Lab notes - Making Oleum - 20% yield improvement - (May 4th - 2024)

More lab notes on making sulfur trioxide and oleum. This time i was able to get up to 20%-25% yield with improved heating with better insulation. Also found out that precise temperature control is important and that the polymerization of the sulfur trioxide phases can be easily initiated by smearing it with a pipette on air.

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Lab notes - Making Oleum - 20% yield improvement: This Video

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[TheDeepDiveLLC]

I've been here with you since the first few videos. I was in middle school now I've graduated college. You're education has assisted me a lot.

[THYZOID]

loleum. It´s great that you are still working on this method.

[kaikaki]

Heya NR, I'm not a Chemist in any way what-so-ever, but I've been watching you steadily since Dec 2014!

I hope never to hear your real voice, I hope never to see your face because I love the Mystery behind the man; and your fantastic humor that inject here and there. Despite not being a chemist I've learned loads from you and several other Chem-Tubers (like Chemplayer) and it's amazing how often I actually recall the knowledge when I have to inform friends/family of Chemistry facts for whatever reason(s); and all from simply watching your videos casually.

Stay awesome man.

[ArcadiaPalladius]

This video is absolutely amazing. This is as OTC as it gets. Even a 20% yield is very useful. No one on the sciencemadness forums talked about this.

[alllove]

One of the main reasons I love and endorse your channel is that I am confident in your chemistry. I know it's going to be what you titled it. ❤

[bbtgp]

i'm sorry for your loss. rip ceramic hotplate.

[tmantekkit]

Great video! An idea I had for solving the problem with the clogging condenser, if you used a 2 neck receiver and had a rod or something held in the second neck set to have the product drip over, you could use that as an indicator and it could still work after initially clearing the condenser.

[LabCoatz_Science]

Something you might try: why not test 100% or greater sulfuric acid with the bisulfate instead of the usual 98%? Maybe water, even in small amounts, acts like a poison to this reaction. You could add a bit of the oleum from a previous run to the 98% acid and bisulfate to kill any residual water (kind of like the sodium/lithium jumpstart needed for your menthol-catalyzed sodium synthesis), and then distill like usual to find out!

[demandred]

Fantastic stuff man. Also really hyped to see you posting SOMETHING fairly regularly now. Keep it up!

[PyroRob]

Great to see this lab note. Making oleum has drawn my attention recently.

[NormReitzel]

This is a great, well analysed video. It's hard to overstress just how dangerous SO3 is.

[OldShatterham]

those SO3 crystals forming at the condenser are beautiful... and hella scary

[АцамазТатров]

Hi! I'm from Russia and I don't know English very well, so excuse me for the text from the translator. I watch your channel, thanks for the videos! But there is important information for you: you did not produced sulfuric anhydride in the alung. You distilled disulfuric acid, which melts at 36 degrees Celsius. It hydrolyzes to sulfuric and partially turns into sulfur trioxide in a solution of sulfuric acid. You showed a very cool way to brew pure sulfuric acid with a small content of sulfuric anhydride.

[erictjones]

Thank you for making so many new videos! Welcome back NR!

[logand]

Cool to see the process of making oleum, I've been watching your videos since around 12 years old, and now I'm in college learning about the chemistry behind it all. Thanks for all you do!

[Enjoymentboy]

When you said that you are just as inexperienced at this as we are: I can assure you sir that you could not be more incorrect.

[bobmoandfriend]

Regarding the determination of the endpoint: I noticed the vacuum takeoff barb on the tip of your condenser fumes quite a bit where it’s exposed to air, but the fumes above the liquid within the flask remain clear. This seems to suggest that you’ve got a decent vapor liquid equilibrium of SO3 vapor above the liquid distillate, and that maybe ‘wetting’ the pipette tip to check for crystallization at the vacuum takeoff barb would suffice, thus negating the need to take the apparatus apart to check?

Been watching this series closely. Excellent work!

[kevinbeale]

Thanks for this...I loved Chemistry at school, especially the lab work and watching demonstrations. It's like being back there, accompanied by the same sense of wonder

[mathewpankratz]

I didn’t realize you were back making videos. I missed a bunch I’ll have to go back over. You made the best early YouTube science content

[Spencergolde]

If you wanted to melt the SO3 plug on the inside of the flask, you could try using an infrared heat lamp. I believe SO3 has high absorption of thermal infrared, and the light should mostly pass right through the flask, like a little green house