Psychedelic Chemistry - LITERALLY. Making repeating lightshows using
CYCLIC REACTIONS: They look pretty.
Collected notes.
From u114339@beta.lanl.gov
Subject: Re: Cool Reaction(Ithink)
runyon@oxy.edu (Scott Runyon) writes:
>I recently saw a reaction demonstrated on television as follows:
> Chemical solutions(3 I believe) are poured into a large beaker
> with a spin bar at bottom.
> Spin bar is turned on and withina minute or so, the clear liquid
> turns red....another minute or so and the liquid turns blue...
> another minute or so and the liquid turns clear again...you get
> the point...
> The gentleman demonstrating referred to the reaction by its
> name, the Briggs-Roucher cyclic reaction...I may have heard
The Briggs-Raucher reaction is carried out as follows:
in a 250ml beaker, mix equal volums (about 10ml) of each of the following:
A 6% H2O2
B 4.3g KIO3 dissolved in 100 ml H2O + 1.5 ml 6M H2SO4
C 1.56g malonic acid + 0.34g MnSO4.H2O dissolved in 100ml H2O
+ 3 mL of fresh 1% soluble starch solution
swirl beaker gently to mix. Several seconds after last ingrediant is added
the mixture turns yellow, then blue, colorless, yellow, ...
The reaction which you refer to is probably the Belousov_Zhabotinskii reaction, I could give you that recipe also if you wish. It is a bit more difficult how-
ever because it is somewhat tempermental. The colors are red and blue and are
both spacial as well as time resolved. For this reaction, you must have a
source of deionized water because it is very sensitive to chloride.