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You're welcome.

The very 1st time I light the stove when it's cold, the area around the ball seems to start glowing first. After the stove heats up vapours are coming out fast and the wires glow just as they approach the stove as you can see in the above video.

That source for foil platinum will only sell to authorized customers due to the hazardous materials they sell. Bummer!

Edited by zelph on 03/12/2013 13:29:42 MDT.

This time I've ordered a 0.003 wire. There is more on ebay now. From the same seller. I confirm he sells pure platinum.

Just in case there is somebody who want to experiment...

But I'll get it in one week or so... No thinner platinum wire available though.

Greg,

You should have told me you were going to order 0.003, I would have sent you some of mine. You can get 0.001 from Omega.

-Ben

Ben, thank you! Don't you need this wire for experimenting? Don't give up! :) It is difficult, but if you flatten it and then cut very small piece and then flatten it again you may have the same effect. My issue is that it's so small I'm ruining most of samples...

0.001 wire is available from Omega? Do they have minimal quantity?

Thank again for your offer!

Good day.

http://www.omega.com/pptst/SPPL.html

SPPL is there pure platinum thermocouple wire. The 0.001" stuff is Omega part number: SPPL-001. It cost $2/inch and shipping is $8 for me. I just ordered 10 inches.

i was able to get a 10 foot roll of 0.002 at auction for 30.00 and free delivery. it's coated with teflon bringing the od to 0.004 coated. i think i can burn it off with no problem and then use cerium oxide cloth to polish it. we'll come up with something good a geeky :-)

I was unable to reproduce my last successful experiments. Any luck with you guys?
I think 0.001 or thinner is a good stuff. No chance I can reach it here.

Gregory, give me your address in an email/pm and I'll send you some of my .002 wire. It looks like the same size used in the lighter.

My tests with it makes me feel as if the ball of platinum black is necessary for the catalytic action to occur. If I wrap my .002 wire around the out side of the brass support of the lighter, the wire will glow red hot in the presence of alcohol vapor. By it's self nothing happens.

Gregory, give me your address in an email/pm and I'll send you some of my .002 wire. It looks like the same size used in the lighter.

My tests with it makes me feel as if the ball of platinum black ball is necessary for the catalytic action to occur. If I wrap my .002 wire around the out side of the brass support of the lighter, the wire will glow red hot in the presence of alcohol vapor. Just the wire alone, nothing happens.

I finally got around to doing some more tests last night. I tried the 0.001" stuff and got nothing :(

Man that 0.001" stuff is thin. I have pretty good near-sight but I have a real hard time seeing that stuff. I tried to wrap it in a coil and it wouldn't hold the shape. I ended up wadding it up in a ball which wasn't easy. I got some carbon felt to wick the methanol but I saw no indication the wire was heating up. I was thinking about using all of my wire at once to see it I just need more platinum, but the more I think about the physics I don't see why that would be the case. The 0.001" stuff must not have a high enough surface area to volume ratio. Seeing hoe thin this stuff is its shocking to believe that.

I also tried the rc airplane glow-plug and didn't get a reaction (no surprise to me).

Dan, you mentioned you might be willing to sell an extra lighter you have. If you are still interested shoot me an email at bzhayes@gmail.com I am going crazy here and pretty interested in just seeing this reaction happen. I think your right it seems like platinum black might be the only stuff with a high enough surface area to volume ratio to work at room temperature. Prices I have seen on the stuff makes me think you never be able to make a lighter in a cost effective manner. Plus I have no idea how you would make a ball out of the platinum black powder.

I had a hard time wrapping the .002 wire around the lighter support framework.

All the lighters seem to have the wires attached to a ball or disc as seen in this photo:

Dan, thank you for the offer! It would be nice to test the 0.002 wire. I'll send you PM. Not sure how much it will cost to ship it to Israel.

Regarding your test. It drives me crazy. You say that when you wrap your wire around brass frame, it glows if methanol vapors present? So brass actually contribute to the reaction? Or the presence of the black ball in vicinity of the wire? Can't understand it. And if the wire glows before the black ball (don't know if it glows at all) so why do we need that black ball?

It could be black platinum. Maybe it's not...

Now I see how I got glowing of the tiny platinum piece. As I wrote above I inserted it into crack of match. Then burnt it. So in that process the platinum got really hot and the glowing I saw was just like in that experiment with flask. Later I reproduced that experiment with flask. This is another prove that the wire I have is platinum.

So now I'm really curious how the heck the thing works. That black ball ...

Dan, I can't PM you since I don't have a paid account on BPL.
So I'll write here all my data and will remove after you take it.

Gregory Stein,
59/10 Shdema st.
21990, Karmiel,
Israel

I want to pay you for the shipping at least. Please send me a paypal invoice to stein.gregory@gmail.com.

Thank you!

Ben and Gregory, I'll be in touch with you soon.

I'll try and find some info on the powdered platinum that is on the ball. The stuff reacts alot more than just plain platinum wire. It's starts the reaction of changing the alcohol to formeldahyde and then the heat.

meanwhile: http://www.zeebase.com/blog/2010/11/04/homemade-cigarette-lighter-popular-mechanics-1928/

That DIY lighter is questionable :-)

Some interesting additional reading related to Platinum Black:


2 platinum balls
http://www.saintstevensthingery.com/mybackpages/?tag=master-lite-self-igniting-lighter


Collins, P. M. D. (1986). "The Pivotal Role of Platinum in the Discovery of Catalysis". Platinum Metals Review 30 (3): 141–146.
http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/pdf/pmr-v30-i3-141-146.pdf

Experiments with Platinum Black
http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/pdf/pmr-v9-i4-136-139.pdf

Hydrogen Lighter
http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~mainzv/HIST/bulletin_open_access/num24/num24%20p66-68.pdf

"The Hydrogen Instantaneous Light Lamp"
http://www.fleaglass.com/index.php?a=15&b=7291

Guys,

I'm on a way to get some platinum black out of regular platinum (after checking it's price OL :( ). Will update later about the results.

Not sure without good chem. lab you can get the needed ingredients... But will try to refine the process for "home" lab :)

This thread has been really fun to read! I did some lab research with platinum black for a company that makes hydrogen generators (for its use on proton exchange membranes). The high purity, high surface area stuff they had was indeed expensive (~$200 per gram) and the extremely small particle size made the powder very tricky to work with.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with, this is pretty awesome

I love these kinds of threads; really interesting and informative. (Disclaimer: I am a big zelph fan. I own a Starlyte.)

I have a question ... is this essentially the same as a Peacock or Zippo catalytic hand warmer?

Both use a platinum filament for the catalytic reaction, and both are then placed in a pouch to limit oxygen and slow/control the reaction.

Peacock: http://www.peacockhandwarmers.co.uk/

Zippo: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005P163YQ/

I only ask because I think the warmers and their constituent components are fairly readily available for purchase if your looking for parts and pieces to deconstruct and destroy in the name of science.

(EDIT: Hmmm ... After an hour or so of coaxing, my trusty advisor Google has informed me that the hand warmers use some form of platinum powder infused into a fine mesh, as opposed to the solid wire. The warmers still require the application of heat to initiate the reaction. Dog barks. Wrong tree.)

Edited by cfrey.0 on 03/29/2013 02:41:42 MDT.

Gregory, the wire is in an envelope and on it's way. Two days ago I mailed it to you. No postal fees necessary.

Ben I'm going to send you a free used one. Used but still works. Chinese modle. I tested it with HEET and it works. I'll email you today to get your address.

Lucky James, you get to be close to the good stuff:-)))

Christopher, I have deconstructed and destroyed a few handwarmers in the name of science. that was fun..... I still have a good supply of replacement parts to work with on this project. I lucked out one time on ebay and purchased a box of ten new replacement heads for the handwarmers. Brand new in the box ....whooooo! makes me feel scientific :-)))) Makes me want to get a PhD in Physics. I need to take apart one of the replacement heads to get at the good stuff that might ignite in the presence of alcohol without prior heating. Hand warmers use lighter fluid versus alcohol. The platinum gauze might be a new approach to this project. Thanks for your input of a new approach to Platinum Catalysts.