Hi everyone,
A few years ago I tried to melt aluminium using an old steel fire extinguisher as crucible. This was done in a homemade foundry using coke as fuel.
Me having no patience, I tried getting the temperature up as fast as possible and a hole was melted in the crucible, producing a very bright light.
Could the molten aluminum have reacted with the rusty steel fire extinguisher to produce thermite?
Probably not in any meaningful capacity. You would not have produced nearly enough iron oxide with enough of a surface area to react with the aluminum fast enough to accomplish anything noticeable. It’s likely you just flat out melted your steel “crucible” by getting it too hot on the bottom. Steel is going to go white hot before it melts.
Yeah that makes sense.
It was my original thought at the time but there I was the other day remembering about this after seeing something about thermite and I started wondering if magic had happened… But no it was just a “learning experience”.
Thanks for taking the time!
What about the bright light? Everything else makes sense though?
He said at the end steel goes white hot when it melts, probably that?
Yeah it has to have been that