Making chemical snakes

I hope a kindly Russian-spreaking Boing Boing reader will tell us how to make these chemical snakes. Link

[#1 posted by citrusboy , November 12, 2007 3:43 PM]

Years ago a friend of mine returned from a trip with a small stash of various fireworks - a novelty here in southern California, where such things are banned - and I distinctly remember one of the fireworks being a small tablet that would produce one of these snakes when lit. I just did a quick search for them and it looks like they're still readily available if you don't feel like sorting out the chemicals to make your own; just search for "snake fireworks".

[#2 posted by Crash , November 12, 2007 3:55 PM]

Sulfuric acid and sugar.

[#3 posted by Lone , November 12, 2007 3:59 PM]

Animated poo? Tube lava?

[#4 posted by hcovitz , November 12, 2007 3:59 PM]

food soda (bicarbonate of sodium) and four parts of powdered sugar

Howard Covitz
www.econdem.org

[#5 posted by NickD , November 12, 2007 4:22 PM]

I can still remember the distinct scent these produced (it must be 25 years since I have seen/smelled one).

[#6 posted by poppagoth , November 12, 2007 4:43 PM]

If you just copy the URL from the page and paste it into a google search you'll end up with one returned link... you can then hit the 'Translate this page' link and get a reasonable translation.

[#7 posted by jcastle , November 12, 2007 4:44 PM]

There is a whole episode of South Park (208) dedicated to this snake firework. The town wants to have the worlds largest snake, its air lifted in with Chinook helicopters, set alight and burns forever, covering the city in the towering ash. Oldie but a goodie.

[#8 posted by angrydroid , November 12, 2007 5:35 PM]

I'm not sure i consider this a 'reasonable translation'...

[#9 posted by shmoo , November 12, 2007 5:43 PM]

I had these (well snake fireworks) when I was a kid, maybe 30 years ago. They were black carbony cylinders 1cm long. One thing to watch out for, it will leave an indelible mark on concrete.

[#10 posted by Pyros , November 12, 2007 5:44 PM]

Yes, we have much to learn from our Russian comrades, and smoke snakes are just the tip of the iceberg.

Many in the west have occasionally been forced to stifle a snobbish titter when considering the relative state of Russian technological advance as compared to the West without realizing that during the Cold War the Soviet's were blazing a trail in the important area of embalming technology. The West still is light years behind in this category.

Even more interesting is in the area of espionage where it is universally recognized that the Russians are still without peer. It was just yesterday in fact that the New York times (I was told) featured a story about some Russian spy who had infiltrated the Manhattan Project.

What methods they used to become so successful one can only wonder, but, during a recent trip to Moscow, I was privileged enough to obtain from a street walk vendor some highly classified leaked documents that I surmise might have had something to do with this program. The cahier that I purchased for just a few kopeks bore a rather unusual title: Sexual Maneuvers Pioneered By The Soviets During Cold War. As one might imagine, I devoured this reading with great avidity and immediately hired some people to help me put into practice what I had learned.

After several months, I am happy to report that I have come close to mastering two of the techniques (the document describes over 200 though). Their names loosely translated into English might be understood as the Double Reversal and the Doppelgang Bang. As a result, I feel that the mysteries of Russian espionage have been somewhat lessened.

[#11 posted by sidcarter , November 12, 2007 5:49 PM]

This looks very much like a commonly used firework in India.

[#12 posted by j_bary , November 12, 2007 6:05 PM]

Indeed, the machine translation says that it is baking soda and sugar with alcohol used to ignite it.

From the translation:

"Attention! The fact is that the sand will raskalen, the first drop of alcohol evaporate immediately and can enflamed, burning of all alcohol and strictly tank with him, you hold in their hands. All this may konchitsya very badly."

Thank God. I was worried that the sand wouldn't raskalen.

[#13 posted by megstar , November 12, 2007 6:39 PM]

Thank you Comrades, baking soda and sugar now have a new exciting purpose aside from creating mouthwatering baked goods.

[#14 posted by Dave X , November 12, 2007 7:07 PM]

Now only the criminals will have baking soda and sugar!

[#15 posted by Feenicks , November 12, 2007 8:19 PM]

Great, now the lines at Heathrow will be even longer as we wait for kids to eat all their duty free candy before embarking due to the new inflight banning of all SUGAR!

[#16 posted by Sisuile , November 12, 2007 8:22 PM]

They tried controlling baking soda as a meth producing substancein Missouri not too long ago. As far as I know, it failed. But there was certainly outcry about it for a bit.

[#17 posted by Elvis Pelt , November 12, 2007 8:26 PM]

SCHMOO/>:One thing to watch out for, it will leave an indelible mark on concrete.

Or on the inside of those galvanized garbage can lids! My pa always insisted that we light them in there. Not that that was all we did with them. Man, to this day, I love that smell and the indelible marks were just a bonus.

[#18 posted by invictus , November 12, 2007 8:31 PM]

Okay, here we go:

1. Pour a mound of sand through a sieve, make an indentation in the top, and pour alcohol into the indentation -- as much as possible without causing the mound to dissolve.

2. Prepare the reaction mass: Mix thoroughly 1 part baking soda to four parts confectioners' sugar.
Place the resulting mixture into the indentation in the sand mound. Ideally you should make the clump of reaction mass slightly smaller than the indentation, or the snake will turn out to be a mutant with horns and extra appendages.

Light the mixture, and watch. Soon, you'll see little black balls beginning to appear, and then, the snake!

Warning: Do not, under any circumstances, pour more alcohol in after the original dose burns through. The sand will at that point be hot enough to evaporate the first few drops of alcohol, which are liable to ignite, lighting the stream of alcohol and from there the container in your hands.

(This is just the first snake; if there's interest I can translate the rest. Also, how the devil does one translate "Раскален"?)

[#19 posted by RumbleBum , November 12, 2007 9:18 PM]

I could be completely off the mark here, but I seem to remember doing this using antacid tablets in my distant fuzzy past. Maybe I dreamt it, but if antacid tablets are made with sodium bicarbonate and sugar then might just work.

[#20 posted by romwell , November 12, 2007 9:48 PM]

OK, here we go indeed =) I hope this is not useless work.

Chemical Snakes

For hundreds, if not thousands of years, chemists conduct spectacular experiments in which the products of chemical reactions appear as snakes crawling out of the reaction zone. Some of these reactions are quite simple, so why don't we try them on our own ? Let's start with the simlest snake - the soda snake.

1. Soda snake

Make a little pile of sifted sand, make a small crater in it and pour alcohol generously into it (just take care to not wash out the pile of sand). Try to pour directly into the center of the crater.

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8015.jpg

Prepare the reaction mass. What can be simpler - take on part of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) per four parts of powdered sugar (aka confectioner's sugar, icing sugar etc.), and mix thoroughly with a stirrer in some small vessel.

(on the picture: baking soda, powdered sugar)
http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8026.jpg

Place then the reaction mass in the crate on top of the sand pile. Ideally, the mixture should be slighly less than the crater; otherwise you may get a mutant snake with horns and tentacles.

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8017.jpg

Carefully iginite the alcohol. Don't foget about fire safety ! At first, black balls and other boring stuff will appear...

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8022.jpg

...And then THE SNAKE crawls out ! (video, 2x speed: http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/01.wmv)

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8007.jpg
http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8005.jpg
http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8023.jpg

Impressive, isn't it ? Imagine how this trick, perforemed by alchemists or high priests, impressed the people of antiquity, who had aboslutely notion of chemistry, but believed in magic =)

The snake-creating reactions are:

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/r.jpg

The more alcohol you put - the longer the snake is. It consists of a hard foamy material, similar to burnt paper or a wasp nest. This is sodium carbonate with carbon particles in it. Carbon dioxide, produced in the reaction, makes it foamy. In the beginning the foam forming is pretty much random, but the process is more stable later on; this forms an articulate "head", followed by the "body", which strengthens the likeness to a snake. The snake formation ends when the alcohol is exhausted, leaving the snake with a white piece of unreacted mixture.

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8011.jpg

WARNING ! NEVER add more alcohol after the burning is complete. The sand is burning-hot, so the very first drops of alcohol may ignite, igniting the whole stream and alcohol in the vessel you are holding. This may end quite sadly for you.

2. Niter snake

The technique is the same as with the soda snake, except for the mixture one would take soda and ammonium nitrate in 1:1 proportion.

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8029.jpg

Here's the selitroid the crawls out:
(video link: http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/02.wmv)

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8030.jpg

3. Green dichromate snakes

Take two parts of ammonium nitrate, one part of powdered sugar, and one part of ammonium dichromate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_dichromate

(link to how to make a tabletop volcano with ammonium dichromate: http://www.mntc.ru/projects/bic/)

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8033.jpg

Crush the mixture into powder, slightly moisten with water and roll up into a sausage shape.

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8034.jpg

Let it dry out (you may use a hair dryer for that) and ignite. Green snakes will start to crawl out - slowly, at first, but then at a good pace:

(video link: http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/03.wmv)

http://www.mntc.ru/projects/snakes/8036.jpg

REMARKS:
1) to INVITUS: раскален is "red-hot"
2) you can make powdered sugar from regular sugar using a coffee grinder (set on "fine").

[#21 posted by _ktx , November 12, 2007 9:51 PM]

"раскален" translates as "incadescent". well, not exactly, but that's the root idea.

-K

[#22 posted by Crash , November 12, 2007 10:27 PM]

Incandescent seems pretty red hot to me. =)

Mr. Wizard used acid and sugar, but this reaction seems a lot safer. Of course, if procure pure ammonium nitrate to play with, you may be getting a call from some nice people in unimaginitive suits.

[#23 posted by Domster , November 12, 2007 10:34 PM]

A more impressive (IMO) reaction, as Crash said, is (strong) sulfuric acid and sugar. The acid rips the water from the sugar molecules, leaving a mass of carbon, heating water to steam, and making the carbon extrude out of the reaction area as a big, black mass. It's the perfect mix of toilet humour and chemistry.

[#24 posted by IdeaLog , November 12, 2007 11:34 PM]

Romwell, вы русский?
The romwell's translation is perfect.
I know a couple of military chemists here in Russia, who has fun doing ligth bombs from any things around them. Sometimes they go fishing with selfmade bombs and catch a lot of fish.
I don'a approve their actions cause it's realy dangerous.

[#25 posted by Johnathan , November 13, 2007 2:04 AM]

Well, fer starters your gonna need a big bag of COGA brand nuweoar. Only COGA will work, so don't try any substitutes or you risk getting your face blow'd up. Obviously you'll also want a wallopin'-sized sack of NYOP7.
Now, first you take your instant chocolate cake batter -- just pour a nice little pile of it on the kitchen counter hollow it out like a volcano...

[#26 posted by invictus , November 13, 2007 5:36 AM]

Romwell, спасибо.

[#27 posted by kip w , November 13, 2007 12:14 PM]

There was a book at our library that had all sorts of wonderful chemical things you could do -- at least, when the book was made (30s? 50s?). You could make matches that smoked, matches that acted like sparklers, and, yes, matches that produced snakes. These were for prank purposes. You would treat matches in a book of matches and give them to an unsuspecting friend.

So long ago. The library has trashed so many books since then. Somebody should track it down and scan the whole thing.

[#28 posted by tiggermissile , January 2, 2008 8:48 AM]

I bought this great eBook that goes into great depth on making pretty much every chemical needed for any pyro thing. So far I've made Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Perchlorate, Aluminum Powder, and nitric acid. I think if your into makeing that stuff you should check it out.
www.makechemicals.com