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4 students suffer burns after botched chemical experiment

15 Comments

Four boys suffered burns to their faces and hands after a fire started while they were conducting a chemical experiment on the banks of the Arakawa River at Hinodecho in Tokyo's Adachi Ward on Saturday.

According to police, the boys, aged 15 and 16, were among a group of 11 members of the Adachi Gakuen science club. Emergency services received a call just after 3 p.m., saying that a fire had burned some of the boys, TBS reported.

The four boys were taken to hospital but their condition is not serious, police said.

According to the other boys, they were experimenting with magnesium, oxidized copper and alumunium when the fire broke out. Witnesses said the flames were two meters high, TBS reported.

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15 Comments
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Gotta love chemical fires, esp magnesium, sodium or phosphorus... Next time they'll be right back there, making Thermate (metal explosives, and the same chemical composition as stuff found at ground zero after the towers collapsed, in molten pools that took many days to cool down).. you know, iron oxide, sulfur, magnesium, other metals, all in the right proportion.

Or maybe we'll find them taking a stick of pure sodium out of its oil bath and dropping it in the middle of an urban road late at night. Carefully add some water from a ways away and run run run. Watch the fireworks and the firefighters.

Ok. Sorry. I'm past that age now. But we've all had our "experiments" when we were younger :)

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Boys will be boys....glad they're not seriously hurt, and they obviously meant no harm. Witnesses said the flames were two meters high - they need to add these comments to their experiment notes when they get home!

3 ( +3 / -1 )

Magnesium, oxidized copper and aluminum? What where they trying to make? Insendiaries? There are pretty volatile chemicals to be mixing. They are also not chemicals you can buy at Tokyohands. Did they rip them off or did a teacher give them to the boys?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Did they rip them off or did a teacher give them to the boys?

Aluminum and copper is easy, but magnesium, i don't know. Maybe they tore apart a NeXT cube? Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave. http://media.techeblog.com/images/nextcube.jpg

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The headline makes it sound like a school chemistry prac gone bad, but it is actually a bunch of geeks trying to blow stuff up. As a fellow geek, the biggest mistake is when too many others get involved and they demand to be impressed.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

well,,,if you dont succeed the first time,,, Try and try again!! next !

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The last time I experimented with magnesium when the parents weren't home, it melted holes into their marmor table (after the containing ashtray split into many pieces). The purpose, watching some cool flames, was fulfilled but with unexpected side effects. It was a helpful lesson for life but could have gone wrong much worse.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Here we go:

3CuO + 2Al -> 3Cu + Al2O3 + A HECK LOT OF THERMAL ENERGY!!

Use a piece of burning magnesium tape to ignite the reaction, and run as fast as you can for 5-8 seconds... Will melt holes in concrete, and will burn itself through normal soil, just like a nuclear meltdown. Our (iron oxide) thermite involved in total about 3 kg of rust, and left us with a small pothole filled with white melted iron.

The boys deserve a special prize - the copper oxide thermite is a bit more difficult to ignite than the iron oxide one, but it's spectacular, with a lot of white yellow flames and enough UV radiation to give sunburns... The smaller the particle size, the better... At least they did not try it indoors...

My absolute favorite is a mix of sodium and potassium in water. Done by a very simple timing device, it is extremely reactive and impressive.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Wow, all these chem otaku coming out w/ their explosive war stories. Should have paid attn in high school. The extent of my teenage explosive making was just lighting fires under a can of RAID, or siphoning gas off my friend's brother's motorcycle and putting it in something.

re magnesium

I believe it is very easy to get. There is a flint and steel alternative sold at any hiking shop that is a stick of steel and a stick of I believe magnesium.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

yeap, sounds like thermite. Probably watched one too many episodes of Myth Busters, Burn Notice or some Jack Ass series. Great for making a hole through your car engine. While not illegal, not very safe. I would keep a close eye on these kids before they move on to making C-4.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

re magnesium I believe it is very easy to get.

Not easy to get but not too hard either. I imagine these boys knew where Sensei kept it and cut off a few inches when their back was turned. Science club geeks can also get their hands on whatever is not nailed down.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Wow sad news for the boys, hope the ladys like the scar storys . I only played with beer bombs, 1 shake can 2 turn upside down over mouth 3 pull ring. Scared for life!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

sounds like they were making a variation of thermite. which while notexplosive burns very rapidly and vary vary hot.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

i guess the sausages were burned to a crisp

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The flames they saw were probably from the tabletop burning. The actual reaction would have been a copper thermite reaction, which is pretty fast... And any person with high school chem knowledge should be aware of that reaction and never even put those things in the same experiment. If any one of the three components were lacking, no thermite reaction... though rusty desk can still pull off an iron thermite reaction with aluminum and magnesium.

That teacher in charge should be fired for allowing the experiment to happen by enabling the kids (who probably watched youtube videos about thermite)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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