8/17/2019 Taming the Barking Dog - Barking Dog Reaction

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In the Classroom

www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 83 No. 5 May 2006 •  Journal of Chemical Education 751

The exothermic reaction that takes place upon the igni-tion of a mixture of carbon disulfide and nitric oxide has beenknown for centuries: J. von Liebig, for example, carried outthe experiment as a demonstration for the Bavarian royal fam-ily in 1853 (1). Today, 150 years later, chemistry studentsare still enthralled by the bright blue flash and distinctive“woof” sound produced in the process.

Lecturers and teachers may be interested in demonstrat-ing this vibrant and interesting reaction for their students.However, the reaction is known to be dangerous (2, 3). In-

deed, during Liebig’s 1853 demonstration, he himself only avoided death thanks to his recreational drug usage (4):

The accident [resulting from the ‘Barking Dog’ reaction] would have been fatal for Liebig if his snuff box had notprevented a large splinter of glass from penetrating hisfemoral artery.

Therefore, having experimented with the reaction our-selves, we have created videos of the reaction in progress thatmay be useful for teachers of chemistry.W The footage in-cludes film of the reaction, video using a Polaroid filter toenable the flame from the reaction to be seen more clearly,and video showing what happens when carbon disulfide mix-

ing is poor.It is hoped that this footage will allow a wider range of students to see this engaging demonstration, as many teach-

JCE  DigiDemos: Tested Demonstrationsedited byEd Vitz

Kutztown UniversityKutztown, PA 19530

Taming the Barking Dog   W

Ché Royce Seabourne,* George Maxwell, and James Wallace

Department of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom; *crs111@york.ac.uk 

ers are not prepared to perform the demonstration live (ow-ing to safety concerns).

 Acknowledgments

 We would like to thank Richard Douthwaite and theUniversity of York Chemistry Department for WhinfieldProject funding. John Holman deserves thanks for his ad-vice and support throughout this project. Finally, none of our experiments would have been possible without the assis-

tance of the laboratory technicians Sue Walton, Dave Lindsey,Zahoor Ul-Haq, and Dave Bettany.

WSupplemental Material

Videos of the demonstration are available in the  JCE DigiDemo collection of the JCE  Digital Library Web site.

Literature Cited

1. University of Leeds Chemistry Department Web site. http:// www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/delights/texts/expt_22.html  (accessed Mar2006).

2. Bodner, G. M. J. Chem. Educ.  1985, 62 , 1105–1107.

3. Shakhashiri, B. Z. Chemical Demonstrations; University of Wis-consin Press: Madison, WI, 1986; Vol. 1, p 117.4. Winderlich, R. J. Chem. Educ.  1950,  27 , 672.

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