Hi everyone,

A few years ago I tried to melt aluminium using an old steel fire extinguisher as crucible. This was done in a homemade foundry using coke as fuel.

Me having no patience, I tried getting the temperature up as fast as possible and a hole was melted in the crucible, producing a very bright light.

Could the molten aluminum have reacted with the rusty steel fire extinguisher to produce thermite?

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[–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Thanks, it makes alot of sense.
What about the super bright light coming off though, is it normal for melting steel?
Now that I'm writing this I realize that I could just go check videos of steel melting to compare...
But the question remains: would it be possible for thermite to have formed just from the presence of aluminium, iron oxyde and heat?

Edit: My bad, the question has been answered!
I didn't see the other comments when I wrote this...

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