Look what happens when you add molten salt to water

Look what happens when you add molten salt to water, in 5000 fps…

Salt melts at ~1400F, and inexplicably explodes when poured into water! I had to find out whats going on.

“In the slow motion shots, you can see that the molten salt instantly forms a layer of steam around itself when poured into the water. This insulates the bulk of the salt from cooling down via the Leidenfrost effect.

The steam layer rapidly becomes superheated, causing a large and almost instant increase in pressure. At the surface of the water, this high pressure steam can easily escape. But as the blob of molten salt sinks deeper, the pressurised steam is confined by the water around it. This causes the pressure to rise even further, even quicker, until it overcomes the water pressure holding it back and you get an explosion.”