Hey guys, welcome back. Today we're in the backyard with the mega Solar Scorcher.
Some of you long-term fans will remember this thing, because about five years ago
It's the project that launched my channel.
It's made from the front of a giant TV screen, and its whole purpose is to take sunlight
and concentrate it into a solar death ray so powerful, it can melt holes in concrete.
So if it can do that, is it powerful enough to ignite thermite?
Well, today we've got blue skies and the sun is shining, and Kilian Fitzpatrick really wants to know,
so Kilian, we're doing this experiment for you.
Now, Kilian has a good point, guys.
Thermite burns at about 4,000-5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. (2205-2760 Celsius)
Which is extremely hot. But it's also very very difficult to ignite.
Usually, sparklers or some kind of magnesium strip are used to ignite thermite,
because it requires an ignition point around 3,000 Fahrenheit (1650 C)
to even get the reaction started at all.
Now, I know that the Solar Scorcher will get up around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1090 C) because I have used
it to melt copper.
But will it be enough to actually light off thermite?
That's the purpose of this experiment today.
So, to get this experiment started today, we're gonna mix up a fresh batch of thermite.
That's a three-to-one ratio of iron oxide and aluminum powder.
We're gonna stick all that in a terracotta planter pot lined with aluminum foil,
and set it on a cinder block, to the point where it matches the focal point on our solar death beam.
And at that point, we're gonna set the frame, stand back, and watch what happens.
Now, the sun's hiding behind a cloud right now, so let's take the opportunity to mix up a batch of thermite
and get everything in position, so we're all ready to go when it pops back out.
Funny story, the reason my Solar Scorcher is marred up the way that it is is from that 4th of July experiment
we did with black powder, that made the big mushroom cloud and spewed out all kinds of black powder ash.
That was like, four years ago. Dang.
[music]
Juust a touch more for kicks...
[music]
Beautiful.
[music]
The aluminum should help give a little bit more reaction time, so the thermite gets a little hotter
before it spills through.
[music]
alright guys, its time to focus and light up our thermite
I got a little jar over here filled up with thermite to the top. I have got it set up on some 2x2s with a little terracotta base underneath.
All I'm going to do now is take the lens from our solar scorcher, and tip it over until it focuses onto the thermite
and then im going to hold it there until it lights off
if it does at all
we got my little wood 2x2s lined up here with a hole in the centre
that's gonna go right over top
and it should allow our molten metal to flow down the bottom.
alright, let's light it up and see if we can get it to work!
here we go
I can already see it's going to focus
here we go in three, two, one
oh, dang
woohoooohooohooo
WOW!!!
WOW!!!
Wow, oh my goodness, come look at this!
look at the way this is glowing
the pot is cracked
everything is on fire
we got a ton of metal down here
wooh dawggie
look at that pot!
I'd say that was a success!
WOW! oh my goodness look at that!
pieces of wood are charred and burned
and we are left with a cool metal residue
when that cools down we're going to have to chop it open, but that should be
IRON molten iron
and look at that, our pot has just disintegrated.
absolutely. look at that
super brutal
absolutely destroyed
that wood I can't believe that wood just went up in no, no time FLAT
completely charred
and this is still glowing
that was fun, let's do that again
guys I'm a foot away from this right now and it's been about 3 minutes
since this reaction went off, it's still incredibly, incredibly hot, and you can see this iron is still glowing
My terracotta pot is COMPLETELY destroyed
And it's a really good thing that I took the solar scorcher and ran when I did
Because there was a shower of sparks spewing about 4 feet in every direction
and it was burning about 5000 degrees Fahrenheit
this is absolutely amazing! with the ignition point of thermite being so high, i was expecting
quite a bit of a delay, maybe 30 seconds to a minute before it lit off
but no, that thing was instant, like the second the focal point made contact
the thermite went off
and I have to say, I'm actually quite pleased about those results. Let's do it again!!
I got another pot, pretty good amount of thermite in there as well, I'm using our old blocks here
and just kinda put them in a 'V' shape so we can set this down over top
I've built this up about as high as I feel comfortable
There is no way to support it up and really see the lava flow
like we did before
but um at this point I'm just really excited to do it again
oh look, it's actually so hot the wood just caught on fire
oh well
flames are not going to ignite our thermite
so I'm not really worried about that too much
We'll just leave that there, set the solar scorcher up, and go for round 2
hahaha
man it's a good thing I got it out here in a hurry!
I have to make sure I do that again
Like that.. OH danggit!
Oh, danggit, I just lost a whole bunch of our thermite there
salvage what you can
Ok, well, we're down about an inch, but no worries
Sure we'll still make it work
Alright, let's see if we can get that to work again! Here we go!
Oh, the focal point isn't quite as concentrated this time
I think it's a little bit too high, actually. OHHHH!!!!!
*THERMITE IGNITES UNEXPECTEDLY!*
[Music]
Nice!  Nice. Nice, ok. That, that was cool
Look at that!
You what impressed me about that, is that all metal came out into the dish under underneath
I thought it was gonna spew out to the side here
and overflow, but it didn't
Looks like we captured it all
[Slowmotion clips of thermite ignition]
And looking down that pot there,
You can see all of it has reacted, there is nothing left
Maybe just a little bit down the corner but all went through that hole
and filled up the gaps at the bottom
WOW! that was great!!
Pieces of wood are like fused in there
That's where all the molten metal went in, it just went in and filled all the gaps that were there previously
Which makes me wonder...
Could you possibly make a mould out of sand or something of that nature and use thermite to cast iron?
hmmm. maybe an idea for another project?
Let me know in the comments below
alright guys, it's been about 20 minutes since our second reaction took place, it has had a chance to cool down.
So just for funI grabbed a hammer so we could crack this metal open and see what happened inside.
This is still surprisingly hot
You can see the uh terracotta base here, kinda stuck to something there.
That's well cracked
In fact if I hit that a little bit, I can get it just to flake off, look at that
So what are we left with on the inside here?
We got big globules of this what looks like metal if we hit it, *hits metal with hammer*
It's actually pretty solid! I mean it is cracking, and that one split in half
If that was Iron, I wouldn't be expecting it would be splitting in half like that
But look right there, you can see a little bead of iron
And little beads of iron throughout
What appears to be metal, almost looks like a metal foam
And if you look at the cross section of that, you can see hundreds of little bubbles on the inside
Which is kinda cool but it's not solid, is it?
Whoo it's still crispy warm
Cooled down quite a bit, but that's still quite toasty
[Music]
Oohh
Look in there. that right there is a big glob of iron
That's quite a bit harder than the other ones were
oh, I still broke it though
there's another piece
they all seem to be hidden inside
It's like what's inside this one? What's inside this one?
So this is pretty cool guys, we started this experiment today on a quest to find out
Whether we could use sunlight to ignite thermite
which has a very very high ignition point
we mixed 3 parts of iron oxide with 1 part aluminium powder to generate
generate a homemade thermite mixture
then We brought back the solar scorcher from a previous project to concentrate the rays of sunlight into
a solar beam of death
The question we came here to answer today was whether that would be enough to ignite thermite
And after these experiments today, I think we can all conclude that the answer is a resounding yes.
Not only will it ignite thermite, but you saw in the first experiment, it lit off
within seconds. And even on the second experiment, even though the focal point wasn't ideal,
it was still enough heat to initiate the reaction
and it's only 85 degrees Fahrenheit today.
well guys, now you know how to harness the power of the sun to initiate a thermite reaction
right in the comfort of your own backyard
But don't do that in your backyard, leave that to me.
Again, a huge thanks to Kilian Fitzpatrick for suggesting this experiment today.
Kilian you can go check your youtube inbox, I'm sending you $25
That's it for this experiment, thanks so much for joining me,
and I'll be looking for you in the next video. Talk to you then.
[Random happens end card]
[behind the scenes footage]
[behind the scenes footage] I love how it just bursts into flames, it's like BOOM!
[behind the scenes footage] Oh, i got some on my clothes, that's not good
[behind the scenes footage] that stuff doesn't come out
[slowmotion behind the scenes extra footage] Subtitles by Nisha Hussain
[End card] Like, Subscribe, Share! (Subtitles by Nisha Hussain)
