QC#38 – Matchless Fire Starter

Two chemicals spontaneously combust when mixed, and start a survival fire without matches.

Full project video: http://youtu.be/ja_6Yin9JuM

The survival pouch you see in this video is from http://bit.ly/MedicalGearOutfitters
They have a YouTube channel on survival and prepping as well: http://bit.ly/SkinnyMedic

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Music By:
Music by Jason Shaw (RP-Clattertrap)
http://www.audionautix.com

Project Inspired By:

“Chemistry experiment – KMnO4 + glycerin”: (If you check out this video, please leave them a comment that you came from Grant Thompson’s channel and that I gave them credit for the idea 🙂 Thank you! (http://bit.ly/GlycerinExperiment)

WARNING: This project involves chemicals that can stain, burn, and damage your skin. KMnO4 should not be ingested, and can be fatal if swallowed. This experiment is mainly for demonstrational purposes and should only be attempted with adult supervision and adequate training. Use of this video content is at your own risk.

Project History & More Info:

I took the classic science demonstration of using Glycerin and KMnO4, and played with the idea of using it as an alternate starter for survival situations. As it turns out, each chemical can be valuable for survival situations on it’s own. But mix them together and you get the added benefit of starting a fire, even if your matches are wet.

I’ve wanted to demonstrate this chemical experiment for years. It is fairly common and there are plenty of demonstrations already on YouTube, but is always shown the same way .. someone mixing the two chemicals together on a plate or dish.

I wanted to see if this reaction could be used for something more practical, so I took it to the woods and experimented with survival fires.

For the container, I used the soda cap containers I made in a previous project: (http://bit.ly/SodaCapContainer). These are lightweight, and keep the chemicals well separated, as long as they are made correctly. But beware, there could be great danger and big messes to clean up using poorly made containers!

This idea could be used for hiking, biking or survival situations. The little packs are lightweight and hold enough chemicals to start 2-4 fires each.

When the two chemicals spontaneously combust, they throw off a beautiful pink and purple flame. Most impressively, the reaction can still work even if the mixture is wet.