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Mercury fulminate [or fulminate of mercury, Hg(ONC)2] was first prepared in 1800 by Edward Charles Howard. It is an explosive that mainly was used in favor of flints to ignite black powder in a firearm. It's pretty easy to make... the synthesis involves dissolving mercury in nitric acid and adding ethanol to the solution. However, you end up precipitating a white to grayish-brown powder (depending on purity) like what you see in this photo and not big chunks of glassy crystals, as seen in 'Breaking Bad'.
Although mercury fulminate is easy to prepare, you don't want to try it. The explosive is highly sensitive to just about everything... shock, sparks, flame, friction, and heat. I don't think Walt could have been so casual handling a bag of it without having a little accident. If you don't blow yourself up with the compound, you could gas yourself with fumes from the synthesis (reaction should be done outdoors or inside a fume hood). Then there is the product... mercury compounds are toxic. The mercury doesn't magically disappear when the compound explodes.
The episode got me wondering. If you were in charge of props for a tv show and were asked to come up with 'crystal meth', what would you use? I'm going to guess using the illegal drug would not be an option. I am betting they used rock candy. What do you think?
Breaking Bad - Elements in the Body | Breaking Bad - Hydrofluoric Acid
Photo: Mercury fulminate is a grayish powder of orthorhombic crystals. (Tobias Maximilian Mittrach, Wikipedia Commons)
Comments
I think they used rock salt that is commonly used as an antiperspirant/deodorant
There was an article in Chemistry and Engineering News that talked about the prop department choices. The crystal meth was a silicon rubber that is usually used to simulate broken tempered glass.
Walt was involved in crystallography among other things, maybe he is just that good that he can make gigantic, clear crystals of mercury fulminate : )
He definitely slammed the bag of mercury fulminate against the wall in that episode- that wouldn’t have been good.
he does say when asked what it was “Mercury Fulminate with some chemistry magic” so in the world of the writers he could have added something to it to make it look more like meth and more stable.
I was asked at one time by a law enforcement agent how to set up a fake meth lab.
The conclusion was to use jugs with water, salad oil, a little powdered nutmeg to look like red P , and a drop or two of xylene or toluene to give the room that ‘just cooked’ smell.
Large pieces or rock salt with a coating of salad oil would give it the right ‘feel’ and spraying some purple dye onto kosher salt gave it a look damn near like iodine crystals.
He went back to the department, and with about $100 in glassware, it looked like they were running the ‘crank of the month’ club!
And, no, I won’t tell you where this was done, as they would really like to run several reverse stings with this layout.
I reviewed the handling of the mercury fulminate (FM if I may)by Walt and he did not slam the bag, Patrick. When he got in the car he did hit his cash filled hands into the steering wheel.
In Tuco’s crib the concussion definitely would’ve set off the bigger quantity. My dad had a horn of gun powder go off during his muzzle-loading days. He was firing the gun 4 to 5 ft from the horn on a hot AZ afternoon. Gun powder is more stable than the FM. Funny, referring to gun powder as stable.
Oh, and the career for the Irish guys who cleaned out the mercury ovens during the late 1800’s was about 3 days to a week, then they’d die.
Tedrock, he actually says, “Fulminated mercury, a little tweak of chemistry.”
So, uh no.
Actually, I think he said ‘Fulminated Mercury, with a little tweak of chemistry.”
But would just a little piece of the fulminated mercury have exploded with enough force to blow out the glass out of the windows along with the evaporative coolers?
You have a Ph.D work it out! its a little bit of what most people would call exaggeration, but writers call “dramatic licence” haha. It was probably a case of the writers saying to their chemistry buff, “This is what we want to happen in the scene, work out the chemical technicalities” and he just cobbled something together loosely believable. They tend to be lazy that way, when they aren’t looking up “facts” on wikipedia….
Actually, I’m surprised that a little itty bitty amount of that fulminated mercury could have done that much destruction.
So far as I read, no one has adressed if the ammount of ” mercury fulminate” used could cause such an explosion…
Definately overblown about the size of the explosion from the crystal. The “snaps” or “poppers” – the little tadpole of paper that you can throw down, or squeeze between you fingers to make them pop are mercury fulminate… That is about a pea size. I can’t imagine even thirty times that amount being any more dangerous than a regular firecracker.
And if you’ve ever opened up the paper, they are little crystals in there, although I remember them being a honey color, instead of the quartz-looking from the show.
Silver fulminate actually, the mercury would be too toxic for the kids… If you unravel them and gather the powder together into one lump… It will explode in your face.
You guys are both incorrect, those little “poppers” are packed with gun powder. Have you ever disassembled a party popper? They are packed the same way. A very small cinnamon stick looking roll of gun powder. Definitely not mercury or silver fulminate, those compounds are entirely too explosive to sell in stores.
How can xylene be prepared in laboratory and in industry ?(i need procedures,chemicals reactions and required conditions for xylene ) could you give me the answer on muremyioscar@yahoo.fr.
what he says is mercury fulminate, a little FREAK of chemistry
I agree, I thought I heard him say freak of chemistry as well
I’ve been watching this on Netflix, and I came to this site while trying to read up on how realistic the scene was.
Anyway, the subtitles have him saying, “Fulminated mercury and a little tweak of chemistry.” There’s a definite pause between the first part and the second part and the “and” is barely audible (in fact, it could be “with”).
That last part about a “tweak” is probably just enough for the writers to feel they have artistic license to “tweak” the properties of mercury fulminate. After all, Walt is the chemistry genius who can make glass-like meth that everybody in New Mexico wants.
The “crystals” in the fun snaps look like quartz, because they are. They are simply grains of sand which are COATED with a thin layer of the explosive compound. The sand grains rub against each other on impact, creating enough localized friction to detonate the explosive.
I believe that fun snaps use nitrogen triiodide or something similar nowadays, because of the toxicity of Hg compounds.
The “snaps” or “poppers” commonly use silver fulminate a substance even more unstable then fulminate mercury.
They contain approximately 200 milligrams of fine gravel impregnated with a minute quantity (approximately .08 milligrams) of silver fulminate.
Since the detonation of the both substances does not destroy the metals used in there production and mercury being a heavy metal it would never be used in a child toy.
“The explosive is highly sensitive to just about everything… shock, sparks, flame, friction, and heat.” I would imagine an explosion powerful enough to blow out the windows would set of the rest of the bag of mercury fulminate. Eh. I suppose he could have made a plastic explosive (Semtex) that looked like meth….but then he’d have to be fumbling with a detonator….
There’s no reason the whole bag had to have mercury fulminate in it – it could have been rock candy and Walt was just bluffing (like he did earlier in the episode while playing poker against Hank).
Excellent answer! However, Tuco was the one who picked it out of the bag. Perhaps it was the biggest one, but I’d think it was pretty chancey to rely on Tuco grabbing that ONE crystal and not smashing it and snorting it like he always does!
No, it had to be the whole bag: he had no way of knowing which crystal Tuco would extract from it.
About that…when Tuco chose his crystal, didn’t he smash it with his knife like he did with the actual meth?
Surely that would have set it off…
he did that w/ Jesse’s meth not Walt’s.
Now, it seems to me, one of the unspoken questions this article brings up is, what could possibly fill the bill for what explosive Walt uses. I propose that he could have simply used ultra-pure ammonium nitrate (carefully grown in long crystals by slow precipitation out of a solution) coated in a thin film of mercury fulminate. Therefore he had a large crystalline explosive that detonated upon impact. The amount he used could also likely have enough force to break windows in an enclosed room like that. However, that is not to say they would explode outward like in the show. I don’t think that that is to far of a stretch for the writers to come up with do you…
Hollywood tends to use a fair amount of dramatic license whenever an explosion is concerned. Just watch almost any action movie, if an object contains even the smallest amount of a possibly explosive substance, it will explode in a huge fireball at some point.
This is especially true in regards to gas tanks in cars and propane tanks. Neither would explode when shot, yet they’re Hollywood staples.
G: “About that…when Tuco chose his crystal, didn’t he smash it with his knife like he did with the actual meth?”
I just finished watching this very episode and no, he doesn’t, he just pulls out one crystal with blade of his bowie knife and just stares at it. Remember that he had just sold the meth he took from Jessie, he assumed it was the same stuff, which Tuco said sold like hot cakes just before Walt took the crystal and blew out the wall. In the dimly lit office even if the FM looked different from meth he wouldn’t have noticed.
When Tuco is in the car demolition yard he is given a bag of big crystals and snorts a sample however he has nothing there to crush it on or with, so this is a bit unbelievable.
Hehehe I see some interesting points that several people have pointed out on ‘Breaking Bad’. I am reminded of Star Trek “Nitpickers Guide” and how so many fans questioned alot of the science behind Trek. One thing you must take in consideration about fulmonate of mercury is that it’s highly unlikely that was the explosive used in the scene where Walt blows up Tuco’s place. Therefore the real explosion of mercury of fulmonate probably wouldn’t look much like that. In that explosion I saw alot of fire and it probably wouldn’t look much like that. Also, fulmonate of mercury could look like meth if the base were HCL.
Thought I’d post this link here, this is a video of a chemist deflagrating ~0.2g of mercury fulminate .
MERCURY FULMINATE (explosive) demonstration
@Interval
the Episode before, Tuco takes a crystal, smashes it with his knife and forces Jesse to take a hit. Then Tuco puts it up his gizza, claiming that its pure and hits you fast. In hindsight that was actually mercury fulminate…. not meth. So how did he get high? Why didn’t the ‘meth’ explode when he hit it? Continuity error anyone???
Why would you think Jesse brought him MF? Walt had no idea Tuco would even be a problem.
@Figaro
Actually the scene with Tuco and Jesse happened in the same episode. The pound that Jesse bought WAS meth. It was only after Tuco assaulted him that Walt devised the plan to bring mercury fulminate instead.
It does specify that Walt’s an expert with crystals. I suppose the idea was that, because he’s a genius, he could cause mercury fulminate to crystalise into the huge shards that we see in the episode. It’s also not a stretch to believe that the one piece he blew up (which I’ll admit was a little too big for such a small amount) could have been the only bit of Mercury fulminate and the rest was just for show.
And since it’s a television show I’d also like to add 3 final words: Suspend disbelief guys.
Before I say this – know that i’m not a chemist. Never even passed the class in highschool. And i didn’t graduate from highschool.
But to me it sounds like the MF was the spark of something else probably in there.
I’m not trying to defend the writers, they probably didn’t think up, and neither did the chemists probably think up anything else.
But if you really wanted to make a small bomb out of that crystal – i’m sure you could use MF as the ’spark’ and something else to create the BOOM.
Just my opinion of what could be possible in the realms of reality concerning this scene.
Walt’s comment to Tuco, as I watched the episode last night, was “…Fulminate of mercury, & a little tweak of chemistry.” The inference, with a shrug, was that he had done a little something extra to get it to look the way it did.
The footage of the explosion, seen from outside, looks a bit there were a couple detonations, so Gestotamoseke might be on to something. But then… most movie explosions seem to be a cascade of ever-growing holocausts, no matter what’s blowing up!
You only have to read through these comments to understand why the writers would make such a leap in disbelief. I’m only surprised ppl aren’t asking how to actually set up a meth lab.
People dont question a lot of things… As far as the scene is concerned, he could have brought a smaller bag and after smashing it to the ground somewhere in the corner… he could have grabbed the big one…
All in all it might have worked out… Imagine this really happened and television simply adjusted the visuals for the audience… as they do it all the time with bios or other depictions… unless they dont call themself the cohen brothers…
He said Mercury Fulminate “with a twist of chemistry” so it didnt have to look like your posted picture…. he could have done anything to form that crystal
I’m just now watching the show and catching up, and I had to Google fulminated mercury;
-I just love how it blew the windows out, yet only made everyone in the room dusty, rather than completely destroying their bodies, especially Walt, who threw the thing down right at his feet. Artistic license at it’s finest for sure, but it was an important moment to bring a little more action into the show, and for Walt’s character.
In breaking bad, he said he crystallized it, eg, “fulminated mercury, with a tweak of chemistry”.
Piggybacking on Tuco’s post:
To blow out the windows the blast overpressure would have to be in the 1-2psi range, which would also rupture the eardrums of everyone in the room. The room appears to be 30×40x10 (12,000 sqft). You could calculate the net explosive mass necessary for such an overpressure using Wiebull’s Formula 160(m/12000)^.72. I understand that artistic license is taken in these shows. To be fair, when Walt gets in the car and pounds on the steering wheel from the rush he does have a bloody nose. Blood from his ears might be more accurate, but might mess up future episodes.
I love these comments. It’s great to see we have a lot of smart chemists out there. You guys must have been hell on MacGyver but great at Alamogordo.
I do enjoy the show just because it shows kids that there really are real-world applications for science out there. Although, there is a “Mad-Scientist” bent to it, it still makes me wish I did pay a little more attention in chemistry. Smart is definitely sexy.
That sequence with the windshield washer squeegee shorting out the battery was priceless! Have to wonder if the hydrogen gas in the battery exploded. Don’t recommend anyone try that. It would go instantaneously if it actually worked.
The thing is, Walt is supposedly a MASTER chemist. Even if you proved to me it couldn’t be made that way and it would have been too sensitive, I’d still believe that Walt would find a way to make it happen.
Subtitles state, “Fulminated Mercury… and a little tweak of chemistry.”
How did it blow all the windows on the floor yet every person remained unharmed other than some ash on them?
Someone asked how much Mercury Fulminate would be required to cause the effect seen in the video. For the moment lets ignore the windows. If we assume they are fitting of the room and there fore not very strong what happened to them could happen from an explosion. Now what other indicators do we have of how powerful the explosion was. At about 3-5 feet Walt didn’t die or even suffer serous injury, so we know the blast wave was less then so 50lb/in^2 and at the outer edge of the room people had hearing issues meaning at about ~20. the blast wave was greater then .25lb/in^2. Well do the math and we find that this is actually impossible. At the range that Walt was from the explosion and the range some of the thugs were there is no safe pressure wave that would also deafen all the thugs. Either Walt would have died from the pressure wave or some at the back of the room would have not been effected.
cinematic but not scientific.
You all are forgetting the nom de guerre that Walt used when he introduced himself to Tuco: Heisenberg.
As Blehmaestro noted, there is no doubt that what Walt says is:
“Fulminated Mercury…A little tweak of chemistry”
Not FREAK, not MEEK, not WEEK…but TWEAK
There is also no AND or WITH or any other term your mind would like to fill in.
This of course doesn’t answer any of the other questions (as if they really need to be answered in a fictional TV show). However hopefully it will put to bed the debate on the verbage.
How do I know this is what he says? Well two reasons. I have functioning eardrums (obviously not blown out by a MF explosion) and this is exactly what I heard. Then, when I turned on subtitles on Netflix it is exactly what was shown. Playing it back 6 times to confirm and trying to fathom how some of you heard what you think you did…
if any of you have ever been into counter culture and the world of meth heads, you would know that most people who smoke meth on the regular are called “tweekers”/or “tweakers”.
what Walt actually says, which is a little play on words..is actually
“Fulminated Mercury….a little tweeker chemistry.”
as in, being the chemistry genius and the meth-chef that he is, he used his knowledge of chemistry and the science behind making the purest meth known to the world, and put his own little spin on the process to create something that he would be able to use in his favor, and to get the upper hand on his opponents – something that would look inconspicuous to his enemies, and as such, he waltzed right in the door with a trojan horse to end up getting things his way. something that the opposition would have never known anything about and that was unknown in their world.
Lucek: I have seen an ammonium perchlorate salute the size of that FM crystal bow out the the windows (but not break them) of a cabin the same size as that room. It was in a 1/2″ pvc pipe about 1.5″ long. The single occupant was dazed and annoyed.
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