The Royal Institution
Dr Peter Wothers detonates the extremely sensitive contact explosive, Nitrogen Triiodide.
Nitrogen Triiodide is an extremely sensitive explosive compound that, when dry, can be detonated by the lightest of touches or vibrations. For this reason, it should never be contained or transported and we are not aware of any industrial uses.
A quantity of NI3 was prepared in the Ri Prep Room before being laid out to dry in the famous Lecture Theatre. This process took over two hours and, due to the extreme shock-sensitivity of the material, we were only able to attempt the reaction on this scale once. The crew were forced to wear ear defenders at all times in case the material spontaneously exploded.
As the reaction is initiated, the Nitrogen Triiodide detonates incredibly quickly in a fraction of a second to release a purple cloud of iodine vapour into the room.
Peter Wothers explains further:
“To tie in with the theme of the first Christmas Lecture (Air), I wanted to show the rapid production of a gas, but unfortunately almost all gases are colourless. The rapid production of iodine vapour from NI3 seemed like the perfect solution. The most amazing thing for me was the delay visible from the slow-mo footage before the force of the explosion really hit me in the chest!”
Devised to promote the 2012 Christmas Lectures, this is one of three large-scale, chemistry demos that were too big (or too dangerous!) to perform in the Ri Lecture Theatre in front of 400 young people.
This experiment was undertaken under the supervision of professionals and should not be replicated.
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Why is the normal contact explosive for demonstrations always nitrogen triiodide? Is the the safest among those? Or the easiest to make? Or is it just the wonderful purple cloud that makes this stuff great for demonstrations?
I feel like such a pedant for pointing out the typo at the start of the vid…
Good spot!
It decomposed spontaneously.
I wanna make some
Is this the same as "Logan's Paste" ?
I believe so, they never use enough to see exactly but it certainly has the same effect.
It is logans paste. The purple color is a giveaway.
Song name?
why do people never watch a video until the end?
As Colourful as Ever – Broke For Free
not disappointed!!!
hmmm that seem to have quite a shock wave. to bad we can not see that shock wave.
I wonder, could you do the detonation again except do it in a chamber that shield the air so that here is no turbulence and have a gird of coloured smoke sticks burning and remote detonate Nitrogen Triiodide in the center and high speed record the shock wave?
Now smash 20 pounds
I can imagine some really horrible old-fashioned school putting this stuff on a cane.
I thought you were going to make meth.