Category Archives: alkaline

Retrotechtacular: Disposing of Sodium, 1947-Style

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A high school friend once related the story about how his father, a chemist for an environmental waste concern, disposed of a problematic quantity of metallic sodium by dumping it into one of the more polluted rivers in southern New England. Despite the fact that the local residents were used to seeing all manner of noxious hijinx in the river, the resulting explosion was supposedly enough to warrant a call to the police and an expeditious retreat back to the labs. It was a good story, but not especially believable back in the day.

After seeing this video of how …read more

Continue reading Retrotechtacular: Disposing of Sodium, 1947-Style→

Retrotechtacular: Disposing of Sodium, 1947-Style

Posted on by

A high school friend once related the story about how his father, a chemist for an environmental waste concern, disposed of a problematic quantity of metallic sodium by dumping it into one of the more polluted rivers in southern New England. Despite the fact that the local residents were used to seeing all manner of noxious hijinx in the river, the resulting explosion was supposedly enough to warrant a call to the police and an expeditious retreat back to the labs. It was a good story, but not especially believable back in the day.

After seeing this video of how …read more

Continue reading Retrotechtacular: Disposing of Sodium, 1947-Style→

Old Batteries Yield Thermite and Manganese

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Some people collect stamps, some collect coins, some even collect barbed wire. But the aptly named [Plutonium Bunny] is an element collector, as in one who seeks a sample of as many elements on the periodic table as possible. Whatever, we don’t judge – after all, there are more than a few Hackaday readers who collect lots of silicon, right?

So what’s a collector to do when he gets to the 25th place on the periodic table? Easy – harvest manganese from alkaline batteries with a thermite reaction. There’s a surprising amount of manganese in depleted alkaline batteries, which of …read more

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