• Question: how do you get lava from a volcano without it melting the pot that you are putting it in

    Asked by Arnold Schwarzenegger to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 10 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Vicky Bayliss

      Vicky Bayliss answered on 10 Mar 2015:

      good question!

      I’m thinking you’ve got to go down one of two routes – either make your pot out of a material with an even higher melting point that lava. Google says that tantalum hafnium carbide (Ta4HfC5), has the highest melting point of all materials of 4215degrees C, and apparently lava is usually just 1200degrees C. So a tantalum hafnium carbide pot would be fine.
      I guess your other choice would be to suspend the lava in a magnetic field – but of course that would only work if there was some ferrous material in the lava. I’m not sure about that bit.

    • Photo: Oliver Brown

      Oliver Brown answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Yeah I think Vicky’s on it with the ‘get a better pot’ approach! Actually according to an online metal supplier I found Steel melts at 1371, and wrought Iron at 1482, so you might be okay with those. Tungsten would be a good choice at 3399 degrees C, and it’s probably cheaper than Tantalum Hafnium Carbide!

      Another important point is to make sure your handle is wrapped in a *very* good thermal insulator. You want some kind of custom heatproof fibre like Firefighters use for their clothes.

    • Photo: Jaclyn Bell

      Jaclyn Bell answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Yeah go with Ollie’s and Vicky’s suggestion of getting a better pot 😛 You’re going to need a very good way of getting the pot near the volcano though… So think about the material holding the pot and what that could be constructed of 😉

    • Photo: Michele Faucci Giannelli

      Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      Or you just wait until the lava get cold and then you can analyse it 😛

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