“Piranha” mixture vs. a flower

This mixture dissolves a flower without a trace!

We’d like to show you one of the most dan­ger­ous mix­tures in the world – the “pi­ran­ha” mix­ture! It eats through al­most all or­gan­ic mat­ter. It has no feel­ing for beau­ty, and doesn’t even spare flow­ers.

Reagents and equip­ment:

  • con­cen­trat­ed sul­fu­ric acid;
  • con­cen­trat­ed hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide;
  • flow­er;
  • beaker;
  • plas­tic rod.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Pour hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide into the beaker, and then care­ful­ly add con­cen­trat­ed sul­fu­ric acid. The “pi­ran­ha mix­ture” is ready. Then low­er the flow­er into the beaker. The petals im­me­di­ate­ly car­bonize and dis­solve in the mix­ture.

Pro­cess­es de­scrip­tion

The mix­ture of con­cen­trat­ed sul­fu­ric acid and hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide is called the “pi­ran­ha”. It’s one of the strong­est ox­i­diz­ing mix­tures in the world. It eats through al­most all or­gan­ic mat­ter. Sul­fu­ric acid ox­i­dizes the di­etary fibers, pro­teins and oth­er sub­stances in the flow­er, turn­ing them into car­bon, while hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide ox­i­dizes car­bon to car­bon diox­ide. If you’re al­ler­gic to flow­ers, then the “pi­ran­ha” mix­ture will come in handy! :)

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

When work­ing with con­cen­trat­ed sul­fu­ric acid and hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide, wear pro­tec­tive gloves, mask and glass­es, and a lab coat. The mix­ture is very dan­ger­ous and can leave burns on the skin and clothes.

Try it