“Piranha” mixture vs. a piece of bread

We’d like to show you one of the most dan­ger­ous mix­tures in the world “Pi­ran­ha mix­ture”. It eats away al­most all or­gan­ic mat­ter in its path. You don’t want to mess with this preda­tor!

Reagents and equip­ment:

• con­cen­trat­ed sul­fu­ric acid;
• con­cen­trat­ed hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide;
• pipette;
• piece of bread;
• beaker.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Pour hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide into the beaker, then care­ful­ly add con­cen­trat­ed sul­fu­ric acid. The “pi­ran­ha mix­ture” is ready. Drip the mix­ture with the pipette on to the piece of bread. The bread starts turn­ing to car­bon.

Pro­cess­es de­scrip­tion

The mix­ture of con­cen­trat­ed sul­fu­ric acid and hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide is called “Pi­ran­ha”. It is one of the strong­est ox­i­diz­ing mix­tures in the world. It can eat away al­most all or­gan­ic mat­ter. Sul­fu­ric acid torns gluten, starch and oth­er sub­stances in the bread into car­bon, and hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide ox­i­dizes the car­bon to car­bon diox­ide. With this “sim­ple” method we can elim­i­nate gluten!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

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

Warn­ing! Don’t try to re­peat this ex­per­i­ment!