Sulfur Hexafluoride Gas – A Boat Floating On Air

14 thoughts on “Sulfur Hexafluoride Gas – A Boat Floating On Air”

1. Karyudo says:

   January 13th, 2007 at 10:37 am

   Two little points:

   1. It’s “gets”, not “get’s”.
   2. It’s “fluoride”, not “flouride”.

2. Bre says:

   January 13th, 2007 at 10:45 am

   Doh! Thanks Karyudo!

3. Windell_Oskay says:

   January 13th, 2007 at 12:23 pm

   It’s not always trivial to get your hands on sulfur hexafluoride, so here’s the maker-oriented version which you can do at home: float regular bubbles on carbon dioxide.

4. williampietri says:

   January 13th, 2007 at 5:45 pm

   My environmental analyist girlfriend, while enjoying the magic of it, couldn’t help but point out that SF6 is one of the strongest greenhouse gasses, providing 22,000 times the global warming potential of CO2.

   If I do the math right, a 10-gallon aquarium of this stuff has the same global warming power as burning 577 gallons of gas, or about three cubic meters of dry ice. So Windell’s right; makers should stick with dry ice for this one.

5. michaeljanderson says:

   January 13th, 2007 at 7:43 pm

   I had a detatched retina and had this stuff in my eye for a couple months. Not a fun ordeal when you have to live life for about 8 weeks with your eyes looking directly down…24 hours a day.

   No good, but it did save the vision in my right eye.

6. NathanC says:

   January 15th, 2007 at 6:54 am

   I had a prof in college who would inhale a little bit of this stuff and it lowered his voice way down. Think Helium in reverse. It sounded a little evil. Although he really didn’t have to inhale much at all. He actually had to force it out of his lungs when he was done.

7. Dawnsafe says:

   February 5th, 2008 at 1:10 pm

   Funnier example of this effect:

   comparing helium and SF6. I love makezine!

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