a NEAT Experiment !!!

[YT2095]

in my efforts to make the perfect plant food for my Chili bushes, I was in need of some Phosphate (I have no Phosphoric acid left in the lab and was fresh out of Coke Cola to extract it from too)

so I though I`de make some

I had several boxes of safety matches in the lab drawer, so I decided to peel as thin as I could the 1`st layer of paper off the cardboard match box that contained the red Phosphorous.

I put it in a test tube and heated it over a blow torch (bunsen burner), with my thumb gently over the end of the tube, all went well apprt from paper)wood) distilates inside the tube, but all chared nicely, freeing the phosphorous.

when I took my thumb off the end of the tube there was a slight "garlic" smell (typical of phosphorous). but the cool part was, my Thumb was smoking!!!

Instantly ran into the dark room, and sure enough, it was glowing green! ))))))))

 

I`ve done subsequent experiments, and If you want to try this, it`s perfectly easy and safe!!!!

get a cold peice of metal, pile the paper from the side of a safety matches box into a heap on the metal, set fire to it.... you`ll notice a dirty greenish flame.

wait until the fire stops and all cools, then wipe your finger over the ashes, it SHOULD start to smoke, making it look like your fingers are on fire! (it`s quite cold, there`s NO heat).

but the effect looks great! then go into a dark/black room, and you`ll even see a green glow

 

wash your hand thouroughly afterwards !!!

It is harmless sure, but better safe than smelly of garlic

 

 

ENJOY!

[aman]

Ok, ya got me started on phosporous now. I learn something every day. I found that white phosphorous is very poisonous although I don't know which end product you wound up with. I agree, wash yer hands, but I read some stuff that said the TV phosphorous holds its glow longer than a PC monitor and PC monitors need to be refreshed more often. Is that true?

I love glowing stuff. I think we shoulda painted the Lincoln Memorial with glo paint and then turn the lights out every hour for a couple of minutes at night. Awesome.

Just aman

[VendingMenace]

yeah, glow in the dark stuff is cool

 

i think if the vikings were around today, they would be inpressed by how much glow in the dark stuff we have and amazed at how much we take it for granted

 

lol

[Dudde]

I think if vikings were around today, that would totally rock. and we could make their helmets and ships glow in the dark.

 

thanks for the experiment YT;) I don't have any money for matches or anything, but being the pyro that I am, I'll be sure to set something on fire here real soon..

[YT2095]

well the coating inside the crt tubes isn`t actualy phosphorous, it`s a bit of a miss term really, it`s usualy sulphides Calcium sulphide for example, and then doped with different metal ions to give the colors red green and blue ( don`t rem the exact composition off the top of my head tho).I think once upon a time it may have been a phosphor base though, and it does exhibit what`s called Phosphoressence(sp?).

the typical expose to light 1`st glow-in-the-dark material is Zinc Sulphide, and can be used to make some pretty foul smelling stink bombs too when mixed with an acid

[aman]

Thanks YT, I google searched an hour on CRT's and phosphorous glow and couldn't find anything on the tubes inner coating other than it was just there. The only glow they talked about is related to the color when phosphorous burns.

At Disneyland in Ca. about 1965, there was a display in Frontierland that had a bunch of rocks piled behind glass. The lights would go out and a UV light came on and the rocks glowed in a half dozen different colors. They named the natural minerals in each rock that caused each color but I dont remember what they were. If you walked into one of the caves where these were mined with a UV light, You'da probably gone blind. I do remember buying a small glowing skull for 75 cents and it did stink like sulphur.

Just aman

[YT2095]

I think is similar to the sort of thing you saw

 

http://www.minerals.net/resource/property/fluoresc.htm

 

as for the TV screen powder, I`ll have a look in some of my old notes, but I`m pretty sure there`s nothing realy remarkable about the coating as I didn`t exploit it in anyway. some of it though WILL glow under blacklight (UV) the sort of dark purpleish flourescent tubes you see in night-clubs that show every spec of dust on your new clothes and artificial white fillings in your teeth

[aman]

Thanks YT, I'm adding the site to my resource library, and I'm gonna go get lost in it for a while. It's already given me ideas for new threads of thought. With all this available the kids nowdays should all be geniouses.

As far as CRT screens, maybe the early ones had a phosphorous compound but have changed because still today we can burn an image in the screen without a screensaver and I imagine the coating is a little more sophisticated.

Just aman

[YT2095]

do a search for "Phosphor screens"

that`ll help for the now, then expand on it a little

 

take a peek here, even gives the chemical comp for some colors

 

http://www.apace-science.com/colutron/beammon/pscreen.htm