A number of TikTok users have engaged their viewers with spectacular and mind-blowing chemistry demonstrations this year. Newsweek collects some of the best chemistry TikToks from 2021.
Chemistry That Will Blow Your Mind
@nickuhas Living in the big blue world lol, doing giant LN2 experiments! #scienceexperiments#worldslargest#nickuhas#daviddobrik#smiling#scienceexperiment
♬ A-O-K - Tai Verdes
Nick Uhas is a Youtuber and Tiktokker with a Bachelor of Science degree from The Ohio State University, whose experiments with liquid nitrogen have to be seen to be believed.
In August, Uhas "went big" with the above video that shows a "blue" liquid nitrogen explosion as big as a house. The explosions are caused by pouring boiling water, dyed blue in this clip, into a large plastic drum of liquid nitrogen.
Because of the temperature difference between the water and the freezing liquid nitrogen, the latter turns to vapor instantly and rapidly and explosively expands.
The video has been viewed just under a million times, with 83,000 likes.
@nilered Spooky yellow powder #science#chemistry#nilered
♬ original sound - NileRed
Nilered gets spooky in a video released to coincide with Halloween. In the short clip, which has been viewed 13 million times, the chemistry Tiktok star demonstrates a yellow powder called lycopodium.
Lycopodium is highly hydrophobic, which means it strongly resists water. When Nilered drops it into water it sits on the surface. As he pushes his fingers through the powder and into the water, the lycopodium forms a goopy outer layer around the digits.
Removing his fingers from the beaker of water Nilered shows how they are completely dry and how the lycopodium remains powdery. He goes on to show how the dust can be used to form a flame thrower, torching an unfortunate spooky ghost drawing.
Everyday Objects and Out of This World Experiments
@nilered Bromine vs Aluminum is Insane! #science#chemistry#nilered
♬ original sound - NileRed
Nilered demonstrated another stunning chemical reaction in June when he showed what happens when aluminum is mixed with bromine.
In the video, which has been viewed almost 26 million times with nearly 6 million likes, the TikTokker inserts some off-the-shelf aluminum foil into a test tube of bromine he brewed in his parents' garage.
What remains after the violent fizzing reaction are small balls of aluminum covered in bromide salts. After "carefully" removing the metal from a test tube with the aid of a hammer, Nilered cleans it off in some water.
One of the best chemistry TikToks of 2021 is deceptively simple. In August, Isabella Avila who goes by the handle onlyjayus on TikTok, showed how pencils could be pushed through a plastic bag filled with water.
Avila explains that the water is prevented from leaking by the fact that the pencils slip past the long-chain molecules of the plastic polymer that the bag is constructed from.
Avila then removes the pencils with predictable results. The clip has been viewed 7.6 million times with over a million likes.
@chemclassrules making, and description of the #chemical traffic light #scienceexperiments#chemistry
♬ original sound - chemclassrules
In May, TikTok channel chemclassrules created a "chemical traffic light" in a video viewed 6.5 million times and liked over one million times.
Using water, a blue food dye, lye and glucose or dextrose reducing sugar, the video's host creates a reaction that changes from yellow to red to green by shaking the solution.
This is because the movement mixes oxygen into the solution, causing it to be oxidized and changing its color. Light shaking turns the yellow solution red, while a more vigorous shake turns it green, in what is called a reversible oxidation reaction. From its green color, the solution is reduced by the sugar back to red then to its original yellow.
TikTok Chemist Explain Hot Food Stuffs
@fenscrazyfacts how hot are flaming hot cheetos!? #cheetos#flaminghotcheetos#funfacts#chemistry#fypシ#science#madscientist
♬ original sound - Dr. Horrible Jr
Just how spicy are the snacks you are eating? Tiktokker Dr. Horrible Jr. explains the Scoville scale and where some popular snacks including Exxtra Flaming Hot Cheetos lie on the scale.
In the video, viewed 262 thousand times, the TikToker explains that the scale runs from 0 Scoville Heat Units (SHU) for foods with no spiciness, to 2 million SHU for chilies like the Carolina Reaper.
Dr. Horrible Jr. says regular Flaming Hot Cheetos sit at around 50,000 SHU, the same as Thai peppers and that Exxtra Flaming Hot Cheetos are marketed as "twice as hot."
This would put the extra spicy snack at about 100 SHU on the Scoville Scale, about the same as Scotch bonnet chilies.
@nilered Vaporizing chicken in acid #science#chemistry#nilered
♬ original sound - NileRed
Following his success in dissolving a hot dog in piranha solution, a "hot and scary" mix of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide, Nilered returned on December 22 to pit another food stuff against the acidic solution.
This time it is chicken that gets piranha solution treatment. Nilered takes a chicken drumstick and lowers it into the solution, which immediately starts to bubble, with the reaction so violent, that the chemistry influencer worrying the solution would spill over the beaker's sides.
After the reaction calmed, Nilered describes its results. He said: "I was absolutely horrified by what I saw. The entire part that was in the acid was gone... Including the bone."
The TikTokker added that it was almost as if the chicken leg had been sliced in half, and the fact that the solution, which takes its name from the notoriously ravenous piranha fish, had even dissolved the bone.
The video has been viewed 8.3 million times already, with 1.8 million likes. Viewers may want to find a more traditional way of carving their Christmas turkey however as piranha solution will also happily eat through fabric and human flesh.
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