The Awesome Power of the Aluminium-Water Explosion! (Patreon)

Quite often people dismiss aluminium as harmless- we make planes out of it, we make car engines and coke cans out of it etc.  However when molten aluminium reacts with water, it releases a comparable amount of energy to when sodium reacts with water.  When its molten it can do this in milliseconds.  Over my years of studying the metal - water explosion I've come to the conclusion that the 'safe' level for handling is about 100mg of metal- about 1/3rd the size of an aspirin tablet.  200 grams will release about the same energy as a hand grenade.  Its therefore rather unsettling to watch people on youtube pour kilograms of aluminium into water.  Explosions might be rare due to the tenacious oxide skin of aluminium, but if this quantity of aluminium were to explode, it would certainly be fatal.

Its actually quite interesting to read the comment on this video from people who work in aluminium foundries.  Apparently merely bringing a can of drink to work is grounds for instant termination.  You can see this though... if you were to drop such a drinks can into one of their molten aluminium baths, its the roughly the equivalent of dropping a stick of dynamite into a molten bath of aluminium!