My accidental discovery of lead sponge

Casey Kikendall

Yep. The number on the dial is the max range. So if you have it on 200 then it cant read 300, but it has more accuracy than 20M. You can set it to a higher range (20M or so) and hold the probes in your finger tips without them touching and you will see the numbers change just based on the pressure you are applying.

Nile Red

I had no idea. I rarely use multimeters and I honestly thought there was only one continuity checking mode. so maybe the resistance of the foam was just higher so it didnt beep?

Casey Kikendall

A note on your multimeter: you had it in continuity checking mode and not a proper ohm mode. The reason it beeps is because it is useful when making sure wires are connected without being able to see the multimeter itself, and it only beeps at less than 100 or so ohms. When doing a proper resistance check you will want to use one of the other modes. Let me know if you have any questions on how to use the more useful features of your DMM.

Nile Red

Just message me directly on Patreon!

Nile Red

On the studio side, there is a green screen

Nile red can you please please please email me if you can kenny03090@gmail.com

Silviu T

Well technically everyone who drives a car is messing with pounds and pounds of lead and sulfuric acid every day. Except for owners of electric cars, they are messing with pounds of lithium instead.

Silviu T

This lead sponge is in fact more analogous to Urushibara nickel, which is prepared in a similar way (adding zinc powder to a nickel solution followed by digestion with either an acid or a base)

Adric Menning

in the new lab is the green wall so you can do green screen filming?

Nile Red

good idea

Nile Red

I cant wait either! So much work to get it up and running though!

Nile Red

That's a pretty cool idea

Nile Red

Definitely something to try in a future run

mrkhrdr@gmail.com

Did you ever try treating the sponge with HCl? The Zn will reduce the HCl to H2 and zinc chloride. From what I read in Wikipedia, Pb is somewhat resistant to attack by HCl. I wonder if the lead product would be extremely porous owing to the removal of Zn atom-by-atom by the HCl. I wonder what properties the 'ultraporous' lead would have? Raney nickel is activated by an analogous reaction of Ni-Al alloys with conc. NaOH, which is reduced by the Al atoms, releasing H2 gas and leaving sodium aluminate + extremely porous Nickel with a lot of H2 adsorbed to it. Some preparations of Raney nickel are pyrophoric. It's a potent hydrogenation catalyst. Wikipedia discusses Raney nickel in some depth.

Herbert999

Yeah well Cody some people usually dont mess with pounds over pounds of lead so it might be something new to them XD

Äonothem

you could make a giveaway

jason black

The hollow, brittle sound of those baked chunks is quite striking. What would be really cool would be to send a sample to Ben Krasnow (the Applied Science guy) so he could break one open and look at the fresh surface using his electron microscope.

I wonder how thermally conductive it is. Maybe try blasting it with a blowtorch to see what happens/how it melts.

Michael Aichlmayr

Serendipity is awesome!! 👍😎

CodyDon Reeder

you want lead sponge? just stick some lead rods into some sulfuric acid and hook up to a battery charger. ;)

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

Lead and Zinc. Could it be some kind of alloy? Well it is very interesting! Good luck on the Main Lab. I cannot wait to see it in Video.

Damn, that was cool. Not knowing exactly what's going to happen sounds like a good way to discover new stuff (as long as it's safe). And hey, CONGRATS on the lab man; can't wait to see the new setup and the content you're going to create in it.