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Mixing Brake Fluid and Chlorine Is Fun, But Explosive

Surf the internet for long enough and you'll run into a recipe for a mix that's explosive, or at least as fiery as a dragon. Brake fluid and chlorine is an example as good as any, one that has obviously been documented in science papers.
Brake Fluid and Chlorine mix burning 1 photo
Photo: screenshot from Youtube
But what about the burning, melting, threatening real life experience - what happens when you organize a meeting between calcium hypochlorite (your average granular pool cleaner) and polyethylene glycol (this is the brake fluid).

By the way, did we mention you shouldn't try this at home? No, really, you shouldn't. The mix is explosive to say the least, and only small quantities of it have been tested for scientific purposes so far.

The crew over at the Good Mythical Morning show on Youtube have decided to try this, so you won't have to. Once, do keep in mind not even these subscriber-friendly Daredevils played the chemistry game at home.

Instead, they did it while out camping. And you know things can get out of control when you're in such a situation. Sometimes you forget to pack the bread, while on other occasions you stand inches away from a developing blast.

Let's just say the guys went a bit ahead of themselves here, with flesh being put at risk. Their goggles looked decently safe though, so we won;t complain about that.

When somebody goes ahead and pulls such a shenanigan in a lab, the quantities are extremely limited - you know how expensive equipment can be and blowing everything up doesn't exactly lead to a scientific conclusion.

Well, these guys weren't in a laboratory, so they used quite a bit more of both substances than they should have.

You can check out the decently dangerous result in the video below (jump to the 9:55 mark) and we feel this gives us one more reason not to drive our cars through the pool. Especially not during cleaning operations.

P.S.: For all the chemistry geeks out there, we've included something delicious in the PDF below.

Via: Jalopnik

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 Download: Mixing Brake Fluid and Chlorine (PDF)

About the author: Andrei Tutu
Andrei Tutu profile photo

In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist.
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