• Question: have you ever made things explode during a reaction

    Asked by anon-201697 to Sophia, Sarah, Meirin, George, Emily, Andy on 12 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Emily Lewis

      Emily Lewis answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      once at chemistry A-level we were doing an experiment that produced gas in these big expensive glass syringes. my teacher told us all to be careful with them because they cost a few hundred pounds each. we started the experiment off and I realised we hadn’t set the syringe to zero so I quickly pushed it back down, there was so much pressure from the gas being made and me shoving it down that it exploded and sent glass everywhere! My teacher was very unhappy

      At work we haven’t had any explosions though, probably because I work with the computers instead of experiments…

    • Photo: Sarah O'Sullivan

      Sarah O'Sullivan answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      I’ve had a few pressure problems when my furnace gas lines have become clogged and that’s caused the pressure in the tube to increase. Luckily we have bottles on the gas line that have deliberately un-fixed lids so when the pressure gets too much, the lid off the bottle goes pop. Or bang. Frightens me when it does that but it’s safety release for the pressure

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