Last Friday, Jay Leno had a scientist on who showed off some visually pleasing experiments. One of these involved mixing Hydrogen Peroxide with liquid dish soap in a big graduated cylynder. When a Potassium Iodide solution was poured in, the thing foamed like crazy.
The scientist said the peroxide was 10 times as strong as the over the counter stuff, so I guess about 30% strength. There was no word on the strength of the KI solution.
Can I safely try this in my backyard? Wikipedia calls KI “slightly hazardous”. Can I buy it at a reasonable cost without a permit? Any guess as to what concentration to use? How about extra strenght Hydrogen Peroxide?
There is a video of this online here. I can’t find a link to the clip directly, but it’s at the begining of the next to last chapter abouth 31 minutes in on the counter. On edit: you have to select Friday the 25th as the episode at the bottom.
I’ve done this one before. Try searching on “elephant toothpaste” demos. The concentrations should be readily available. That said, I don’t suggest this for the lay person at home. 30% H2O2 is not something untrained persons should be dealing with. Potassium iodide is an irritant. More importantly, what do you intend to do with the waste generated?
Mostly, however, I think this demo is boring. Wooo. Foam. Now clean it up.
If you want a big fountain, stick to Mentos and pop.
If you want something thats fun for more time without the nasty disposal issues, try plopping some dry ice in soapy water.
I don’t know where you can buy KI. I always used manganese dioxide, I stripped it out of batteries. Carefully open a D cell and pull the black gunk out. Carefully!, it doesn’t come out of fabric, and the battery has it’s own caustic chemical issues.
I used to get high percentage H2O2 from hair salons; They used it for …well, I’m not sure…but they called it such and such “volume”. Get the highest “volume” they have…if they still use it. It’s been a while, I don’t even know if they still use the stuff in hair salons.
By the way, When you dump the manganese dioxide on the carpet in your bedroom, make sure you cover it up with a bunch of magazines until you go to college. That way your parents will never know until later …but then; you’re in College; hopefully miles away when they discover it.
Lightening the color of hair. 20 Volume, 30 Volume and 40 Volume are available at Sally Beauty Supply and the like. You don’t need a license to buy them, but I wouldn’t use 40 Volume on my hair without some experience. I think 60 Volume is also available, but you don’t see that outside a salon (although still, I don’t think you need a license, just a source that will sell to a non-professional).
IIRC, high-potency H2O2 + manganese dioxide is what they used to power torpedos with (and maybe they still do). The mixture wasn’t the explosive, mind you, but the propellant. Anyway, the point I’m making is that it’s obviously a powerful combination. Be careful.
Good question. I would put it in my hazardous waste collection area to be disposed of by licensed professionals at great cost. What? You don’t have licensed hazardous waste professionals at your place every Thursday morning?
Hm…
In our county they have an annual hazardous waste collection day for things like paint, solvents, used motor oil, etc. I suppose if your area has something like that you could take it there.
I’m guessing that “20 Volume” is short for “20 volume percent.” In other words, “20 Volume” is a solution that is 20% (by volume) hydrogen peroxide. (The other 80% would be water.)
This is just another case of non-technical people (like your typical hairdresser) abbreviating a technical term (in this case, volume %) to the point of incomprehensibility.
Another example is “cubic yards” which is commonly shorted to just “yards.” As in, “we need 3 yards of concrete,” which makes no sense whatsoever unless you know the speaker actually means cubic yards.
No, the volume nomenclature used in hair dressing peroxide is a reference to the volume of oxygen released on decomposition from the peroxide component. To convert to actual percentages of peroxide, each 10 volume unit corresponds to roughly 3.3% peroxide. 10 volume is your standard household 3%, where 40 volume is closer to 13%.
Hey, Solfy, any idea what Volume is in a Revlon home highlighting/frosting kit? It wasn’t labeled. I used one last night for the first time (love the results!) and I was startled by how very quickly the color lifted - 10 minutes was all I needed (an all-over home color takes about 30 in my shade - light brown hair to dark blonde color). Yet the instructions said some people might need up to 60 minutes! Yikes! I think my hair would have melted right off had I left it on that long. Of course, I did an all-over color 24 hours before, so maybe my cuticles were still open or something. But wow, I never expected that much lift so quickly.
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I don’t know, but I’ve used both the color kits and the highlighting kits, and I’d wager the lift power (and therefore peroxide percentage) is much higher in the highlighting kits. I’ve used the 2-part L’oreal kits and ended up orange due to insufficient lifting, while I only need about 10-15 minutes with a highlighting kit to get a good blonde. Chances are they get away with the higher peroxide levels in the highlighting kits because there’s less (or no) direct scalp contact, assuming you use the pull-through cap provided.
Well, that’s what I get for assuming. It seems like it would be easier to simply use percentages, but I’m sure there’s some reason why it makes sense to express a concentration of peroxide as how many volumes of oxygen gas will be produced from a given volume of peroxide.
I imagine that there are probably other bleaching agents used, and measuring them by the amount of oxygen released makes it easier to compare them to each other.
