New way of making a ferrofluid. Costs less than 3$!!!

Step 4 Collect ferric oxide

Collecting ferric oxide:
Get a magnet. Roll it with paper or plastic bag (it is needed to separate ferric oxide from a magnet easily). Collect all your Fe2O3. Let ir dry.

Repeat step 3:
If not all oxide has separated from a tape you can repeat procedure with acetone few time to get a better effect.

Comments

[simonfman]

does it have to be written over before i do that to it? i put a small strip of VHS which was a movie in there too and when i run my finger over it really hard, my finger turns a little black. the other tapes are completely new and have never been written over

[mrmorose]

Great idea, but it doesn't seem to work very will with VHS tapes (no clue why). We couldn't get the ferric oxide to separate from the film using acetone set for about two hours. shrug*

[tomorrowsman]

Same problem; audio cassettes worked fine, but I have a bucket of videotapes I could seemingly just respool and watch again. Anyone know how to do this with VHS tapes?

[Frankiescou]

How much Fe304 Do you need for 1 ml? I need a bigger amount of ferrofluid and its for my science fair project.
Please Reply. (I got tons of Fe304 and vegetable oil).

[solidification]

That is not Fe2O3, but Fe3O4. your source on howstuffworks is wrong. Fe2O3 is red and paramagnetic, not ferromagnetic.