Making ferrofluid from scratch

all the fluids seemed to overload the magnet so I decided to give it a try with a lot. A bigger one I just received that morning. It seemed to be able to handle this amount of liquid much better and the spikes were larger as well. At this point, I was almost done playing with it, but I just wanted to show one last thing. I mentioned before that it didn't get more viscous under a magnetic field, but overall, it just wasn't very viscous at all. It was practically the same as regular kerosene, despite having about half as much magnetite.

From all the testing I've done, I've noticed that viscosity is a really important thing to watch out for, and every time it's been thicker, it's been a really bad sign. Sometimes it initially works and looks like a

ferrofluid

, but then over the course of a day it usually separates or solidifies. Most of the time, those batches end up being garbage, but sometimes they end up being RM Fluids, which, like I said, can be interesting in its own way. To measure the yield, I transferred everything to a graduated cylinder and it turned out to be a little more than 30 milliliters.

There was a small loss from all the stuff stuck to the plate, but overall, this was about what I normally got. Now that we've seen what my fluid did, I just wanted to quickly compare it to the commercial stuff. This right here was just part of the trading fluid I bought and this is what I did. The spikes on mine are significantly larger and, in my opinion, more impressive as well. The size of the spikes depends mainly on the concentration of magnetite in the fluid, and I think mine had much more. Every run I do, I try to saturate the kerosene, but since this process is still a bit complicated, I haven't gotten consistent results.

This series turned out to be the best one I filmed, but I had a few that I didn't film that were of much higher quality. For example, in this unfilmed one, the spikes I got were absolutely huge. Before doing it, I honestly didn't even know it was possible for

ferrofluid

to rise so strongly. However, the process I did was almost exactly the same and I'm really not sure what caused the difference. I'm working hard to figure it out though because having fluid like this at all times would be fantastic. Now, going back to the almost empty plate, I put a magnet under it again and you can see all these little spikes forming.

I think doing this with a small amount of liquid is a decent test to see how good it is. When the liquid is of high quality, it can easily form small peaks, even when there is barely anything there. I like to think of magnetite nanoparticles as little pixels whose size will determine the smallest peak that can form, as well as its resolution. When the particles are larger and of non-uniform size, the resolution is poor and they form larger, uglier peaks. However, when they are very small and uniform, they become really nice and small. Now, besides just pouring liquid onto a dish, there are other interesting things to do with it.

The first thing is to add water to a vial and then pour a little of the liquid. Kerosene alone is much lighter than water, but with all the heavier magnetite it contains, it sinks to the bottom. Plus, with all the water around, the ferrofluid no longer sticks to the glass. With magnets, I can move it around and it becomes a cool little toy. Sealing the vial was also pretty easy, I just had to fill it to the max with water and then cap it. Now, I honestly have no idea why, but for some reason, it never stops being fun to play with.

At this point, I've had this for at least a few weeks and I still find myself playing with it all the time. As a side note, I tried doing this with a couple different commercial ferrofluids and it never seemed to work. Just by smelling it, I could tell they were made from kerosene, but I think they also included a ton of additives, which ruined it. Also, as a second side note, with the ferrofluid in this video, I have decided to make five more of these little vials and give them away to viewers. I'll ship them anywhere in the world completely free of charge and I'll explain how everything will work at the end of the video.

I thought it would be fun to scale it up, so I did the same with a larger bottle. However, when I did this, it was obvious that my liquid was not as good as other tests. While it still worked and looked good, the spikes weren't very good and I also noticed that there were a lot of bubbles trapped in it. This made it look a little thicker and not as soft as it should have been. However, for comparison, this was another bottle I made using that other batch that rose very well and you can see how clean it is.

It's much smoother without all those bubbles and also rises much stronger. I'm really not sure why this batch turned out to be so much bubblier, but it must have had something to do with the surfactant. However, the preparation for both was exactly the same, so I'm not really sure why there would be such a difference. Now, switching gears a bit, another interesting thing about ferrofluid is that it is commonly used as a lubricant because it is able to stick to things like magnets and create a liquid cushion. In this way, the magnet manages to remain completely separated from the surface and slide very easily.

While I definitely think this is cool, what I found most fun was using it to make art. The ferrofluid cushion also allowed the magnet to glide effortlessly over the paper and as it moved it left a really small amount behind. The result of this was surprisingly smooth lines with extremely sharp and precise edges. Then, over the next 30 minutes, most of the kerosene evaporated and became even brighter. I've never been very good at drawing and what I did here was more or less random. But for some reason, I thought these simple designs were strangely interesting. I also tried several times to do this with commercial ferrofluid, but it never seemed to work very well.

It contains some other oily additives that make it take longer to dry and also tends to bleed through the paper. This means that the edges are not as sharp and the commercial fluid is also more diluted, so it does not look as black. To be fair, this was just a commercial fluid I tested this with and there might be another one that works. Honestly, I highly doubt it, because almost all commercial products contain other oils and additives. It could be possible. Anyway, I think that's it for this project. I am very happy that we were finally able to produce ferrofluid and that in some ways it was even better than the commercial material, but there is still a lot of work to do.

My next big goal is to try to make the process much more reproducible and also scale it up. I'm not sure when it will be published though, because for now, I'm done with ferrofluids. They are incredibly messy and almost everything ended up covered in oily iron. Also, I've been thinking about ferrofluids too often lately to the point where I literally see them when I close my eyes. It'll probably be a few months when I've forgotten how bad it is to work with and somehow convinced myself that it's an awesome idea to revisit. Anyway, with all that being said, now it's time for the giveaway.

Like I said before, I made five of these vials and will be giving them all away. Plus I ship them anywhere in the world totally free. For your chance to win, all you need to do is use the link in the description and then from there you can get an entry by doing a few different things. This, for example, can be as simple as visiting my YouTube pages or checking out my Instagram. While you're there, you can subscribe or follow us, but it's not necessary for the giveaway. I'll do a drawing for the winners in about a week and post the results here on YouTube and Twitter, and I'll personally email everyone who wins.

That being said, I think that's finally it for the video. I hope you enjoyed it and that the length didn't kill you, and I'll see you in the next one. As always, thank you very much to all my followers on Patreon. Everyone who supports me can watch my videos at least 24 hours before posting them on YouTube. Also, everyone on Patreon can message me directly. If you support me with five dollars or more, you will get your name at the end like you see here.