In ordinary terms, a “salt bomb” is merely some food item that has way too much sodium in it. But in this video, we’re getting to see something a lot more literal.

First off, did you know molten salt is a thing? I did not. Secondly, did you know that if you pour molten salt into a fish tank of water, you can create a massive explosion? I also did not know that. I learned these very valuable lessons thanks to the newest video from The Backyard Scientist, who once again melted something at a super high temperature and poured it into something else, all in the name of SCIENCE!

Here, the Backyard Scientist made molten salt (more on that in a minute) and dumped it into a tank of water. So what exactly happened? He’s still trying to figure that out.

“First two times nothing happened, just a little splattering. On the third try… BAM!”

I would have went with “BOOM” myself. Yeah, the third attempt resulted in an instantaneous explosion of glass and water, which based on his proximity and lack of a protective shield he was not expecting. (Always wear goggles in the lab, kids. Even/especially in backyard labs.)

So what is molten salt? It’s exactly what it sounds like: a salt “widely used as fertilizer” (though it has many uses) heated up between 260° and 550° Celsius. It’s also a “low cost” fluid that is “non flammable and non toxic.”

Followers of the Backyard Scientist’s work are always worried about his safety, so much so that he recently poured molten aluminum onto a steak to test what kind of injury he would suffer if something went wrong. Needless to say, he did not test what would happen if a fish tank exploded from a salt bomb.

When he shares the full video of this experiment we’ll make sure to bring it to you.

That molten salt had a lot of energy, but so do you. So use yours to tell us in the comments below what you thought of this video.

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HT: sploid
Image: The Backyard Scientist/YouTube