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Flaming Bottle Rockets – Tales from the Prep Room Whoosh Bottle Experiment

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The Royal Institution

Whoosh bottle explosive science experiments. Watch as Andy takes to the prep room to make a whoosh rocket with a water bottle and some ethanol.
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Andy investigates how much thrust his water cooler rocket can generate. He finds out how to make a rocket with ethanol, propanol, and methanol and a large water container. But how powerful is the rocket? Can a bottle rocket propel a person? Or can it only make its own weight move? Andy experiments in the lecture theatre.

The blue flame you see at first is a sign of complete combustion – when abundant oxygen reacts with the fuel, producing just the classic combustion products of carbon dioxide and water. As the oxygen supply is consumed, carbon particles start to be released, which cause the yellow flame. The pulses of flame that appear in the bottle towards the end of the reaction are probably created as fresh oxygen is drawn in from the top, and mixes with the remaining fuel. Watch amazing slow motion footage of the explosion.

This beautiful experiment is also a great example of a simple rocket; a device for creating force by pushing the products of fuel combustion in one direction. Andy takes to the lecture theatre to investigate whether the force is enough to push him on a swing. He tries to determine how much force is being generated, and experiments with different fuels. He experiments with ethanol, methanol and propanol to find out how to make the best bottle rocket.

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42 thoughts on “Flaming Bottle Rockets – Tales from the Prep Room Whoosh Bottle Experiment”

  7. I had a professor who would do a demo similar to this using a 2 liter bottle and shaking in then draining off liquid oxygen.  I think he stopped after the bottle clocked a student near the back of the hall.

  12. I thought you couldn't see methanol burn. They always mentioned it at Nascar events or they used to at least when I was watching it on tv. You would sometimes see drivers getting out of the cars and roll on the ground just in case they were on fire, but couldn't see it.

  13. I once did this with a large (1 gallon?) juice container,using a propane torch. The bottle shot across the apartment,bounced off a wall,and continued down the hallway at a high rate of speed. The skin on the back of my hand was painfully scorched…it was almost worth it. Loads of fun,but be careful.

  16. We used to do this in college (in the late '70s) with glass jugs (didn't have plastic ones at the time). We used rubbing alcohol and we'd drop a match down the neck. We called them "whoof" jugs because that's the sound they made.

  24. If the "heavier" vapors were mixed with a proper amount of oxygen how would it affect speed and duration? My guess is that the smaller molecule would combine faster and shorter creating greater velocity for a shorter time, while the larger molecule would combine slower and last longer. Thanks for the nice video.

  28. What if the bottle had a small resivoir of ethanol in it, and a small intake hole in the side without the exhaust

  34. Nice! One thing, though. To demonstrate the difference in fuels a bit more dramatically, why not strap the bottle to a skateboard, place it on a confined track, and measure the relative distance traveled with each type of fuel?

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