A Very Thirsty Brick

I have here a solid block but this block is really thirsty we can even use a bigger bottle and it can still soak it all in so what is this magic thirsty Block it's actually block of magnesium carbonate also known generically as gym chalk this is the chalk you see gymnast or rock climbers putting on their hands the reason they do this is because magnesium carbonate is very porous it has billions of micro and Nano pores that are just waiting to be filled with water look at that didn't even come close to absorbing all the way into it yet we could have held a lot more water in there not only that but it'll drink oil as as well if I turn this Beaker of ferrofluid upside down on it it drinks the whole thing if we break open the one with the ferrofluid you can see how all the liquid now fills the gaps in the pores the liquid's trapped in there though even if I bring a strong neodymium magnet to it it won't pull the ferrofluid out of the chalk but now the chalk is just magnetic and the magnet sticks to it so we've made magnetic chalk so the force that holds the liquid in the pores is greater than the force of the magnet trying to pull it out once the liquid gets in there it's hard to get out but not impossible you can create a driving force to get water out of it by heating it up and it turns into a vapor that will be forced out of the chalk but you don't have to use heat if you have a liquid that evaporates easily at room temperature like alcohol using pure alcohol it's possible to make something called liquid chop so all I did ha is get 91% isopropyl alcohol and then crunch it up with this chalk and make this paste okay so watch this I just take a little glob of this put it on my hand rub it all around like this and it's clear right but watch what happens when I blow on my hands turns completely white now this is just dry chalk that can be used to absorb moisture this is happening because the alcohol that was absorbed in the pores suddenly evaporates leaving behind the dry chalk that can then be used to absorb any moisture on your hands now we know that chalk is thirsty but let's see if we can make it more thirsty by sucking out the air from the chalk and so the air doesn't have to try to escape as the liquid goes into it let's put it in my vacuum chamber and suck out the air and then quickly drop it in some water afterwards and see if anything changes okay first here's what it looks like with no vacuum and I'd like to thank the sponsor for this video better help these last few years have been difficult for everyone and one of the most important things you can do in times like this is to focus on your mental health better help is the world's largest therapy service and it's 100% online with better help you can tap into a network of over 30,000 licensed and experienced therapists who can help you with a wide range of issues to get started you just answer a few questions about your needs and preferences in therapy that way better help can match you with the right therapist from their Network then you can talk to your therapist however you feel comfortable whether it's via text chat phone or video call and you can message your therapist anytime and schedule a live session when it's convenient for you and what's cool is if your therapist IST isn't the right fit for you for any reason you can switch to a new therapist at no additional charge as well with better help you get the same professionalism and quality you expect from in-office therapy but with a therapist who's custom picked for you more scheduling flexibility at a more affordable price so get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com actionlab or you can click the link in the description and thanks to better help for sponsoring this video okay this has been going for about 5 minutes now let's see what this looks like outside the water so still feels pretty dry even though it was submerged in water and Bubbles coming out okay now let's put on our new block okay now we're going to vacuum out the [Music] air okay now I'm going to drop it in and as soon as it goes in I'm going to open the vacuum chamber 3 2 1 so it's bobbling like normal so I actually don't see any bubbles coming off of it whatsoever literally no bubbles so in an instant it completely absorbed full of water now okay you can see the difference between the two this is the one we vacuumed you can see it's like visibly wet and shiny so it's completely saturated whereas the one we left in there for 5 minutes still looks pretty dry this is similar to the way that you can make instant pickles by putting cucumbers and vinegar and then you're sucking out the air so the air bubbles out of the cucumber and then when you lit the air back in it instantly sucks in the vinegar into the cucumber and thanks for watching another episode of the action lab I hope you learned something if you have haven't subscribed to my channel yet remember to hit that subscribe button and we'll see you next time

Channel: The Action Lab

Views: 575,936

Keywords: chalk, thirsty chalk, thirsty gym chalk

Id: YDr5BCJTd_s

Length: 6min 24sec (384 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 10 2023