Just as a warning, this reaction produces highly poisonous SO₂ gas This is must only be carried out in a well ventilated area, or fumehood Also, the reaction between iron and sulfur is extremely exothermic and very high temperatures are reached Igniting using a hot glass stirring rod, iron powder and sulfur powder react together extremely exothermically For this experiment, only iron and sulfur powder is needed The amount that you need will depend on how much you want to make You can make any amount as long as you maintain the mass ratio of 7 g of iron to 4 g of sulfur powder First, I added 35 grams iron to 20 grams of sulfur I then poured the powder between each beaker back and forth until the mixture became relatively homogenous When mixing two reactive powders, this is often the best method to use Mechanical stirring, or even worse, grinding with a mortar and pestle, could lead to the spontaneous ignition of the mixture You might notice that there’s still quite a few clumps of sulfur in the final mixture For our purposes, this is okay However, if you wish to avoid this problem, simply use dried sulfur and fully powderize it before using it Now that we’re done mixing the powders, we’re ready to react them The best and most impressive way to set off the reaction is to simply heat a glass rod and place it into the powder The temperature of the glass stirring rod only has to be a little over 100 °C, which is the melting point of sulfur When the sulfur melts, its reaction with iron will begin So, the reaction that is going on here is actually quite simple Simply put, the solid iron and the liquid sulfur combine to form iron (II) sulfide in an extremely exothermic reaction This reaction should only take place on something that can withstand the high heat This means it sould be carried out on something like concrete or a high melting point metal Not aluminum, because aluminum will melt at around 600 °C Also, absolutely no glass, porcelain, or organic polymer of any kind This reaction is interesting, but the final product, iron (II) sulfide, is actually a useful product The iron sulfide from this reaction can be collected and react with hydrochloric acid to produce hydrogen sulfide gas It has a rotten egg smell and it is extremely poisonous, its toxicity is comparable to that of hydrogen cyanide However, despite its significant toxicity, hydrogen sulfide gas is used in a multitude of chemical processes I’m providing this video to show you why I should not carry out the reaction on glass or porcelain The reaction is extremely exothermic and it can easily crack and shatter glass In the end, you’re left with a very hard, dense material that is stuck to the end of the glass stirring rod If you’re interested in keeping the iron (II) sulfide, then you can wait till it cools, break it up ,and put it into a container Just as a warning, powdered iron (II) sulfide is pyrophoric, which means that you probably shouldn’t powderize it, as it might ignite on contact with air

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