Red Hot Nickel Ball gets a taste of artificial sweetners
The Red Hot Nickel Ball (RHNB) has encountered many foes in its time and defeated the vast majority of them. Among its opponents were a number of sweetening agents like sugar and honey, but now the RHNB is going for the hard stuff–artificial sweeteners. What happens to Splenda, Sweet N’ Low, and Truvia when they get superheated? You’ll have to watch the video to find out.
All three of these substances have gained in popularity because they can add detectable sweetness to a food without adding any calories. They essentially fool the body. You can taste Splenda as sweet, but it doesn’t enter the metabolic process when you eat it. The same goes for Sweet N’ Low and Truvia. The composition of each additive affects what happens when the RHNB is applied. Just watch.
The first victim is Splenda, which is sucralose-based. Sucralose is an organic molecule that was first synthesized in 1976. It is several hundred times more sweet than sugar, so there’s a lot of dextrose filler used to make it easier to measure. The sucralose sweetener isn’t broken down by the body, but there are actually a few calories in the dextrose (still virtually zero). The RHNB quickly liquified the dextrose in Splenda, producing a blackened carbon shell not unlike regular sugar. Chemically, they aren’t that different.
Sweet N’ Low is based on sucralose, but again, it has a lot of dextrose filler. It also contains potassium bitartrate, which is a component of baking powder. This is probably what causes the initial fizzing before the black carbon shell forms around the RHNB.
Truvia is the last one, and you probably noticed, it’s not like the others. When the RHBN hits it, Truvia decomposes to a clear liquid and boils. Truvia’s sweetness comes from erythritol, a sugar alcohol found in many plants. For this reason, it’s not strictly “artificial.†Erythritol is less sweet than sugar, so most of the mass of Truvia is actually the sweetener itself. The heat from the RHNB causes erythritol to boil almost immediately, so it becomes liquid.
So that’s the Red Hot Nickel Ball torching calorie-free sugar replacements. It’s nice to know the RHNB can take on all those sweeteners and still keep its figure.
Red hot nickel ball brings the heat when it meets Silly Putty
Many of us probably spent time playing with Silly Putty during childhood, and maybe beyond. What? Silly putty is neat. This blob of synthetic silicone polymers (PMDS) was created by accident decades ago through research into rubber substitutes. Since then it has been sold as a toy, and now it comes down to this. Silly Putty meets the Red Hot Nickel Ball (RHNB).
Silly Putty is so popular because it has such odd properties. It bounces when thrown, tears when pulled quickly, and is pliable when tugged at slowly. It can even drip if left over an opening or at the edge of a table for long enough. These properties make it probably the most commonly available non-Newtonian fluid available. But the RHNB cares not for physics, be they Newtonian or not. All it cares about is being red hot and burning stuff.
When the RHNB is introduced to the Silly Putty, there is no instantaneous melting like you might expect. Silly Putty is basically a very viscous liquid. It slowly deforms as the RHNB pours heat into it. The Silly Putty catches fire and the bonds in the PMDS are broken down. Parts of the mass get flaky and crumble, but the bulk of the putty not in direct contact with the RHNB continues to flow a little easier.
We can certainly still call the RHNB the winner here. After a quick dip it’ll be good as new. The Silly Putty is much less silly now. Still, it held up pretty well.
Red hot nickel ball goes for the win over gelatin
What do you get when you take a ball of the metal nickel and add heat? Why, the one and only red hot nickel ball (RHNB).
The way red hot metal interacts with various objects is often beyond our abilities to imagine without a handy visual aid, which is why RHNB videos on YouTube are so incredibly interesting. This time it’s gelatin getting the business end of some super-heated nickel.
Jello is only marginally solid to begin with, so the application of large amounts of heat is bound to return it to its liquid state. Although, the way it goes down is a bit unexpected.
The RHNB drops right through at first, burning a hole to the bottom of the container. Then the jello seems to be holding up rather well. It seems like the RHNB should have knocked the jiggly mass down immediately, right? When you think about the chemistry involved, it’s actually not as surprising as it seems.
Gelatin is made from hydrolyzed collagen, an animal protein found in connective tissues. Heating gelatin while in solution causes it to form a large number of bonds. This is called a colloidal gel. Jello (or gelatin dessert, if you don’t want to infringe any trademarks) actually has a consistency similar to that of the original collagen. It’s not solid, but not liquid either. It takes time for the energy from the RHNB to break all those bonds, but it does.
After a few seconds, the jello begins to fall apart, eventually becoming a soupy mess. RHNB wins again.
– Credit and Resource –
Geek
Written by: By Ryan Whitwam
Red Hot Nickel Ball (RHNB)
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