How to Make Your Own Flameless Ration Heaters and the science of how they work.

In this video we show how Flameless Ration Heaters and self heating food containers work.

Inside of them is a water activated exothermic chemical reaction. The most common one is magnesium iron alloy and salt. When water is activated it produces magnesium hydroxide and plenty of heat. Less common mixtures include sodium hydroxide and aluminum, magnesium metal and sodium bisulfate, aluminum and calcium hydroxide, and calcium oxide alone with water.

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[NurdRage]

I don't question the amount research, blood, sweat, and tears, that went into determining the best way to hold up an MRE heater was a Rock or Something.

[stickyfox]

When I was in the Army in the 90s, it was a running joke in my platoon to test to see if something was "something, " based on whether or not an MRE heater would lean against it. If it fell off or flattened, it wasn't something.

[spiderdude]

I GUARANTEE you that “or something” was added to the instructions because some soldiers thought they had to eat the food cold because they couldn’t find a rock.

[UndercoverFerret]

As for bags, use sous vide bags. They can handle the heat and you can make them any size you want.

[martinsnow]

Having watched your videos since 7th grade, I am happy you're still active on youtube. I'm certain you have inspired many little chemists.

[Kineth]

A surprisingly frequent comment/joke when a military member sees that someone has heated an MRE is "Oh, you were able to find a rock or something." Implying that the person making the comment thought the other lacked the intellectual capacity to locate a rock, or suitable substitute.

I usually took off my boots, and used one of them as an "or something" because it's nice to get your feet out of those boots for a few minutes in the middle of watch.

[wreckingangel]

Have you considered ball milling? It is often used to create intermetallic Fe -Mg compounds in the lab, mainly for hydrogen storage. Ball milling reactive metals is not without risk but it is a lot less dangerous than molten Mg.

[dasbuj]

Brings back memories of post-Katrina in New Orleans, we had so many MREs. Rock or Something is definitely the best propping method! lmao

[matthewnardin]

While deployed, I once tried to capture the hydrogen from the MREs. The goal was to make a nitrile glove float and/or to make a louder MRE bomb. I couldn't cobble together good enough chemistry hardware to get the job done though. I guess some dreams were never meant to be.

[Gelatinocyte]

4:04 actually, there are coffee cans that use thermite to instantly heat coffee. The simple trick to make thermite useable for heating food is to encase it in food grade metal, and have it submerged in water; that water is to make sure it doesn't overheat and basically have a meltdown, and that water can be the consumable itself (i.e. a brew or a soup), or you can use that heated water as the cooker.

[jeanbeaupre]

I work with one of the inventors of MRE heater packs. They call it "super corrosive alloy". I went and got the the mason jar of 90% Mg / 10% Fe blend he gave me. The note taped to it says the two metals are in close contact to make a battery in water and promote corrosion. Salt further promotes the galvanic corrosion. IIRC, he told me once that they made it by ball milling the metals together. The elements in the alloy are mechanically mixed in solid phase, not liquid.
Somewhere there is the patent on this alloy. He also tried to promote it as convenient source of H2.
On a side note, this was invented for the military. Which puts symbols on everything. A symbol for food. A symbol for poison. Etc. MREs initially had both symbols, which did not go unnoticed by soldiers told to eat them.

[NateLeePhillips]

I have a video called The Works Bomb on my own channel using the HCl+AL reaction, in which we poured toilet bowl cleaner over strips of aluminum in a 2-liter soda bottle and screwed the cap on. The explosion of the bottle rupturing from the expanding gas was incredible! I'm glad this is one of the heating methods described here. You could store liquid toilet bowl cleaner next to your ration heating kit if you wanted to use that reaction in particular.

[pwnyou]

Haha. I've been researching how to make these, and now this is uploaded. There's a reason I love your channel. Thank you!

[Nighthawkinlight]

Wonder if you could make that alloy by slowly adding iron oxide to molten magnesium. The resulting thermite reaction might cause the elemental iron to intermingle with the molten magnesium without having to heat the whole mix to iron melting temp. Only issue is it's tough to melt magnesium without it catching fire. You think the same iron content could work with a MgAl alloy instead of pure Mg? With MgAl you would also get the benefit of being able to easily powderize it with a hammer.

[sciencefusion]

I cry when I see you have uploaded a new video


Watching your videos since 10 years❤❤❤😂😂😂

[Mr.Unacceptable]

Try vacuum seal bags. The bonus is they are vacuum sealed until you use them. You can make them different shapes. Put your heater in a bag of water you heat that contains a bag with your meal. Like a Sous vide cooker.

[VoteDrizzt]

Just chiming in to double down on the whole "dont seal the vessel" part.

My Dad did a groundskeeping/maintenance job and some jerk used to make little foil+Draino bottles that would "go off" when Dad moved them into a trash bag. He never got hurt becsuse he knew what it was but a pressurized bottle of caustic chemicals is NFG

[thingsiteach]

By this point, I see that others have already mentioned what I raced on here to tell you... Ball mill. I've been casually researching since you said "alloy" in this video, and just figured out that this must be how the manufacturers of FRHs do it. I live in the Maritimes. I spent time in the CF and have used ration heaters. When Fiona tore through, my preparedness was tested. Did okay, but having ration heaters would make my disaster kit quite a bit lighter and smaller. Since I'm nerdish and very cheap, I like the idea of making them. Keep being awesome!

[bedlaskybedla]

You can speed up reaction between aluminium and NaHSO4 by adding NaCl. Formation of [AlCl4]- massively improve reaction rate.

[DonnyHootieHoot]

That Steve guy that eats old MRE's needs to see this video! Cool viddy! Steve adds salt to old heaters and they sometimes come back!