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To: fireman15
a runaway reaction which released enough hydrogen sulfide to make our house nearly uninhabitable for the rest of the day.

I made a similar error with a small test tube, a small scoop of sulfur and a pea size chunk of wax. Warmed it over a candle flame and out wafted hydrogen sulfide. It very much stunk up the house. Ooops.

112 posted on 04/04/2025 9:45:24 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: Myrddin
I loved making hydrogen balloons using aluminum foil and a strong solution of lye. I would set up several plastic bottles and make multiple balloons at one time. Then I would either use firecrackers to set them off which gave the most satisfying explosion, or I would make a whole bundle and wrap toilet paper around it until it would slowly ascend and then explode dropping burning toilet paper. This provided quite a light show over the busy road that we lived on.

Of course, when I found out from "The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments" that heating wax and sulfur together made a far more pungent gas, I thought that this would be a very funny thing to fill balloons with. I was planning on moving my operation outside but didn't see the harm in filling a balloon or two in my room. It turns out that producing larger quantities are a very bad idea in a small bedroom. My mother was an RN and found out that what I was doing was not only very irritating but was actually dangerous. So that was the end of that. Especially after my little brother had burned off his eyebrows with some flash powder that I had made a week or two before.

https://dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/items/GoldenBookOfChemistryExperiments/TheGoldenBookOfChemistryExperimentsbannedInThe60-s.pdf

114 posted on 04/04/2025 10:06:51 PM PDT by fireman15
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