Hunting Hydrogen Ballons with Fireworks

[TheRealAndyCook]

hah sorry :3 the end of the video actually makes me laugh now, knowing its going to come up.

 

[jlnguyen74]

But as for the comment above, its been a while since I took physics so please excuse any mistakes, feel free to correct me.

What does physic have anything to do with explaining a chemistry reaction?

 

[TheRealAndyCook]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

 

[snakeguy101]

I like the video, specially the end.

-slowly counts to ten-

But as for the comment above, its been a while since I took physics so please excuse any mistakes, feel free to correct me.

Hydrogen doesn't explode unless mixed with oxygen and in, or near to, the correct parts.

Its the exact same as with any volatile fuel. Such as gasoline, it burns when lit. Unless it is mixed with the correct parts of oxygen.

Because the combustion of hydrogen is a reaction of hydrogen and oxygen -which creates a heat and h2o (water) - with out oxygen the hydrogen will just get warmer and warmer no matter how hot the ignition source is.

With this in mind, we can then safely assume that the more pure the Hydrogen, the less likely that it will "explode". Thus, a diffused mixture of hydrogen, which we can assume was mixed with Air (oxygen and other gasses) is more likely to create a larger -more violent- reaction. That is to say until it became extremally diffuse, where we would see little to no reaction (but at this point the gravity imposed on the balloon would surly be higher then the hydrogen ability to lift it).


As for the absurd remark that a hydrogen balloon could ever explode and cause the lights to go out in the surrounding rooms...

This is a standard explosion, like we saw in the videos.

[yt]nYhWH1HRqo4[/yt]

Since we can see and hear the explosion that tells us a few things, first off the shock wave wasn't even powerful enough to deflate the diaphragm on the video camera's mic. So inorder to break the glass in the next room you would need something larger then 1,000 times more powerful, and pressurized (since its a balloon).

1) For the explosion to have a strong enough shock wave to have not be disrupted by the fire rated walls in your school, I have no doubt that you would have serious if not completely destroyed ear drums. Not to mention the level of shock your body would have been in, infact I'd be willing to bet and explosion big enough to break the lights in the next room would be strong enough to kill a person at <5 feet

2) its my understanding that hydrogen needs to be mixed with oxygen to explode, as stated above. So the amount of pressure the balloon would need to sustain in order to pressurized it with an oxygen/hydrogen mix would be far above that of the canisters which would be providing the hydrogen.

3) its also my understanding that balloons arnt very good at holding anything smaller then oxygen, which hydrogen is...and even in that case oxygen isn't held very well either. The molecular bonds are just not strong enough to contain it normally, and under pressure this would quickly become a problem and it would almost be impossible to manage. This is why hydrogen bombs have a metal core, not a rubber one.

4) the heat resulting in an explosion that size would no doubt be high enough to have caused serious burns and tissue damage.


I could go on and on, but I actually just want you to say you weren't lying.

TL;DR

But A few points I noticed:
First, yes hydrogen needs oxygen to combust but the oxygen is supplied once the latex of the ballon is melted away pushing the hydrogen into the atmosphere of the room I lit the balloon in and mixing more hydrogen in with a still ample amount of oxygen in a more confined space. To me it seems like there was some other gas in the balloon because hydrogen burns clear and out atmosphere burns orange yet the flame from the balloon in the video had a red color. That is what I meant when I said diffused.

Also, I did not say that the explosion from my balloons shattered the glass, just that it blew out the light bulbs. I should have clarified that I meant it shook them enough to knock the filaments out of the wiring in the lights rendering them useless. I ran the "extreme science" show 3 times a day 4 days out of the week and I ignighted hydrogen in each of those shows, if it was loud enough to shatter glass in the next room, I would be deaf by now.

The hydrogen balloons were filled 10 minutes before each show and were ignited 15 or 20 minutes into the show and in that time I did not see any signs of deflation although I am sure it would escape faster than Oxygen or Helium (which is also smaller than oxygen but stays in latex fine) would.

As a part of these shows we actually used the hydrogen balloons to explain that sound was a change in pressure. To illustrate this we placed a pin to prop open a 150lbs door (on a hinge of course but it was still fairly heavy to open) and ignited the balloon which would cause an explosion (and a change in pressure) and push the door open enough for the pin to fall and the door to close.

So, I am not lying thank you.

 

[snakeguy101]

Also, the video you added was a much closer explosion to what I experienced except with a much larger balloon.

 

[carterhh]

looks like fun

 

[TheRealAndyCook]

just seems weird to me that the filament would be that degraded that it would happen everytime. I would have assumed the shock from shipping, installation, etc would be more then that of the experiment.

 

[snakeguy101]

just seems weird to me that the filament would be that degraded that it would happen everytime. I would have assumed the shock from shipping, installation, etc would be more then that of the experiment.

It didn't happen every time but like I said, 3 times a day 7 days a week (4 of which I was there for) took a toll on the cheap incandescent lights we probably had about one go out a day but it was never the same one and the bordering room was the naturalist room which was filled with 50 or so dome lamps with used to heat the reptiles.

 

[studd muffin]

Epic!

 

[jlnguyen74]

To Snakeguy101, you wouldn't want to mess with TheRealAndyCook. He advised another member to put a BBQ under his tank to keep it heated!

you don't need to really worry about the filter for a day or two, its the heat...i cant think of an easy way to keep the tank heated under then putting a BBQ under your tank.