Michael Raiford wrote:

>> - Apparently if you mix amonia and some other compound together, the 
>> resulting mixture explodes when it dries out. We smeared it over a 
>> cardboard box in the garden. For some reason, it only ever exploded at 
>> night... A succession of small pops and bangs.
> 
> sounds like nitrogen triiodide. Contact explosive... supposedly fun stuff..

Yeah - I recall iodine being involved...

>> - There's a trick you can do with (IIRC) hydrogen chloride. It absorbs 
>> water quite well. So if you will a bottle with hydrogen chloride and 
>> then put a tube into a tub of water, you get a little fountain inside 
>> the bottle as the pressure drops. For added amusement, add some 
>> indicator to the water. (I recall the blue liquid emerging in the 
>> bottle as a bright yellow fountain.)
> 
> I think I need a diagram to understand this one. the description of the 
> set up is a bit unclear.. Hmm.

Take a bottle of HCl gas with a cork and a straw. Insert the straw into 
a tub of water. The HCl is adsorbed by the water, causing the water to 
be sucked into the bottle forming a little fountain. If you add a pH 
indicator, you'll see the water go from 7 to (roughly) 3.

> Actually, I don't know if its the same for the UK, but in the US, 
> potassium permaganate is apparently (according to Wikipedia) considered 
> a drug precursor and is apparently difficult to get without going 
> through all sorts of DEA procedures and forms.

Apparently in the USA, so is LiOH... (How random is that? Drop some 
lithium into a vat of water and you have a controlled substance. Heh!)

Doesn't appear to be a problem in the UK.

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