Incendiary Experiments

So every kid I ever met thought explosions were cool. I know I spent most of my chemistry time as a kid making stuff go boom! So I am trying to collect here explosives that are safe enough for supervised experimentation with kids, and yet cool enough to still capture their interest and teach them something. It is a hard tightrope in todays society.

Dust Explosions

When spread as a particle cloud many materials become very flammable. As the material is dispersed in a cloud of tiny particles, the surface area available to directly oxidize with the atmosphere shoots up. As a result even a tiny spark can quickly cause the combustion of the cloud and result in a Dust Explosion. This can be demonstrated with a funnel, some corn starch, and a blow pipe.

Nitrogen Triiodide

Mixing Ammonia and Iodine creates a contact explosive called Nitrogen Triiodide. That sound scary, but it is one of the all time classic chemistry experiments and totally appropriate to do with adult supervision. Nitrogen Triiodide is trivial to make in small quantities, but when it dries it is highly unstable. A snowflake landing on it will set it off. It also creates a violet cloud of staining gas when it goes off.