How to pierce an aluminum can with your finger

This amazing experiment is available for repetition to almost everyone. With it, you can easily surprise your friends or acquaintances. Yes, and acquaintance with the metal, which melts from the heat of human hands, will be very interesting and informative.

Will need

All that is needed for experience:

• Gallium - it can be bought without problems on AliExpress (//ali.pub/3s5u3u)
• Aluminum can from under the drink.

Gallium is very interesting in that it has a melting point of 29.8 degrees Celsius. This means that it can be melted right in your hand. Compared to molten lead, gallium is almost non-toxic. And short-term contact with him will not cause harm to health. Well, it’s natural to drink, bury in the eyes or do inappropriate actions with it.

The reaction of aluminum to galium

Gallium reacts with aluminum, mixes and forms a new brittle alloy. Which we will check now.
Take a can of drink. We pierce from below and release the contents into a mug. You can drink it or postpone it - we do not need it.
We heat gallium and draw it into a syringe for easy dosage. Since this element has a very weak surface tension and sticks to everything where it turns out.
Put a small amount on the lid of the jar and wait for the result.
After a couple of minutes, gallium froze, but did not enter into contact with aluminum.
Why didn’t anything happen? The fact is that aluminum has a thick oxide layer that inhibits the reaction. Also, the banks themselves before use are coated with a special composition for protection.
We will remove from the edge a little with sandpaper.
And again we apply the warmed, liquid gallium.
After some time, you can observe the reaction.
The lid of the can seemed to have grown old and overgrown with wrinkles. If you touch, then the finger will go through without any extra effort.
Gallium spread throughout the lid and formed a brittle connection paired with aluminum.
Very entertaining experiment! I recommend everyone to repeat it.