Explosive egg

Making an explosive eggshell! (Demonstration only.)

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

At­ten­tion! All ex­per­i­ments are per­formed by pro­fes­sion­als. Do not at­tempt.

Equip­ment

  • con­i­cal flask;
  • stop­per with a sil­i­cone hose;
  • pin;
  • two screw­drivers of dif­fer­ent di­am­e­ters;
  • sy­ringe;
  • di­lut­ed hy­drochlo­ric acid;
  • zinc;
  • a shell stand (flask);
  • plate;
  • eggs;
  • lighter.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Make a hole in an egg with a pin and use dif­fer­ent­ly-sized screw­drivers to care­ful­ly ex­pand it. Re­peat on the op­po­site side. Then force the egg's con­tents out onto a plate. Put some zinc into a con­i­cal flask. Add some di­lut­ed hy­drochlo­ric acid. Close the flask with a cork with a sil­i­cone tube, and fill the mod­i­fied eggshell with the evolved gas. Put the shell on a stand (a flask, for ex­am­ple) and set it on fire. The shell ex­plodes!

Process de­scrip­tion

The in­ter­ac­tion of zinc and hy­drochlo­ric acid re­leas­es gaseous hy­dro­gen. When ig­nit­ed, the hy­dro­gen in the eggshell re­acts ex­plo­sive­ly with the oxy­gen in the air, shat­ter­ing the shell.

Cool ex­per­i­ments are wait­ing for you in the MEL Chem­istry sub­scrip­tion!

Try it