I Recreated the Lost Recipe for Greek Fire!

I'm on a quest to recreate the lost recipe of Greek Fire!

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Created and Hosted by @AndyGeorge
Primary Editing by Emerson Rice
HTME Assistance by Elliot Krueger and Theo Melchoir

[lordcatface]

Quick tip from a chemistry student: please clean the ground glass joints in your distillation setup. Anything in the joints will probably cause leakage. You probably don't want that for your safety and yield. And for safety purposes please ventillate well during distillation or do it outside.

[DarthBorehd]

My high school chemistry teacher (he was kind of a mad scientist) said that he had figured out that Greek Fire had Lithium as the igniting source. He said that his hypothesis is that the ancient Greeks found a source of lithium carbonate and then couldn't make it again when their source was played out. They wrapped it in tar and sheep wool soaked in natural oil. Then they lit that and launched it out. If it hit the ship and the enemy crew tried to extinguish it with water, it would explode. If it hit the water, it would explode.
To demonstrate, he blew up the duck pond next to the school with a football-shaped grenade he made of this concoction. I remember it hitting the pond, nothing happening for a second, then nearly all the water exploded out of the pond and there was water/feathers/fish falling all around us. I don't think anything legally bad happened to him, but he said the principal warned him not to do it ever again (it was a different time).

[atpsynthase]

Lost his whole workshop to fire, and yet look at him now.

[henrymach]

It absolutely has to have oil in it because it needs to be:
1. less dense than water so it remains on the surface
2. not water soluble
3. stick to things

[jono]

The addition of pine tar was most likely to facilitate pumping and spraying. The U.S. Navy had the same thought among others when they were developing what we now know as Napalm. The name Napalm comes from Naphtha and Palm oil, which was their first successful recipe, before they moved on to a fully petroleum mix, which quickly became the standard.
The reason it needs a thickener is that straight gasoline actually burns too quickly, and disperses in the air, resulting in a dramatic loss of potential and effective range when projected under pressure.

[Neal_White_III]

I remember reading somewhere that Greek Fire was preheated before battle, which might affect the results. Also, it seems to me that adding small bits of sodium, lithium, etc. to the mix might be a good way to ignite the mixture in water. Sodium is often stored in mineral oil, so it's safe-ish to transport. Then during a sea battle, as the oil spreads on water it seems plausible that the sodium would eventually touch the water and ignite.

[kittyprydekissme]

That wading pool is now an EPA Superfund site.

[YingwuUsagiri]

Greek Fire nowadays, mostly as a nickname, is what Greeks use for BBQ/Grilling. You use the ashes from the current grill and mix it with something like lamp oil or candle wax and you get a deep grey paste that you can use for the next time and it burns super easily and extremely long compared to a regular fire starter.

[rishia]

Maybe this might help: Naphtha (refined crude oil, boiled to extract compounds that evaporate at lower temperatures just like what you did), quicklime (as a fine powder), calcium phosphide (produced by boiling crushed bones in urine in a sealed earthen or copper container), turpentine (extracted from pine resin), sulfur (as a fine powder), and niter (potassium nitrate). The working principle involves the reactive ingredients, calcium phosphide and calcium oxide (quicklime). The key question will be the proportions—whether the mixture should have a paste-like viscosity or be more oil-like. I think the solution will require testing and adjusting the oxidizer.

[OleDirtyMacSanchez]

Glycerin from Animal Hooves and also Beeswax was used in ton of things by Human Cultures all over the World for 5, 000 Years or more so you could've tried that. I mixed Glycerin, Gasoline, 195 Proof Alcohol, Pine Resin, Straight Animal Fat, and Beeswax, and got an interesting result. Took 3 Fire Extinguishers to put it out.

[cheshiremalkavian]

Mix your "straight petroleum" at a 1:1:½ or 2:1:½ ratio with crude oil and pine tar. Play with those 3 ingredients ratio, I bet you can make a fairly sticky fire.

[peteredwards]

I wonder if the "burning on water" thing is aided in anyway by the presence of salt in the water? This stuff was used primarily at sea, not in fresh water locations.

[voodooloukerensky]

The coolest thing about this video is the collection of raw oil.

[houseofcross]

Today in htme. While trying to crack the code on greek fire, we accidentally made a philosopher's stone and so have discovered immortality.

[blackdog]

I imagine whether intended or not that sodium may have played a large role in ignition on water. Sea salt itself wouldn't have necessarily done the job but when heated to vapourise, I'm pretty sure some of the sodium seperates from the chlorine. That would also explain the "thunder" that accompanied the fire. Not a chemist though, I've just heard the sodium and chorine seperating during desalination is what makes it hard to do at a large scale

[northmanlogging]

If you've already got pine resin, its a short jump to get turpentine, which is super flammable... and is basically just distilled from pine wood, easier to get then pine tar, possibly just mix it with the raw crude, you have the sticky icky, and the easily ignitable? a simple easy to replicate with Byzantine tech recipe. Maybe add some phosphate as a thickening agent?

[vince]

i think you need something mixed in that combusts when exposed to air. something like Phosphorus which can be made from urine. maybe combined with the lime or light oil might help too.

[timcoombe]

Now that's a clean-up I wouldn't want to have to do!

[hibbs]

Wow, what an amazing interview. Thanks for all that information, John Halden!!

[HeatherLandon]

Skip 4:42 - 5:39 to avoid Scammy Better Help