How to Build a Bomb
By: regina • Essay • 612 Words • November 19, 2009 • 984 Views
Essay title: How to Build a Bomb
This is about how to make a fun and easy explosive/flamethrower with only Drano(R) and aluminum.
Aluminum + Drano
This is probably the safest explosion you'll get from me, and probably the simplest to perform. It basically involves putting aluminum foil in a bottle, drowning it with Drano, and letting the reaction proceed.
Materials
-Drano (easily bought at a local supermarket or anywhere that sells drain un-cloggers)
-Aluminum foil (or anything aluminum, but aluminum foil is sufficient)
-A plastic bottle with a cap (soda bottle or bottled water bottle will do. Wine bottle with cork is more fun.)
-SOMEPLACE OUTSIDE (if you do these inside, you will probably light something important (e.g. your house) on fire)
-OPTIONAL: butane lighter (matches and cigarette lighters aren't recommended because they are too short-range to be entirely safe)
Step 1: Take the aluminum foil and stuff it into your container of choice. Put a significant amount in, maybe filling it about 1/3 or 1/4 full. Additionally, you can tear the aluminum foil up into smaller pieces instead of crumpling it. This creates more surface area, which makes the reaction go faster.
Step 2: Submerge the aluminum foil with Drano drain un-clogger as best you can (the aluminum may float to some extent). Don't worry, nothing will happen immediately. The reaction is pretty slow.
Step 3: (Optional) NOTE: THIS STEP IS POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS! YOU COULD BURN OFF YOUR HAND. I RECOMMEND YOU WEAR GLOVES. Put the cap/cork on the bottle and wait a few minutes, probably 5. You should see some fog on the inside of the bottle in places, after a bit of time. This is hydrogen gas forming. Also, the aluminum and Drano mixture should begin bubbling. When you see a significant amount of gas, you can open the bottle quickly and light the hydrogen gas with your butane lighter (note that this could be dangerous if you don't have significant distance). When I did this, it "popped" inside the bottle.
When this is done, you can re-close the container and continue the experiment, if there is sufficient aluminum and drano (there probably is). Anyway,