Microscale Thermite Reaction (opens in new tab)

I have something I want to remove rust from, so I have been thinking about sand blasting. Thus, this thought popped into my head: how spectacular would it be to use aluminum powder? (To be clear, I am not going to try this.)

My wife’s reaction to this was “You guys…” but I know she would absolutely want to watch if someone was going to try it.

Does the second rusty ball really need to be a rusty ball since it is covered in foil?

Great laugh at end of micro demo video.

Please try this at home. You all have rusty iron ball laying around, right?

that brings childhood memories. Not too microscale though. Rust was everywhere in USSR. Small buckets of rust, small buckets of aluminum powder. When we experimentally discovered the reaction - we were too young still for school chemistry lessons - it was "microscale" - we burned a hole in the kitchen table in my friend's apartment (like a true hero he told his parents that he was alone and received the punishment :) We also tried to make a rocket using the mix as the rocket fuel - it burned the whole rocket like a huge firework :)

Based on the title I was expecting to see “energetic materials”, which are carefully engineered variants of thermite.

For example, alternating layers of aluminium and iron oxide can be deposited in the same manner as seen in chip production by evaporating the materials in a vacuum chamber.

This allows layers tens of nanometers thin, essentially a perfect mixing and a very intimate contact between the reactants.

Some of these materials have far more bang per unit mass than conventional explosives.

Does the ball need to be iron? Can we just take a 3d printed sphere, paint it with glue ,roll it around in a bucket of rust and then smash?