Melting Spoon in Tea - Periodic Table of Videos

A metal alloy spoon melts in tea.
More links and info in full description ↓↓↓

Featuring Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff and Senior Technician Neil Barnes.

With thanks to the Garfield Weston Foundation.

[periodicvideos]

Why not use Gallium?
Well - besides the fact it's not what we were sent by our fan - Gallium has a very low melting point. It'll melt in your hand... Not as fun as a spoon that is nornal in thge hand but then melts in hot water!

[johnobrien]

The unthinkable has happened, we've finally heard Neil's voice!!!

[pev_]

I vaguely remember reading about such "prank spoons" in some book when I was a child, perhaps something like 35 or more years ago, and I was fascinated by it. I was an avid library goer when young and the local library had quite many books that explained science subjects in a youngster-friendly manner, all of which I read many times with great interest. I think the metal referenced was Wood's metal. Of course I could never get such a spoon nor did I really even try :)

[Olhado]

I love the fact that the Professor gets excited over something as simple as this. You'd think that he's seen it all in his career but he still thinks that a spoon melting in tea is neat, and worthy of a video.

[larrytruelove]

There’s a great book called “The Disappearing Spoon.” It’s not written by a chemist but a journalist-writer. He discusses the histories of the discoveries of various elements and the human interactions over the past couple of hundred years.

[ze_rubenator]

Is the Fields Medal made of Field's Metal?

[julianvargo]

I have been watching so many of these videos that as an American - I changed my phone to not only Celsius - but have started saying centigrade instead of Celsius.

[crispincain]

Thank you Professor, and Neil, and Brady! This makes me think of spoon bending magicians!

[Freizeitflugsphaere]

Why don't you use Gallium? What are the benefits when using some kind of alloy? Though a fun little experiment.

[telluride]

I freakin love Periodic Videos. I even did fanart of you guys. I'mma show my science teacher your videos so the Chem classes can watch.

[Karabetter]

We often think of salts as being crystalline in their dry state. But there many such crystalline salt combinations (like choline chloride + urea) that when mixed together, WITHOUT ADDING ANY WATER, will take the crystals into a liquid state. A show on such DES (deep eutectic solvents) would be very visually interesting. :)

[Kanitoxx]

A few years ago I made the same alloy, it's really fun to cast metal things with just boiling water

[nathanz]

These videos are the only thing I love watching.

[PCBSLC]

I love the term 'centigrade'.
It's not heard much anymore apparently. I mentioned it in conversation recently and no one younger than me seemed to understand what it meant.

[PedroDelimaMarcano]

Once again enjoying greatly your video... Thanks Professor Poliakoff and Neal.!!!

[CrabRangoon]

I just read that Ford moved their magnesium parts production to Nottingham. This was following a fire at the main supplier a few weeks ago. I know you guys did a magnesium video before but if you have more info related to the topic that would be awesome!

[apinakapinastorba]

When I was a kid, I had this big lump of Wood’s metal I used to play around with. It was really fun to melt and cast it all over again.

[Fake_Blood]

We did it guys, we have Neil’s voice on camera, even though it’s only a “Aargh!”.

[medcologytutorials]

The joy of seeing periodic table videos is amazing 😍😇👌👌😎📹

[JoeBorrello]

One use of Wood’s metal is in the detector of a crystal radio. A galena crystal is embedded in Wood’s metal which is the cathode of the detector. The cat’s whisker is the anode. Use of low melting point metal prevents damage to the crystal.