Making TNT
In this video I discuss and make a small quantity of the notorious compound TNT or trinitrotoluene.
PLEASE READ: I do not recommend anyone but trained professionals attempt this process due to several significant hazards associated with the synthesis of this chemical.
I intentionally made a very small amount, but with compounds that can potentially undergo rapid decomposition, safety is a very fine line.
I find this synthesis to be an excellent educational model (which is the purpose of this video), and considering the full synthesis is already outlined in detail on Wikipedia and Google Patents, felt it reasonable to post this video.
That said, heed all warnings presented in this video, and check for the legality of this process by legal statutes in your local area before ever proceeding with anything shown on this channel.
A FEW POST-RELEASE NOTES (I was up late editing and made some mistakes):
1. There is a typo at 2:20. Text on screen says 98% HNO3 when it should be H2SO4.
2. 8.46m in reference to the side length of a block of TNT is for a kiloton, not a ton as I said.
3. Toluene is misspelled at 1:46.. Rookie mistake.. if I had known this video was going to do so well I would have spent more than 2 hours in editing..
4. As an attempt to help keep this video up, I may remove comments implying or suggesting this be used to make any weapon. That was obviously not the intent of the video, but if the comment section is flooded with people saying things like that, it invites an element I don't particularly want associated with my channel. Try and keep it legal down there..
5. All the product seen at the end of the video was destroyed, as I have no further use for this chemical and do not recommend anyone keep this around. Not only is it a fire hazard, but even in many places where this is legal to make, there can be separate laws dictating whether it can be stored.
#chemistry #science #hydrogen #gas #elements #fire #chemical #industury #color
Mr. FBI. I swear, I watched this for educational purposes.
#MeToo 😊
I was thinking the same thing
its not 4u, its for Russians and Iranians
Everyone here is on a special list.
I was on the list before I showed up lmfao 🤣 I promise y’all that
Contrary to what AC/DC would have you believe, TNT is not, in fact, dynamite. That is mechanically stabilized Nitroglycerine.
Very true, that's actually a correction I've made a few times in the comment section so far. I blame looney tunes
Correcting people over this makes them view you a bit different. Easy way to give away you're into explosives.
@Psykoosi92 I personally think explosives are the least interesting application in all of chemistry. It's just making a solid form a lot of gas super fast (which typically I'm trying to avoid in lab lol). I more think it's just an interesting historical misconception, but I do see your point for sure.. I do think I'm going to private this video, though, as people seem a little too interested in the explosive element rather than the intended science element.
@@integral_chemistry I think most of the people are making jokes, though your concern is certainly understandable.
@NoobTamer yeah that's kinda what I figure. It's a sort of tough call. I feel if there were other videos posted about this compound I'd just say screw it and leave it up, I'm just worried about the optics looking like I'm trying to show anything nefarious. To me this is no different than making acetic acid or something. It's a chemical and like all chemicals it can be misused. My perspective is not objective though, and this video has gotten FAR more exposure than I expected or intended 😅
bro you just need 4 blocks of sand and 5 pieces of gunpowder, that simple
good point tbh^^ This is what you do when you can't find enough creepers
ahah^^
Pssssh [:c]=€
@@integral_chemistry just check the offender registry for creepers
I'm not a chemist, but you have to admire the sheer range of the chemical sciences. It can make everything from bombs to bottles, and can explain how you work. There was a good vignette from my sister, who was in fact a chemist. Her first year chemistry teacher was going on about careers in chemistry, and said that "many students get started in chemistry because they want to make drugs or bombs". Then he started talking about other things. A hand went up. "yes", the teacher said. "what made YOU want to start chemistry, interest in bombs or drugs?". The teacher replied: "both, of course"...
The dude who makes bombs and incendiaries in my unit is called "the chemist."
@@Oberon4278 have you ever use matches and it's striker as gunpowder substitute ?
The fundamental point is how? Did they know how to do it; or was there a building with a sign, chemist wanted and a line of disposable "chemist" who participated in the "bomb chemistry roulette".
Next episode, we make a neutron bomb. It's used in disinfecting planets or procuring colony ships.
Stellaris let's play episode
@@integral_chemistry💀💀💀💀💀💀
@@integral_chemistryHow to deal with Xenos 101
It's a good idea, but we just have to wait until Biden declares war on Putin...
😂😂😂
Generally, it's a *bad* idea to use vacuum filtration with energetic compounds. Fortunately TNT is exceptionally stable.
Yeah, breaking crystals of stuff is also *generally* a bad idea (in energetic compounds crystals breaking is usually what sets off the detonation)
Very true^ specifically primaries are VERY dangerous to vacuum filter. Interestingly enough main reason I intentionally vacuum filtered is because I was trying to make a point about just how extremely stable this compound is, in the hopes the video will stay up 😅
Why vacuum filtration is bad? I would say so only for some primaries and if you use glass fiter. Just not use glass filters to avoid friction between two glass surfaces. If you have primaries that can detonate on breaking the single crystal thats another story they require different precautions, i would not want to work with such substanses at all.
@NinjaChemistChannel yeah you are 100% correct. Vacuum filtration of energetics is one of those "avoid as a rule of thumb" things due to how catastrophically it can go wrong if you are trying to vacuum filter an extremely sensitive primary. However, that rule obviously has several exceptions, and the only chemical I've made that I'd be afraid to vacuum Filter is silver fulminate.
Mee too) silver fulmante is scary
Even though the title says EXACTLY what has been shown to us, I didn't expect a manual how to make TNT this detailed. Makes me wonder why youtube recomended me this video in the middle of the night and if I'm on a watchlist now for going through the whole clip.
😂
I assure you you are on a list memberberries9813 🚶🚪🦖
EVERYONE is already on the watchlist
If anything there's only a "do not watch" list of people who are a waste of time 😂
Because it turns out tnt isn't as fun as i thought. I was expecting something that Wylie Coyote have.💥💥
Goodbye, to my American visa.
The TNT lava lamp hits different
Fr
At this point we need to start downloading the videos on this channel, if you ever want to see them again
Yeah I made sure to keep backup copies of a few vids in particular 😅
If or when YT is cracking down on chemtubers I have a business going. Hope information like this stays available to the masses but also hope that YT shit their pants and starts to remove informative videos like these so I can start an independent service.
@@integral_chemistry Please upload them elsewhere and get them to be found easily by google searches!!!
@@rnts08consider stealthiswiki
@@rnts08you mean the business would be selling this info? Or manufacturing? Because I think most of us recognize this is beyond our aptitude level.
This is like oldschool Nile Red. Huge fan! I'm going to binge every single one of your videos now.
Apoptosis videos in ten years be like: "turning nail polish remover into mayonnaise"
I've seen some comments saying the video will be taken down and stuff, but this is educational, and not a tutorial. Regardless, it's the first time I see this channel, and I've got to say I appreciate 15 min + videos about chemistry. Hope to see more long-format videos from you 😊
Thank you so much! I feel fairly confident at this point it should stay up, and I do have many more long-form videos to come
My grandfather was an artillery observer in the Imperial German Army during World War I. He reported that German soldiers in their trenches lit the TNT in the "pots" of their stick grenades and used it to heat up their food rations or drinks in an emergency. This was of course strictly forbidden, but everyone did it anyway. TNT must therefore have an unprecedented stability for an explosive.
That was done with c4 in Vietnam and later wars too.
Fascinating bit of history, thank you so much for sharing! I had read briefly about that being done with C4 by American GIs as well when I was researching the toxicity of RDX for another vid. Interestingly enough from a modern perspective my concern would be poisoning rather than them blowing themselves up, this crap is far more toxic than it is reactive.
Ahh, good old times when heating food on toxic fume-spewing soot-belching explosive was par for the course
a big naval artillery shell will happily crash through a combined thickness of more then 2 feet of steel armor and only detonate once the fuse sets it off...similarly a high-capacity shell can literally shatter on armor that's thick enough and fail to detonate if the fuse fails. Anti tank mines without the fuse can be happily crushed by a tank without even igniting. TNT is one of the most stable proper explosives known to man.
RDX has one saving grace - very poor water solubility (hard to absorb). btw burning the plasticizer in C4 can't be healthy either :D
Welcome to "The List" everyone seeing this....
if you aint on a list already youre not trying hard enough
Lets be honest anybody coming across this video was already on the list
Israel did 9/11
Mr. FBI agent, I'm just a DM doing research for my Dungeons and Dragons game
Wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get automatically forwarded to the list simply for studying an organic chemistry unit at uni. It's the only scenario that makes the apparently extremely high success rate of security services to stop bomb threats make sense.
Very cool demo! I did a chemistry degree back in the '80s but ended up working in IT. This is a nice reminder of the good times in the labs at uni! One of my favourite labs was making ferrocene - a "sandwich molecule" with two five-carbon rings and an iron atom as the "meat in the sandwich". Quite easy to make.
I also had a lab making Ferocene doing my CORE classes for mechanical engineering. Stinky stuff to make from what I remember. The prof was going to use all of the samples my class made to do something else for the organic chem lab. I convinced him to keep half of my yield, since I had done particularly well sythesizing it. I still have that vial on a shelf, next to another one the old man couldn't unserstand why I would want to keep. The other I have written on the vial K2[Cu(ox)2]·2H2O so while the ferocene is a nice flakey bright orange, the copper oxalic thing is a grainy glinty bright blue. Coincidentally, now they remind me of the videogame *Portal 2* if you took the gels and solidified them into crystals, I guess.
Honestly I loved when you ran out of things to say and we got a very pretty session of comfy lofi and watching chemistry witthout dialogue. Please always add shots like that bc I love being able to just sit and watch the beautiful things you watch while practicing your craft! They aren't skippable at all!
Every time I see the acronym TNT I am reminded of a recess debate when I was VERY young. A couple of kids were adamant that it was pronounced "tint" and because it was all capitols no I was needed. One of the kids used Wile E Coyote as proof because they spelled Willie without the I. This debate turned into a fist fight and a couple of the guys getting dragged to the principal's office. Good times. Good times.
Imagine being the kid who exploded into a fist fight over TNT
So did the principal explain it to them? That must have been one heck of a conversation in the Principal office: Principle: Let me get this straight, You got into a fist fight over how to pronounce TNT?!?
@@guytech7310 look, maybe principal types wouldn’t remember, but that was the most important sort of issue that a kid came across. I could see an argument about quicksand coming to blows as well.
@@andyghkfilm2287don't mention slow sand or it's ON!
@@OffGridInvestor “mandela effect isn’t real” mfs when slow sand
8.46m on a side? You slipped a decimal point - it's actually 84.6cm. Which is still a lot.
Thanks for catching that, made a correction in the vid description.
@@integral_chemistry Your patrons should have caught this!
Pew thought I was stupid for a sec.
Came here for this
Isn't it ironic 1 metric ton of TNT releases approximately 1 gigacalorie(1M Kcal) of energy and how Americans won't use the metric system? Calorie is more metric since it heats 1 unit of water 1 Celcius degree unlike the Joule...
True Bravo. Those crystals said it all, as I've seen govt standardized tnt in a 500 lb ball, long ago. It looked, color and crystallographically exactly like what you had in the final recrystallization beaker. Seriously good work up and presentation. You made me think I can do chemistry thru you instead of hands on...
it is a good video if for no other reason than to show the thought and complexity that goes into making these compounds and highlighting the dangers.
"This synthesis may be prohibited by local statues." I can't help but imagine 20 foot tall marble statues like Michelangelo's David walking around and busting up peoples' labs if they try to make something prohibited. lol. I know it's a common and innocent mistake that I've made myself at some point, but the mental imagery it evokes is hilarious. Like sentry-golems.
LMAO that's amazing 😅 that would certainly discourage crime like nothing else
Meanwhile, US has legalized shoplifting as well as may hard core drugs. Nothing stops anyone from buying diesel & fertializer or mixing them.
Unfortunately, activists have rendered most areas golem-free, thus depriving communities of their only defense from teenagers discovering that they can nitrate pretty much anything.
@@guytech7310yeah, but buying large quantities of ammonium nitrate in a short period of time will put you on the radar real quick.
@@sinformant Huh? Farmers by it by the ton for fertializer.
Great to see a decent video explaining the full synthesis of TNT!
Dugan Ashley’s “Dug” channel has a really in depth video on it.
Thank you! I am actually surprised there aren't any vids of the process on this platform that don't look like they were filmed in a dungeon
I'll have to check that out. Couldn't for the life of me find a vid on this process (but to be fair I didn't actually look THAT hard lol)
You should make one for LSD next
@@roderterai’d greatly appreciate that
This man is insane lmao. Not only do you have to be a little nutty to play with that many toxic compounds, the audacity to put the video up with such an accurate title? Outstanding. On "the list" for sure and subscribed.
I've never liked misleading titles anyway lol. Thanks for the sub!
A very professional write up video, you're the King of chems online buddy ;) I appreciate your videos a lot.
I feel like I'm going to have Homeland Security at my door just for watching
I doubt most people have the technical competence to carry this out, but any knucklehead can fill a bottle with gasoline and add an oily rag.
We're getting to those times.
@@PossumKommanderi was friends with a Yugoslav kid who left with hus parents during the ear or as tensions were rising. AT AGE 13 his father taught him HOW and the various techniques to slow or increase burn rates and the rules for safety on Molotovs. He was explaining it to me at school.
@OffGridInvestor Good for him, but the fortnite generation has a hard time frying an egg.
16:19 that's the most dangerous part of the entire process, (because it looks delicious and you can't eat it)
This video wont stay up forever.....
I clicked as soon as I saw it for that reason.
Oh a new vi- daaaamn it just accidentaly downloaded to my hard drive, how did that happen again?!
@@y33t23 IKR??? same here..
I'm hoping my presentation was academic enough that it stays around a while. I was careful to follow youtube's terms of service to the letter with this one, so fingers crossed!
I read this experiment when I was 13 on a book on industrial methods from the 60s.
Yes, used similar technique to make it when I was 11 and after insane biology teacher explained to me the nitration process. Used red HNO3 + H..4, did no cleaning - but you would not believe the bang from 30-40g. Learned to love and respect the chemistry.
This was a surprisingly relaxing video. Really enjoyed it!
Nice job! If you didn't burn all the TNT, I suggest you get 1,3,5-trinitrobenzene from the remains: Preparation of TNB by TNT oxidation: To 3600g conc. 360 g of trinitrotoluene were added with stirring of sulfuric acid. Then small Sodium dichromate (540g) was added in portions. When the temperature of the mixture reaches 40°C, the glass is placed into a water bath with cold water. The dichromate is added so that the temperature of the mixture was at the level of 45-55°C. This usually takes from 1 to 2 hours. After the addition is complete, the viscous the mass is stirred for 2 hours at 45-55°C. The mixture is then poured into a container containing 4 kg ice. Insoluble trinitrobenzoic acid is filtered off and washed with cold water. Its yield is 320-340g. The resulting trinitrobenzoic acid is mixed with 2 liters of water at 35°C. And when stirring add a small amount of 15% sodium hydroxide solution drop by drop until the color is clear will become faintly red. When the color disappears, the addition of alkali is resumed. When the color is not will disappear within 5 minutes, several times are added to the mixture. drops of acetic acid until discolored and unreacted trinitrotoluene is filtered off. 70 cubic meters are added to the filtrate. cm glacial acetic acid. The mixture is then heated in a boiling water bath after stopping The mixture is kept for another half hour to release gases, then the mixture is cooled, the precipitated trinitrobenzene and wash it with water. The filtrate is checked for unreacted trinitrobenzoic acid by adding several. drops of sulfuric acid. If crystals fall out - the solution is heated again. The yield of trinitrobenzene is 145-155g (43-46%). Sorry for my English!!!
Your English is perfectly fine and thank you so much for this! I did destroy it all for legal reasons, but this could be a very cool future project nonetheless. Thank you so much for the detailed work-up, I've already saved it
This reminds me of the joke that my great grandfather made of explaining just exactly what my great grandmother's personal measurements meant when explaining a really good recipe for a "Pineapple Supreme Cake" actually were.......
Trinitrobenzene is more powerful than TNT. It probably burns without soot. During WWII TNT was made in many sites in Germany, the ground is still polluted today as TNT is hardly biodegradable. Trinitrobenzoic acid (pikric acid corrodes metals) was used in WWI, unexploded traces harmlessly ( I tried it) colour the skin yellow, hence the name. Soldiers also got a yellow skin from a liver disease, my grandfather, who was a captain of infantry, was sent home due to yellow skin .
I didn’t know it was a dye first but that makes a lot of sense since nitro compounds appear in a lot of the early synthetic dyes, fascinating synthesis, thanks for demonstrating and I’m glad I caught it in time haha
I thought picric acid was the explosive yellow dye. Who knew?
We did ortho-MNT in undergrad with a vanadium oxyde catalysis, it feels like a blast from the past. I miss doing synthesis.
This is very similar to picric acid synthesis I can see why you chose TNT instead. We use to make this compound in small batches. It was used to clear large bolder on farm land. I still remember those days really awesome to see.
It's this kinda educational material that has the potential to spark academic interest in the growing mind...... very well presented sir.
Thank you so much! I doubt most of the people who clicked on this video expected a chemistry lesson, but I'm hoping at least a small fraction of them found it more fascinating than they expected. I'm always sad to hear people describe chemistry and their least favorite class they've ever taken.
here before the feds show up at your house.
Not at my home lol ! No living in USA....
This reaction was an essential part of my Uni chemistry practical work, but the reaction is easy researching the mechanisms was harder and earned most of the marks. As a friend from Woomera said TNT is an engineering material with which you can do most machining processes except drilling!
Even looking at the thumbnail for this video probably landed a lot of dudes on a watchlist
Lol
If you're not on at least a handful of watch lists, are you even really alive?
Have you seen the "potential terrorist checklist"? It's so comprehensive that pretty much every American is on the list lol
At this point I collect the lists I'm on with pride. Sometimes I don't even watch the videos. It's fun just knowing the three letter crowd is waisting it's time on me
Saying goodbye to your channel when it gets taken down, was nice knowing you
Lol I think it'll be fine. There are a few vids on YT already showing this process, and MANY that show the synth of nitroglycerin which is a far more destructive compound. This one does have a worse reputation though so hopefully it doesn't get taken down out of ignorance.. fingers crossed
Yeah...smh. YT is under the control of ignorant computer "scientists" that don't understand this is basically common knowledge and that the kind of people who like watch the world burn lack both the patience to learn how to do this AND the patience necessary to actually do it. Impulse control problems is the hallmark of the clusterB personality. The rare extreme cluster B individual that can plan, historically, prefers in person "face to face" methods. Knowledge is dangerous. You can't understand basic biology and physics, let alone organic synthesis if you can't work this kind of thing out on your own. Censorship is more dangerous than knowledge in the wrong hands... just look at how many ppl YT medical censorship likely ended during the pandemic... and how many ppl are disabled or experienced sudden adult d--th syndrome because of the untested voldemort they helped force on an unsuspecting uninformed population... It's probably well into the 7 figures. Until we return to a world that doesn't want plastics, antibiotics, fossil fuels, rare earth minerals... electricity...and farms... we will be confronted with dangerous knowledge and millions of humans that understand chemistry and physics at the practical level required to manufacture things like this and much worse at industrial scale in facilities that operate 24 hours a day seven days a week. YT censorship is proof that the education system has failed most college graduates with humanities social "science", and soft engineering degrees (like CS). They don't understand how anything works or how they get the things they depend on every day of their sheltered city dwelling lives.
@@integral_chemistry Change it to private off & on periodically to reduce getting hit with a strike. Helps to obfuscate the text\audio. Make it seem like a history, discussing its use in war so the video appears more about history than syna thesis.
@guytech7310 hm I'll definitely consider trying that. I was also considering contacting youtube and just saying honestly outright that this is an educational video because I feel it's better to be on the offense than it is waiting for them to take it down and then defending it. Also I feel algorithms are advanced enough now that if they had an issue with it, it would be gone already. I had a video once where I mentioned acetone peroxide and it was flagged before I even posted it.
@@integral_chemistry Or they just have added TeNeT to the list yet, or it hasn't got enough views yet. "Dug" (Duggan Ashley - Yes the same Guy) as a lot of energy compounds maker vidoes, but since his view count is so low its slips below the radar (at least for now). He's got a video with (CH3)2CO - H2O2 & no takedown yet as well as the EeTeN videos, along with small sample decomposions.
WE ARE GETTING ADDED TO A WATCHLIST WITH THIS ONE🔥🔥
An excellent video. Thank you. I actually work with explosives regularly but from the manufacturing end. I've done it in Space and Defense and even in Automotive. Seeing the chemistry behind my tools is very enlightening.
Is there any uses for explosives in automotive industries beside maybe airbags and the doors of an sls?
Welcome to the list😂
😂
👋
Hi FBI surveillance guy
Hi, and we like coffee too, just sayin'
W pfp
They don't give a shit about the likes of you. You're fine.
Hi. Did you bring me my donuts to keep my silence
In Minecraft fbi
That was facinating. Thank you for all your great content
Excellent detailed video. That huge oak tree stump is no longer a problem.
Text on screen at 2:20 says 98% HNO3 when it should be H2SO4.
Thanks for the catch! I made a correction in the video description.
Makes me remember road runner cartoons as a kid.
This reminds me of the cleanup work done back in Joliet to decommission the old arsenal. Much of the area was used as large flood ponds for red water.
My favourite description of the nitration process is from 'Things I Wont Work With' - which describes it as the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore with the cast wheeling about barrels of strong acids.
Love a good EAS. Sick video and beautiful needles
Thank you! I love EAS when it actually behaves how I want it to lol. This reaction is an amazing process from an educational perspective for so many reasons
Noone asked. Everybody wanted.
caca
Doing my own experiment and watching your videos to see if this is really the least chaotic chemistry channel I have ever come across
And how is that experiment coming lol?
@@integral_chemistry it was very satisfying
Fascinating! It really demystifies this chemical people refer to like i know what it is [beyond a Wile E. Coyotee sketch of course] Really makes me wish I continued with Chemistry a bit more after high school.
Hello my fellow watchlist friends!
You really dropped the b...Big video! I am backing up your video on this channel right now, not gonna lie!
Glad you like it man! It turned out really well I think, honestly aside from a few typos (that I always seem to make) it is probably the video I feel most proud of to date in terms of production quality
@@integral_chemistry Energetics is the first thing that drew me into chemistry, it is probably why many people are interested in it in the first place. Nitration of toluene is especially interesting as it has multiple stages and different conditions that demonstrate many different aspects of nitration in just a single compound, from azeotropic nitric acid to fuming nitric acid, from cold to hot nitration, I would say it is one of the most comprehensive introductory nitration that one can learn from, also it is one of my favourite!
The properties of TNT are so interesting. Such an emergency compound, but so stable and workable.
Dear F.B.I and A.T.F., I only watched this video because it's very interesting and I know enough about chemistry not to even think about trying this. I'm not a chemist!
CUZ I'M T.N.T.! I'M DYNAMITE! Fuck I love this song.
It's too bad TNT and dynamite are not the same. Dynamite is nitro glycerine and not TNT.
Fun fact, Dynamite is actually a different thing. It's primarily just Nitroglycerin stabilized in Diatomaceous Earth
You know, I feel like I wanna lie and say I knew that, but even though I've heard the chemical formulas for both, I never made the distinction between the two until after you pointed it out.
AC/DC sucks
@@terryboyer1342 how so?!
Dude is doing youtube ban speedrun
Im no chemist, but these videos for me are really interesting and makes me wonder how people found out about this things and how they perfected it from its crudely original iteration
We did find this interesting. I've come a lot of decades before seeing this done / demonstrated. I knew of the "Nottingham canaries" - is about forty miles from where I grew-up. I had gathered this is a very expensive explosive with no compelling advantages in civilian blasting. You show why. Where commercial blasting can acquire glycerine-based and successors from a supplier's depot by regular "lots" and use within days, with familiar controlled handling protocols giving a high enough margin of safety, for as much to more "bang" and much lower cost.
Huh that is very interesting, thank you for sharing! But yeah that was essentially my logic when asking myself "is this okay to post online?". I looked around and found a dozen videos on the synthesis of nitroglycerin, which is FAR cheaper, faster, easier to make, and easier to detonate compared to TNT. I figured if that was okay to post, it would logically be fine to post a compound that is so expensive and difficult to make that it's essentially useless for non-military application. And I'm glad you enjoyed the video! I had also read about this for years before making it, and to me the most fascinating part was the fact that when heated it forms a very dense hydrophobic blob that kind of just glides around.
Thanks now my school chemistry lab doesn’t stand a chance
Would there be uses outside of the realm of energetics to synthesize tetrazoles? Tom from Explosions & Fire has a pretty cool video on azides and tetrazoles and the nitration processes during the synthesis would be cool to demonstrate.
That certainly wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, and I'll definitely look into it! I tend to over-prepare for these type of vids so it might take a while, but I do like the idea
@@integral_chemistry How about a video making Pentaerythritol from scratch formaldehyde & acetaldehyde. You can make formaldehyde from methanol, and acetaldehyde from ethanol. That's not commonly demostrated, I doubt showing the synthesis would cause any issues since it used for plastics, paints, varnishes, stablizers, etc. I bet it would get a lot of views.
@@integral_chemistrydo copper nitrotetrazole for the funny
It is just absolutely fascinating how you can take certain materials and through chemistry create completely different materials. Great video, very smart letting people know how truly dangerous this process is. Stupid people will always be stupid I guess.
Bro that crystallization footage is amazing! Idk why your doubting it
Well thank you! I just didn't feel there was enough contrast but looking back it does look pretty cool
You only need 4 cubic meters of silicon dioxide powder, and 5 batches of sulfur, carbon, and potassium nitrate. This is a minecraft joke if you don’t know.
lol my initial idea was to make the thumbnail a minecraft TNT block, but I felt that might be too misleading
@@integral_chemistry we need a video of you mixing the above ingredients
I was always thinking that the values were actually exponential.
Just found your Channel, i am an electrician, but mecanics and chemical also catch my eyes, new follower!!!
Those crystals in the opening make my BH pucker. I worked in an MSA at a base in the rockies and we'd get an old wood and straw crate with those crystals on the sticks in the crates. Immediate evacuation order. Great advancement for its time but if you see that just know you're in the presence of highly volatile explosives.
Always love hearing from people with real-life experience with the chemicals I make! But uh yeah that sounds a bit terrifying. Compounds like this get scarier the drier they are, and the more finely dispersed they are. Generally unreactive chemical but under those conditions you describe I wouldn't go anywhere close. Out of curiosity, what happened after the evacuation? Like what was the protocol to actually deal with such a condition?
Love the video man! Just a quick correction; At 2:23 you stated that it was 98% Sulfuric Acid but your text says 98% Nitric.
Toluene is also misspelled at 1:46
Yeah I was up late trying to finish editing on this one, made a few more mistakes than usual. You're the first to catch the toluene misspelling though
@@integral_chemistry Hey man don’t sweat it. You’re one of the better chemistry channels that I’ve seen on the platform with actually ORIGINAL content. I love the Nile Reds and Chemdelics but sometimes seeing the same simple organic synthesis reactions gets old. You’re doing a great job. This is the first nitrotoluene vid that I’ve seen other than chemplayer so I’m here for it.
@@andrewtreat7371 Thanks man! That means a lot. I will say a lot of my earlier videos were those simple/straightforward reactions you're talking about, but those get even more boring to do than to watch. Trust me. I've got a lot of cool stuff planned, much of which currently doesn't exist on youtube (to my knowledge) So stay tuned!
@@integral_chemistry Keep us posted.
fantastic video man
Thank you so much! This one took a while so I'm glad people seem to be enjoying it
@@integral_chemistry yeah have to say the tens of times i have made tnt this one is one of the best even though i would usualy cool in the first step just cause i dont like doing MNT to DNT directly but otherwise great procedure
Only took 2 semesters of chemistry and thoroughly enjoyed them. Explained so much of the world around me
Never thought that my lab work could have been a KZhead channel ! And as a chemist I know all the work not shown in the video. It looks sooo kitchen like if you do not have to do it for real . I liked the video… it’s been so long time since I left the lab
I'm glad you like it! And I will agree I am quite shocked myself how many people are apparently interested in seeing organic synthesis. Kinda blown away but obviously happy about it. And I do miss working in a real lab. Took the last year off to do other things and it's tough to get a job doing much beyond washing glassware where I live with a year gap in your resume.. Anyway thanks again for checking out my channel! 😁
19:55 Wait why is the mixture Now Oxidizing it rather than Nitrating it ? Why does using fresh acid prevents oxidation while the old acid oxidizes it ? What is changing it's nature now ?
I actually have no idea, I was kinda surprised it didn't work (btw thanks for staying until the very end). I'm not an expert in these types of reactions, but I assume that when the concentration of the reactive nitro-ions drop too low, the sulfuric acid becomes the principle reactive species. Since the sulfuric acid wasn't actually used up in the first two reactions while the nitric acid was, the nitric acid content might just be so low here that it's essentially like adding toluene to sulfuric acid.
why do I feel like Ive just been added to a "list" because I clicked on this video? 😂
This is rather mind blowing.. especially if you screw up the preparation 😃 I hope no one tries this at home. At least not near me.
Hey, absolutely amazed by this video and reading some of the comments please keep this up. Ignore the silly people making their jokes, this is clearly an amazing chemistry video and you have talent for this. Wish the people didnt make the jokes, especially since ive had my own interests in crafting explosives and done my research, all the info is pretty old an interesting but this is clearly just a video about a fascinating chemical
One of the first things I ever pulled off the internet back in the 90's, was the concise recipe and directions for this triple nitration process. Nice to see the internet has come full circle, haha!
12:05 ah yes... red water... I have some still laying around from when I did this synthesis 3 years ago... Idk what to do with it so its just catching dust...
Unfun fact: it's toxic and carcinogenic and its management and disposal a major consideration in the commercial manufacturing of TNT.
@@hammerth1421 Thanks, I know that. Found that out before making it, so decided to just keep it in a separate bottle, after the rxn, marked with, you wouldn't believe it, "Red water" with a bunch of warning stickers :D
Can you evaporate it to decrease the amount of bulk you need to store, or does that make it unstable? Also, what the hell do you guys tell the hazmat place when you dispose of some...esoteric or energetic waste products? "Ah, yea, I was just making up some recreational TNT". I have some electroplating stuff to dispose of (copper sulfate, nickel chloride, etc) and I honestly don't know what to tell them or if they would understand at the drop-off place.
@@jaymzx0 1) Yea, you could, but that takes time :D 2) that's why I have it laying around for the past few years... 😅I don't like explaining "why", they probably wouldn't accept "for fun, because energetic chemistry is amazing"
I feel the nitro groups could probably be reduced to amine groups by dithionite. That's my tentative plan. It would still be quite toxic, but hopefully no longer energetic
On a similar note to some other comments, and an interesting bit of explosive history: There was a noted trend of sailors in various navies chewing cordite for the nitroglycerine high received from the pellets. This resulted in a few injuries.
This is a fascinating and somewhat solemn chemistry experiment surely due to the what most people feel when they see the three letters TNT. Terrific video. It's a fine line as to what is posted on KZhead, but it seems that if you clearly state your intention, educational only, KZhead is Ok with it. Doing some research for my own channel, I have found energetic videos going back a decade, some more. I also know of two KZheadrs that had everything deleted as they got carried away and energetics is all they did. Due to your explicit caution I believe this video will last, as the chemistry was well done and very well explained.
Over here in America: we got 50BMG's but no TNT. Over there: no gun or knives, but TNT....OK! 😂
I am pretty sure TNT is banned "over there". in US there is Tannerite, "over there", there is also no Tannerite.
@@guytech7310 I know. I was just trying to be funny. Sorry I failed 😔
@@adrielburned6924 /sarc helps
Do you use an alkali mixture to break down the red water or something? Just curious 🤔
I'm not actually sure. I think a fenton's type reagent could definitely do it, but I feel hydroxide alone might not be enough.
Send it out for disposal.
One of those pieces of knowledge that I love to learn but am highly unlikely to ever do anything with.
I like the bubbles and stuff... Do not give up if something only does not look nice... it does not matter in the long run
Dear FBI agent. Dunkin or Starbucks?
Tim Hortons lol
@@CPTSwoopty this ain’t Canada
I thought is was gunpowder and sand?
Right?!?????
Dynamite is nitroglycerin and celite (a type of sand). That's probably what you were thinking of
@integral_chemistry it's a Minecraft reference 😅
@@superslimanoniem4712 LMAO damn yeah idk how I didn't catch that
BTW love the channel name! Absolutely brilliant!
No wonder flat earthers exist, since science is so complicated. I'm always impressed by the amount of knowledge scientists have collected. Since I'm a fool compared to those scholars, I wouldn't dare to argue with lectured people about their field.
The caption at 2:18 says to use a mix of 98% nitric acid with 99% fuming nitric acid, 😜yup thats definitely an excess bro
Christ 😅 yeah I should really watch these back before posting. Tysm for catching that, I'll try and correct it.
By the looks of the TNT burning it's really impure. The forming of the nitrous oxides during nitration indicate an oxidation reaction caused by the temperature being too high (When we nitrated stuff in the lab, we cooled the round bottom flask in an ice bath)
Could be, but I believe it's just a really dirty combustion mechanism. I've seen lab-grade burn and it looks similar. Typically you're right though, nearly every other nitration (nitroglycerin, nitrocellulose, RDX, nitroaniline, nitrobenzene, etc.) All require significant cooling on ice and should NEVER produce visible nitrogen oxide fumes. The issue with this particular reaction is that the third nitro addition is so unfavorable that it must be conducted at such a temperature that some oxidation is inevitable. The industrial way around this is to use WFNA, but even then it's impossible to avoid completely. BTW the most common oxidation byproduct occurs by oxidation of the methyl group, which forms a diazonium salt during the sulfite wash. Might be a cool idea to regenerate red water into useful dyes
Love the way you presented your reasonings behind your procedures and also backgrounds in the compound, as well as science to nitration, just generally very educational. Would you consider doing RDX or HMX next? Those nitrations are weird to me as they are not just adding nitro groups to benzene rings lol Also you could nitrate TNT again to get HNS which is a very interesting energetic compound
Hey NIA/NSA, I am a NileRed Subscriber so watching this all for educational purposes only. Don't presume or tag me otherwise.
Isn't it just gunpowder and sand?
Only in minecraft lol
I’m tryna get a job that requires security clearance. Why am I here?
As if you wouldn't have access to much worse ...?
You already broke Rule #1.
Thanks, really needed this for a school project! :)
Kinda amazing how much work goes into making just a tiny amount of explosives. To do this on an industrial scale (like WW1) is absolutely insane. Even with the danger of having so much explosives in one spot, like with how bad the Halifax explosion was, but the massive amount of toxic gasses that are produced. To control all of that on a nation wide scale is just crazy. We go to such great lengths just to better kill eachother. Now I'm curious to what compounds were generated when burning the TNT. I only work with acetylene, and that just forms pure carbon if incomplete combustion, and when oxidized burns into C02 and water.
The quantity you are referencing (8.46m side length qube) is not 1000 kg of TNT but 1000000kg (1000 t). (0:45)
Yeah definitely my mistake there (tbh surprised that's my only misspeak so far). Thanks for the correction, I'll try and fix that!
some guys will find this useful
50 years ago in an organic chemistry lab. One young lady set up her experiment. Then since it took a few hours. She left and went to the bars. The TA learned she left. Ran over to her set up and shut it down. Then evacuated everyone from the lab. We were working with toluene. He mentioned TNT. Now seeing the process. I don’t think it’s was close. However we didn’t ever see her again.
TNT used as a yellow dye. "My gosh aren't you looking EXPLOSIVE today dear!"
I finally watched the watchlist-bait video, YT. Now get off my recommendations. On a more serious note: There's something mesmerizing about that one shot of liquid pink-mistinator swirling around under water like that.