if i had owned a 3d printer for a more efficient design, things could've been alot worse. like HHO is explosive, the 2nd experiment could've properly exploded. why was i such a dumbass? i guess probably it was due to my lower innabitions due to being a teenager who also had undiagnosed adhd lmao. but it's quite possible that the experiment i did partially contributed to the slight tinnitus i have now. i also know if i had have gotten excited with organic chemistry, natural selection would've claimed me already. thankfully i was smart enough to not touch it lmao.

[@godgame9841]

Alternative title: He made Arby's

[@CryptoFrenzyX]

First time i was working with HCl(35%) i was pouring some into bottle from chewing gums. I didnt want to breath but i knew HCl gas is heavier than air so i was bit nervous and than... Some of white smoke hit my nose, i didnt even breath but it hit and my nose hurt just the tip. It wasn't very pleasant. Atleast it removed my thoughts of smelling the whole bottle. Later that day i spilled some on the wooden floor. Accidently

[@spackal2946]

“If you’re in university you’re still a kid” 😢

[@That_Chemist]

I say it endearingly :)

[@JacobHidding]

The initial HCl story kinda made me laugh since someone in our undergrad lab. Inhaled concentrated HCl through his nose and it instantly started bleeding all over.

[@1marcelfilms]

Moral of the story. never confess

[@6alecapristrudel]

Has anybody had this happen? After smelling enough nitric acid and NOx fumes, I realize that some car exhaust smells exactly the same. Sometimes it freaks me out when I just smell nitric acid at random while walking on the street. Made me realize exactly why cars have catalytic converters lol.

[@That_Chemist]

Me any time I drive anywhere

[@andyd8370]

Ah, a fellow smurf @5:30 o7 Agent

[@abnormality00]

arby's: we have the chlorine

[@arya6085]

Is it worse to breathe in Cl2 or HCl gas?

[@usernameusernameusername9835]

Wait, let him cook.

[@DeputatKaktus]

Life is pain. HCL makes it go away. Enjoy Arby’s.

[@ethanboyd7843]

Yeah we put some muriatic acid and chlorine and other things together in the basement once. Almost didn't make it out the door. Parents came home to all the fans and doors and windows open. No siders in the basement for a long time tho.

[@whoever6458]

We were always told in chemistry class to "always add acid," which illicit some chuckles from a few of us, including me, and is something I've never forgotten because I've added a lot of acid in my days. lol

[@nabra97]

3:00 I feel like if you are into such shenanigans, you are still a kid regardless of your age 🤔It doesn't mean you don't have to wear PPE.

[@tylern6420]

I once drank a shampoo bottle but like i emptied it in the water and filled it up with water that was then slightly shampooified didnt notice anything cause there probably wasnt much shampoo chemical left

[@KlaxontheImpailr]

Reminds me of the classic quote, "You've got 3 barrels of ah, hydrocloric acid. Y'know, this is a Hwendy's". -Jontron

[@ZorotheGallade]

With how much chemists like to fuck around with experiments in those areas, I'd avoid living near Arby's

[@GodlikeIridium]

13:35 fuming sulfuric acid? That's not a thing. Sulfuric acid is a very viscous liquid and not very volatile (you can boil it with normal lab temperatures but it's not volatile enough to be called fuming) and the next step, oleum, is a solid. About the story itself: At least he added the sulfuric acid to the water and not the other way around... That would instantly boil with every drop. But even the right way, that amount will heat to boiling. So you absolutely have to cool it. Mixing that with concentrated NaOH will heat to boiling too... Mixing it all without stirring AND cooling is a timebomb 😮

[@archvirus4202]

On the topic of the lead brick, lead will completely block alpha and beta radiation but gamma rays are a bit more complex; lead cannot fully block high energy gamma radiation however lower energy levels can be safely stopped with 3/16 inch (4.76mm) or less of lead. The American Nuclear Society states that 1.3 feet (39.62cm) of lead will reduce typical gamma rays by a factor of a billion.

[@manachromeYT]

One mans acid is another mans treasure

[@manachromeYT]

Quote from one of my characters in my scfi universe witch life uses hydrogen florine instead of water

[@zombiebullshark3834]

I'm hearing about Arby's entirely too often on this channel 😂

[@justacatinprofile]

Next video: He made bromine in his parents' garage.

[@lukassorowka2672]

2:52 its not 3 Roentgen, its 15000.

[@mynameisearl9283]

I used to work at a fast food chain and some of my coworkers would mix all the chemicals together and called it super cleaner. Completely stupid

[@AnthonyBolognese710]

2:22 I believe with radiation it’s about total mass. They use lead in jackets so they can get a lot of material in a relatively viable thickness to make a vest. Plus lead is cheap…

[@defeatSpace]

Norm Reitzel's story has me in stitches 😂