Nature & Ἀλήθεια

Author: Alberto G. Sewjee

  • Trying triiodide

    Trying triiodide

    A powder that liberates a purple cloud on the caress of a feather?

    That’s Nitrogen Triiodide (NI3), a contact explosive that releases nitrogen (N2) and a purple cloud of iodine gas (I2) at the slightest disturbance via the following reaction:

    2 NI3 (s) → N2 (g) + 3 I2 (g) (ΔH=-290 kJ/mol)

    Detonation of Nitrogen Triiodide. NOT MY OWN VIDEO. By Michael Bell at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Detonating_Nitrogen_triiodide.webm

    As my friend Máximo and I love both explosive and colourful chemicals, we got straight to making this compound when we had time.

    The preparation is very straightforward; you only need iodine and a standard cleaning product (ammonia) to make this exotic compound. However, I recommend that you not try it at home unless you’re really longing for a purple wallpaper (apart from the fact that it’s dangerous even in small amounts). First, elemental iodine (I2) is ground in a mortar and pestle to increase its surface area. Then, it is added to a dilute ammonia (NH3) solution. The following reaction takes place:

    3I2(s) + NH3(aq) → NI3(s) + 3HI(aq)

    Once the reaction had occurred, the mixture of ammonia and nitrogen triiodide was spread on filter paper and left to dry, as nitrogen triiodide is insensitive to contact when wet.

    We took the wet filter paper outside and left it on a table to dry. A few minutes later, we got near the incipient explosive to detonate it and watch the beautiful purple cloud form.

    What a deception… Despite hearing a small crack, the explosion was far less impressive than we had hoped for, likely due to the infinitesimal quantity we had produced for safety reasons.

    You reap what you sow, and you detonate what you synthesise!

    Nitrogen triiodide “detonation”. Own video.

  • From the road to the air

    Yesterday, we were driving on a narrow and very congested road. Cars in front of us were (luckily) avoiding something, strangely deviating their paths.

    When we got closer, we saw it. There was a fledgling wood pigeon on the road, standing on its two feet, but tilting its head to the sky, as if the life in it was evaporating away, as if it had become immobilised after being knocked by a racing driver.

    We slowly braked to a stop, putting our warning lights on. Out of an instinct even more animal than the one on the road, I jumped out of the car, I slammed the door behind me and ran on the asphalt until the bird was at my feet. In the few seconds elapsed between leaving the car and getting to it, a river of thoughts flooded my mind: “Is it half-knocked and suffering a terrible pain?” “Is it already dead?” “Am I going to witness its last breath?” “Does it have brain damage?”…

    However, very, very fortunately, when I glanced down at it while strangled by adrenaline injected into me by rushing cars on the other lane, I saw its eyes glisten, glisten with life and hope. I was unspeakably relieved.

    Usually (yes, unfortunately this is not the only disoriented/dead bird that I’ve found on the road), I pick up the birds and examine them to determine whether they need healing or veterinary attention. However, its ablaze eyes that only blossomed a few weeks ago lit a fire in me, I knew it was full of life and potentiality. I grasped it as if it were my own life that was at play. I scrambled through thistly, chest-high vegetation scorched by the Spanish August sun, I scratched all my legs, I rose my arms aloft and…

    It flew!

    Yes, it was alive, but not only alive, it was full of life.

    When I went back to the car, I saw the driver of the van behind us smile at me and show a thumbs up. Exhilaration circulated through every vein and artery of my body, and a new star of anthropological optimism was born in my constellation of life experiences.

    Juvenile wood pigeon (Columba palumbus). Not own image, but from Jonny Thorpe at: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-close-up-of-a-pigeon-with-a-blurry-background-z4LU7wuYUi0?utm_content=creditShareLink&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash