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D3O - We protect people and their things

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D3O are experts in impact protection and shock absorption. We make trusted, high performance, shock absorbing solutions for global brands.

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When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes give my younger brothers and me a large tub of oobleck, telling us to go play outside and make a mess.

Oobleck is a milky-white, shiny substance known as a non-Newtonian fluid. It flows like thick paint when you pour it, but mash your hand onto its surface and it forms a hard skin. Squeeze some in your palm and it will form a tough glob. But the second you release it, oobleck trickles down over your fingers in a slurry. It's gross, it's fun, and any kid will be caught up in its magical ability to switch back and forth between a solid and a liquid.
Bartholomew and the Oobleck, where a young boy's wish for something other than rain or snow to fall from the sky is granted. The characters in Seuss' book soon need to be saved from this sticky new form of precipitation, but real-life oobleck is far more benign, and scientifically interesting.
On their own, boring old water and cornstarch don't seem like they'd be able to create such an interesting product. But get them together and they form a non-Newtonian fluid. To really understand these materials, we need some knowledge of their opposite - that is, a Newtonian fluid.

British polymath and Enlightenment hero Isaac Newton studied lots of things: optics, gravity, waves, mathematics, astronomy, history, religion and alchemy and so on. Then in his spare time, he investigated how liquids flow and thus got a whole branch of fluid dynamics named for him. Newton observed how common liquids, such as water, flow the same regardless of how much stress you subject them to. Push a stirring stick into a cup of water and swish it around. The water's viscosity - how smooth or sticky its consistency is - stays the same.

Pretty simple, yeah? Many liquids that we interact with on a regular basis work this way: things like water, milk, oil, or juice. But there are also a lot of common fluids that don't. These are non-Newtonian fluids; substances whose viscosity changes based on how much pressure you apply to them.

For instance, tip a tub of thick yogurt upside-down and it will slowly ooze out. But shake the yogurt for a while first and its viscosity will decrease, allowing it to pour much more easily. Things like toothpaste, conditioner, and ketchup are another example. They usually sit like a custardy solid at the bottom of their container. They are sticky, their viscosity is high. But such substances actually just need a bit of a kick to get flowing. You must provide enough force to overcome the internal friction that keeps them stationary, such as by giving them a squeeze, which lowers their viscosity. They can then be easily extruded from a tube, bottle, or packet.

When you mix cornstarch into water, the starchy grains become suspended in the liquid, creating a substance with weird non-Newtonian abilities. When you apply pressure to oobleck, it works the opposite of the previous examples: The liquid becomes more viscous, not less. At the places you apply force, the cornstarch particles get mashed together, trapping water molecules between them, and oobleck temporarily turns into a semi-solid material. This force can be anything, including the sound vibrations from music speakers or a rapidly shaking container, as in the video at the top of this post.

That particular experiment really highlights oobleck's strangeness. The vibrating dish creates bumpy Faraday waves in the liquid. A puff of air introduced into this system creates a hole in the oobleck that just hangs out, not disappearing like you would expect. Speed up the vibrations and the hole will turn into a writhing mass that slowly takes over the entire surface of the oobleck. I don't know about you, but I can't watch that video without some internal WTF alarms going off.

Of course, the most famous force applied to oobleck is the weight of a person slamming their foot down as they run over a vat filled with the stuff. You can find plenty of videos on Youtube of people repeating this amazing feat, including the one above. It's not just little children, college students, and viewers who are impressed. Explaining all of oobleck's properties is actually the subject of serious scientific investigations.

In 2012, researchers at the University of Chicago published a paper where they described the battery of experiments they performed on oobleck (you can watch a video of their tests below). It's hard not to be impressed by all the science these guys are doing on some bizarre stuff I used to play with as a kid: Lasers! High-speed cameras! X-ray machines! Their lab has got it all.

After measuring all the forces and deformations involved inside of oobleck, the researchers think they know how it is able to generate the support for messiah-like party tricks. If you hit oobleck hard and fast, the cornstarch particles get shoved together, bunching up like snow in front of a snowplow. This creates a quasi-solid column just below your foot, which can support your weight. But if you stop moving, you stop applying force and the oobleck returns to a liquid state.

That's fairly intuitive. But many mysteries actually remain with oobleck. The researchers still don't know all the details, such as whether or not the cornstarch particles actually touch one another, what causes them to move apart after the pressure is taken off, and how different grain sizes would affect what the oobleck does. This last point is important because some engineers would like to create new substances with oobleck-like characteristics. These could be good at absorbing tremendous impacts, finding uses in bulletproof vests or cushions that inflate during a car crash.

I think that ultimately, the moral of the story is this: Parents, let your kids play with non-Newtonian fluids. They'll grow up to create life-saving devices, or at least write about them on the internet.

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What's Up With That: The Bizarre Liquid That Sometimes Acts Like a Solid

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When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes give my younger brothers and me a large tub of oobleck, telling us to go play outside and make a mess. Oobleck is a milky-white, shiny substance known as a non-Newtonian fluid. It flows like thick paint when you pour it, but mash your hand onto...

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My daughter (3rd grade) is doing a science fair project and we are stuck one one question. I'm not sure what exactly they are asking. The question states how can you use in real life what you have learned from the experiment. Our experiment is vinegar and baking soda in a bottle to inflate a balloon.

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In our home we are all about resourcefulness, slashing our shopping costs and reducing our impact on the planet. We recycle, repurpose and aren't afraid to get creative when it comes to cleaning our home and our personal care. To that end, we use baking soda and vinegar a lot. Our goal is to save our hard-earned money, while making better choices for the environment. That's pretty much a win-win scenario in my household.

You too, can opt to use baking soda and vinegar instead of expensive cleaning and personal care products and make choices that benefit your family budget and reduce your impact on the planet. But lest you think that using baking soda and vinegar is somehow more difficult or less than optimum, think again. These simple kitchen ingredients are powerful tools that can make your home (and you) cleaner, less toxic and more eco-friendly.

And the real beauty of using baking soda and vinegar is that instead of buying several shopping bags full of specialized products, you can simply buy two items.
*Tip* Warehouse stores are a great way to stock up on both, baking soda and vinegar, and buying in bulk will reduce packaging waste.
Here are some ideas for how you can use baking soda and vinegar in your home.

1. Forget expensive and questionable teeth-whitening products and use baking soda to whiten your teeth instead.

2. Make your own all-purpose cleaner from vinegar and the essential oil of your choice. Don't worry, the vinegar smell dissipates once vinegar dries, and the essential oils do help with that. One word of caution about essential oils, use care when using essential oils on food handling surfaces and for those with pets and children. Alternatively, you can use orange peels and vinegar to a vinegar cleaner.

3. Baking soda is a great abrasive (think AJAX replacement) cleaner and is great for restoring shine to sinks, cleaning ovens and removing stains from laundry.

4. Bring your jewelry back to life by using baking soda to remove tarnish and build up on your gold-filled, brass, nickel and sterling silver jewelry with this recipe.

5. Clean drains of soap build up by cleaning them once every few months with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar. Learn how here.

6. Apple cider vinegar can be great for your skin too. Use it as a facial astringent, skin softener and more.

7. Finally, bring back hard wood floors by using vinegar to lighten dark spots and to help remove stains. Learn more here.

Related on Organic Authority 12 Housekeeping Life Hacks for Naturally Cleaning Your Home 7 Ways Baking Soda Makes You Beautiful How to Brighten Whites and Remove Stains Naturally
Tags: baking soda, baking soda and vinegar, baking soda uses, uses for baking soda, uses for vinegar, vinegar, vinegar and baking soda, vinegar uses

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7 Simple Uses for Baking Soda and Vinegar - Organic Authority

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In our home we are all about resourcefulness, slashing our shopping costs and reducing our impact on the planet. We recycle, repurpose and aren't afraid to get creative when it comes to cleaning our home and our personal care. To that end, we use baking soda and vinegar a lot.

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Have you ever wondered why some things fizz, bubble, foam, or change shapes or colors when you mix them together? Here you will learn the science behind some very cool reactions - and you can even try them out at home!

Crazy Chemistry Projects

Up, Up, and Away!

Well, your balloon might not quite fly away in this experiment, but you can make it inflate by creating a reaction in a bottle.

What You Need:

1 packet (or 2 teaspoons) of active dry yeast

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 cup of warm water

A clean, empty plastic bottle (the kind soda or water comes in)

A sheet of paper

Notebook

Pencil

What You Do:

1. Stretch the balloon out by blowing it up and releasing the air three times.

2. Pour the warm water into the bottle. Make a funnel by rolling a piece of paper into a cone shape, then put the pointed end into the mouth of the bottle. Pour the sugar into the bottle through your funnel. Put the cap on and shake the bottle until most of the sugar has dissolved. Take the cap off.

3. Put your funnel in the mouth of the bottle and pour the yeast in so that it floats on top of the sugar water.

4. Quickly attach the balloon to the mouth of the bottle.

5. Set the bottle in a place where it won't be disturbed and write in your notebook what time it is.

6. Go back and check the bottle after two minutes and write down changes you see to the liquid in the bottle or to the balloon.

7. Check it again in five minutes and write down any changes. If it doesn't look like much is happening, leave it for about 15 minutes and then look at it again.

8. Continue to check on the bottle and balloon about every 15 minutes. The reaction may continue for up to several hours. Watch closely and write down any changes you notice!

What Happened:

The warm water made the yeast 'wake up' and it immediately started to have a chemical reaction with the sugar. Two substances, yeast and sugar, reacted to each other and together they made a new substance - a gas called carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the same gas that makes soda pop fizzy, and one of the many gases in the air we breathe in and out. The carbon dioxide from the reaction filled up all the space in the plastic bottle and kept rising to fill up the balloon. At first, the yeast should have looked puffy or bubbly on the surface of the water as it was beginning to react with the warmth of the water. Then, you probably noticed that the balloon was standing straight up instead of being flopped over the mouth of the bottle! That was the first sign that the yeast was reacting with the sugar and that carbon dioxide gas was being made. Soon after that, the balloon should have started to inflate. Since the balloon was made of stretchy rubber (and you helped stretch it out), it kept expanding to hold the carbon dioxide, the same as it would if you were to blow it up with your mouth. When you breathe out (or exhale), your lungs push carbon dioxide out, along with a few other gases, which is how you are able to blow up a balloon.

Now that you know how it works, you might want to try the experiment with other types of sugar mixtures. What do you think would happen if you used your favorite soda or juice instead of the sugar water?

So, if yeast and sugar react this way in a bottle, what happens when you bake with them? Well, the same thing happens, it just looks a little different. Bread and many other baked goods are made from yeast. The yeast reacts with the sugar in the dough and releases carbon dioxide, which creates tiny air bubbles that pop and leave air pockets as the dough bakes into bread. You can get a closer look at the air pockets left behind in a slice of bread.

Slime Time

What You Need:

White glue

Water

Food coloring

Borax powder

Glass or ceramic bowl

Small mixing bowl or cup

Measuring cup

Measuring spoon

Mixing spoon or popsicle stick

A square of chocolate

What You Do:

1. Measure 1 cup of water into the small bowl or cup and add the Borax powder. Stir it well and set it aside. You just made a solution of Borax.

2. Rinse your stirring spoon to get all of the Borax solution off of it.

3. In the larger bowl, measure 1/2 a cup of water and 1/2 a cup of white glue. Stir it well until it is all mixed together.

4. If you want colored slime, add 2-3 drops of food coloring to the glue mixture now.

5. Pour the Borax solution that you made in step one into the glue mixture and start stirring. You should see a big clump form in the colored glue right away, just keep stirring though until the clump has picked up as much of the liquid around it as it can.

6. Now comes the fun part - set your spoon aside and pick up the slime with your hands. Keep it over the bowl and knead it like dough, working it between your fingers. As you play with it, the slime will dry off on your hands and will become less slimy and more like putty.

7. Keep your slime in a plastic zip-lock bag in the fridge when you are not playing with it.

What Happened:

The slime you just made is called a polymer (say: PAUL-UH-MER). The word polymer means 'many parts.' White glue is one type of polymer. When you mixed water with the white glue, the glue formed long chains of thousands of little molecules that you couldn't see until you added the Borax solution. The Borax had a reaction with the glue - it linked all those chains together, which made the whole mixture thicker and turned it into a blob of slime, a different type of polymer!

There are lots different types of polymers, including plastic, rubber, Jell-O, glue, camera film, materials such as nylon, and even natural fibers from wood and cotton. This polymer has properties of a solid and a liquid at once. Compare your polymer to a solid object - a piece of chocolate. Break the chocolate in half. Try quickly breaking the wad of slime in half. Did you get a clean break similar to the way the chocolate broke? To see how it is also like a liquid, try slowly stretching the blob out between your hands. You can't do that with a solid piece of chocolate! The polymer is showing its liquid properties when you stretch it slowly. Now set the slime back into the bowl you made it in and watch what happens. It should flatten out to fill the bottom of the bowl, similar to a liquid like pancake batter would do.

Slime Science Lesson

Chemical Reactions

There are all sorts of reactions going on around us each day. A chemical reaction is something that happens when two or more substances come into contact with each other. One substance combines with another and creates a whole ew substance that wasn't there when the reaction started. Different types of reactions can happen depending on the substances that are put together. Sometimes a little of the original ingredients will be left over after the reaction, and sometimes more than one new substance will be formed in the reaction. In Up, Up, and Away! the yeast reacted with the warm sugar-water and produced carbon dioxide, which you could see filling up the balloon.

There are also many other types of chemical reactions that take place around us and even inside of us every day! Can you think of any examples? Here are a few to get you started:

Digestion - whenever you eat, your body uses many different and very complex chemical reactions to break down the food and convert it into energy and other things that your body needs! (You can learn more about digestion on this page.)

Combustion - fire is another type of chemical reaction, called combustion. It needs oxygen, fuel, and heat in order to exist and the reaction creates light, heat, and smoke.

Oxidation - rust is a chemical reaction that you might see happening somewhere around you. Sometimes a reddish-colored layer will form on iron or steel (types of metal) when the metal reacts with oxygen in the air. Most iron and steel is treated to prevent it from rusting, though, so you usually only find rust on old pieces of metal that have been in contact with a lot of water and have gradually rusted over several years. When an apple turns brown after you bite into it, that is oxidation, too. An enzyme in the flesh part of the apple reacts with oxygen from the air and turns the apple brown.

Polymers

In the slime experiment above, you learned what a polymer is - a long chain of hundreds or thousands of tiny molecules. The slime you made is an interesting type of polymer that can act like a solid or a liquid depending on how it is handled. There are lots and lots of polymers in our world. Some are natural and some are made by humans, or synthetic. Here are a few examples of polymers:

Plastic is one of the most common polymers. There are lots of different types of plastics that have very different properties - some plastics are flexible and can be bent (like a plastic bag or a toothpaste tube) and some are very solid and would split or crack if you tried to bend them (like a plastic plate or a CD).

Fabric such as rayon, nylon, and polyester that are used for making clothes such as shirts, sweaters, and socks.

Natural polymers - one of the most important natural polymers is DNA, the protein in your cells that makes you who you are! Some other things that come from naturally-occurring polymers are cotton, silk, rubber, paper, and leather. Rubber comes from a natural source - a plant! Before it can be used though, it has to be processed.

For more information and project ideas for teaching kids about polymers, check out our Polymer and Slime Experiments page.

Science Words

Chemical reaction- when two or more substances come into contact and form a new substance.

Carbon Dioxide- a gas that is in the air on earth, but in very small amounts. Plants need it in order to live; they use it to covert sunlight into food. Humans breathe out carbon dioxide when we exhale. In chemistry, it is abbreviated CO ₂, which means that is has one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms.

Oxygen - a gas that is very abundant on earth and that humans and most animals breathe to stay alive. It does not have any color, smell, or taste.

Polymer- the word "poly" means many, so a polymer is a long chain of molecules that gives a substance the ability to stretch and be very flexible.

Printable Worksheet

Use this worksheet as a fun activity to reinforce the basic chemistry concepts of chemical reactions and polymers. Kids can color the page and then determine whether each picture is a polymer, a reaction, or neither.

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Teach Kids About Reactions & Polymers | PreK - Grade 4

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Have you ever wondered why some things fizz, bubble, foam, or change shapes or colors when you mix them together? Here you will learn the science behind some very cool reactions - and you can even try them out at home!

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How do we make things out of polymers? There are so many different ways. Just think of all the things made from polymers, from plastic cups to clothes to paint. They're all made differently, but they're all still polymers. See how we make things from polymers and how we can make the polymers stronger and better.

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Here you can learn about all different kinds of polymers: stretchy like a rubber band, tough like a football, soft like a sweater, silky and strong like a parachute, and even polymers that are bulletproof!! To find out more, click on a polymer or a topic on the map or on the list below.

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To get a feel for what polymers are, let's find out where they are! Just point and click on a store you'd like to visit. Then look around and see all the neat stuff that's made out of polymers.

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Let's start at the beginning. If you don't know what a polymer even is, you're in the right place. Click on a link to learn about polymers -- what they're made of, why they're different, and what makes them..., well, polymers.

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While balls have been used as toys forever, the bouncing ball is a more recent innovation. Bouncing balls were originally made of natural rubber, though they are now made of plastics and other polymers and even treated leather. You can use chemistry to make your own bouncing ball. Once you understand how to do so, you can alter the recipe to see how the chemical composition affects the bounciness and other characteristics of your creation.

The bouncing ball in this activity is made from a polymer. Polymers are molecules made up of repeating chemical units. Glue contains the polymer polyvinyl acetate (PVA), which cross-links to itself when reacted with borax.

Before you make bouncing polymer balls, you will need to gather a few materials:

Borax (found in the laundry section of the store)

Cornstarch (found in the baking section of the store)

White glue (e.g., Elmer's glue, which makes an opaque ball) or blue or clear school glue (which makes a translucent ball)

Warm water

Food coloring (optional)

Measuring spoons

Spoon or craft stick (to stir the mixture)

2 small plastic cups or other containers (for mixing)

Marking pen

Metric ruler

Zip-top plastic baggie

To make bouncing polymer balls, follow these steps:

1. Label one cup "Borax Solution" and the other "Ball Mixture."

2. Pour 2 tablespoons of warm water and 1/2 teaspoon of borax powder into the cup labeled "Borax Solution." Stir the mixture to dissolve the borax. Add food coloring if desired.

3. Pour 1 tablespoon of glue into the cup labeled "Ball Mixture." Add 1/2 teaspoon of the borax solution you just made and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Do not stir. Allow the ingredients to interact on their own for 10-15 seconds and then stir them together to fully mix. Once the mixture becomes impossible to stir, take it out of the cup and start molding the ball with your hands.

4. The ball will start out sticky and messy but will solidify as you knead it.

5. Once the ball is less sticky, go ahead and bounce it.

6. You can store your plastic ball in a sealed bag when you're finished playing with it.

7. Don't eat the materials used to make the ball or the ball itself. Wash your work area, utensils, and hands after you have completed this activity.

Things to Try With Bouncing Polymer Balls

When you use the scientific method, you make observations before experimenting and testing a hypothesis. You've followed a procedure to make a bouncing ball. Now you can vary the procedure and use your observations to make predictions about the effect of the changes.

Observations you can make and then compare as you change the composition of the ball include the diameter of the finished ball, how sticky it is, how long it takes the material to solidify into a ball, and how high it bounces.

Experiment with the ratio between the amounts of glue, cornstarch, and borax. Adding more cornstarch will make a ball that stretches and bends. Using less borax will produce a "goopier" ball, while adding more glue will result in a slimier ball.

This activity is adapted from the American Chemical Society's "Meg A. Mole's Bouncing Ball," a featured project for National Chemistry Week 2005.

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While balls have been used as toys forever, the bouncing ball is a more recent innovation. Bouncing balls were originally made of natural rubber, though they are now made of plastics and other polymers and even treated leather. You can use chemistry to make your own bouncing ball.

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Keep your hands warm with chemistry! OK, so it's not really ice, but it really does keep your hands warm. And it's an easy (and safe) experiment you can do in your own kitchen. All you need is baking soda and vinegar to create a little chemistry experiment that comes handy in the cold winter.

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Polymers are really big molecules, made up of lots and lots of smaller molecules joined together. They can make materials bouncy like a rubber ball, stiff like a plastic toy, or stretchy like a piece of gum.

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Chemistry for Kids - Fun Experiments, Free Games, Cool Projects, Science Online

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Kids learn about all sorts of chemistry subjects including atoms, elements, mixtures, the periodic table, chemical bonding, reactions, and compounds.

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Chem4Kids.com! This tutorial introduces basics of chemical reactions. Other sections include matter, elements, the periodic table, and biochemistry.

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Chemical reactions occur when two substances interact to form new compounds or molecules. These processes are ubiquitous in nature and essential to life; NASA's working definition of life, for example, describes it as a "self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution." Several factors determine when and whether a chemical reaction will occur.

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Will OOBLECK Save the Egg? Non Newtonian Fluid Science Experiment

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I was doing some experiments with Oobleck (Non newtonian fluid made of corn starch and water) when I noticed the oobleck changing its state from liquid to solid I though that might spread some "kinetic energy" and act like a cushion. Even more, I think the oobleck getting hard around the egg creates a protective shield...

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Oobleck and Non-Newtonian Fluids: Crash Course Kids #46.1

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Many people have heard of Sir Isaac Newton . He is famous for developing many scientific theories in mathematics and physics. Newton described how 'normal' liquids or fluids behave, and he observed that they have a constant viscosity (flow). This means that their flow behaviour or viscosity only changes with changes in temperature or pressure. For example, water freezes and turns into a solid at 0˚C and turns into a gas at 100˚C. Within this temperature range, water behaves like a 'normal' liquid with constant viscosity.

Typically, liquids take on the shape of the container they are poured into. We call these 'normal liquids' Newtonian fluids. But some fluids don't follow this rule. We call these ' strange liquids' non-Newtonian fluids.

Stress and strain

In science, stress means that a force is applied to a body. The result of that stress is described as strain.

Imagine hitting a metal with a hammer. The force that is applied on the metal causes stress to that particular area. The result of that stress is then described as strain - in this case, possibly a deformation of the metal. Newtonian fluids don't resist much stress that is applied on them like solids would do, so they don't show the signs of strain. If you hit water with a hammer, the liquid will not resist much to the stress applied and will also not show signs of strain.

Non-Newtonian fluids change their viscosity or flow behaviour under stress. If you apply a force to such fluids (say you hit, shake or jump on them), the sudden application of stress can cause them to get thicker and act like a solid, or in some cases it results in the opposite behaviour and they may get runnier than they were before. Remove the stress (let them sit still or only move them slowly) and they will return to their earlier state.

Say you want to get some tomato sauce out of the bottle. You know there is some in there, but when you turn the bottle upside down, nothing comes out. So what do you do? You shake or hit the bottle. This causes the tomato sauce to become more liquid and you can easily squirt some out. In this case, the sauce's viscosity decreases and it gets runnier with applied stress.

Oobleck is a mixture of cornflour and water (similar to uncooked custard) named after a substance in a Dr Seuss book. This liquid is a runny goo until you apply stress to it, and then it suddenly acts like a solid. You can hit a bowlful with a hammer, and instead of splashing everywhere, the particles lock together. You can roll it into a solid ball in your hand, but if you stop moving it, it reverts to liquid and oozes out through your fingers. In this case, the oobleck's viscosity or resistance to flow increases with applied stress.

Different types of non-Newtonian fluids

Not all non-Newtonian fluids behave in the same way when stress is applied - some become more solid, others more fluid. Some non-Newtonian fluids react as a result of the amount of stress applied, while others react as a result of the length of time that stress is applied.

The table below summarises four types of non-Newtonian fluids.

Why do non-Newtonian fluids matter?

The behaviour of non-Newtonian fluids has important implications:

If a house is built on certain types of clays and an earthquake puts stress on this material through the sudden movement, the apparently solid clay can turn into a runny liquid. This is called liquefaction. Liquefaction was particularly destructive in the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.

Body armour that behaves like a liquid so that you can move easily but turns into a solid on impact from stress could be useful for police or the military.

Fun! Making oobleck is a great reason to make a mess, all in the name of science!

Related content

Useful link

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Many people have heard of Sir Isaac Newton. He is famous for developing many scientific theories in mathematics and physics. Newton described how 'normal' liquids or fluids behave, and he observed that they have a constant viscosity (flow). This means that their flow behaviour or viscosity only changes with changes in temperature or pressure.

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The basic idea behind body armor hasn't changed very much in the past few thousand years. First, armor stops weapons or projectiles from reaching a person's body. Second, it diffuses the weapon's energy so that the final impact causes less damage. While it's not effective in every situation, armor can generally help protect people from serious injury or death, especially against the right weaponry.

Over the years, people have had to develop stronger and more advanced armor to protect against increasingly sophisticated weapons. However, in spite of these improvements, modern body armor still has some of the same shortcomings as ancient forms of armor. Whether it's made from metal plates or layers of fabric, armor is often heavy and bulky. Many types are rigid, so they're impractical for use on arms, legs and necks. For this reason, medieval suits of plate armor had gaps and joints to allow people to move around, and the body armor used today often protects only the head and torso.

One of the newest types of body armor, though, is both flexible and lightweight. Oddly enough, this improvement comes from the addition of liquid to existing armor materials. While it's not entirely ready for combat, laboratory research suggests that liquid body armor has the potential to be a good replacement for or supplement to bulkier vests. Eventually, soldiers, police officers and others may be able to use it to protect their arms and legs.

The two primary types of liquid body armor currently in development both start with a foundation of DuPont Kevlar, commonly used in bulletproof vests. When a bullet or a piece of shrapnel hits a Kevlar vest, the layers of material spread the impact over a large surface area. The bullet also stretches the Kevlar fibers, expending energy and slowing down in the process. The concept is similar to what happens when a car air bag spreads the impact and slows the movement of a person's torso during a collision.

Although Kevlar is a fabric, Kevlar armor does not move or drape the way clothing does. It takes between 20 and 40 layers of Kevlar to stop a bullet, and this stack of layers is relatively stiff. It's also heavy -- a vest alone often weighs more than 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms), even without ceramic inserts for additional protection.

Two different fluids, however, can allow Kevlar armor to use far fewer layers, making it lighter and more flexible. Both of them have one thing in common -- they react strongly in response to a stimulus. Next, we'll look at what these liquids are made of and why they react the way they do.

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­The basic idea behind body armor hasn't changed very much in the past few thous­and years. First, armor stops weapons or projectiles from reaching a person's body. Second, it diffuses the weapon's energy so that the final impact causes less damage.

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We CUT OPEN a Fire extinguisher to see how it works. First we had to test it and have some fun. Go watch the "Behind the Scenes" video on Shonduras YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wu0pY3dkCc&list=PLhIpNUm2RRCrQp2Nleeo-dOWFn3a8nGVj&index=1 Looking for a Fire Extinguisher?

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Fire extinguishers are nearly ubiquitous, and they can be an invaluable, life-saving device. But what's inside those little red cylinders, and how does it stop a fire? Share on Facebook: https://goo.gl/hF7RFe Share on Twitter: https://goo.gl/qKWGmd Subscribe: http://goo.gl/ZYI7Gt Visit our site: http://www.brainstuffshow.com If you're like me, then you constantly worry about buildings catching on fire when someone plays your newest mixtape.

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Water Fire Extinguishers
Dry Chemical Extinguishers

Dry chemical extinguishers are filled with foam or powder, generally, sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate. The bicarbonate smothers the fire and deprives it of oxygen. Chemical extinguishers are usually pressurized with nitrogen.

Carbon Dioxide Extinguishers

CO2 extinguishers work in two ways to extinguish fires. CO2 is a very cold gas and it quickly reduces the heat of the fire (fires need fuel, heat and oxygen to burn). Additionally, CO2 is a heavier gas than oxygen and its presence displaces the oxygen.

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Water Fire Extinguishers Dry chemical extinguishers are filled with foam or powder, generally, sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate. The bicarbonate smothers the fire and deprives it of oxygen. Chemical extinguishers are usually pressurized with nitrogen. CO2 extinguishers work in two ways to extinguish fires.

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Let's start at the beginning. If you don't know what a polymer even is, you're in the right place. Click on a link to learn about polymers -- what they're made of, why they're different, and what makes them..., well, polymers.

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Why gas pressure increases with an increase  in its temperature

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Uploaded by Chemistry Channel on 2016-12-02.

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Temperature and Pressure Relationship

Johnny Dalton is enjoying his day at the beach on Ideal Island, the place where all gases behave ideally. What makes them behave so ideally? Ideal gas particles move rapidly and randomly, they don't lose energy when they collide, and they do not have any intermolecular forces. This means that when two ideal gas particles get near each other, they are not attracted to each other like real gas particles may be.

As he lays his towel out and gets his sunblock out, he notices a warning on the back of the aerosol can: Contents under pressure; do not heat. Why would heating this aerosol can be a cause for warning? Johnny thinks for a minute and then recalls some of the ideas of kinetic molecular theory. He remembers that as the temperature of a gas increases, the gas particles move faster and faster. After all, temperature is really just a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles. Also, when gas particles are moving quickly, they hit the insides of their container more frequently. Finally, because pressure is just a measure of the force of the particles hitting the inside of the container, the more times it hits the inside of the container, the higher the pressure will be!

Now, the container that is holding these particles may not be able to withstand those high amounts of pressure. If the pressure inside of the container exceeds the limits of the container, an explosion could occur.

If you live in cold climates, you may notice that the pressure in your car's tires decreases as it gets colder. This is because the air particles inside the tires are colder and moving slower. They don't hit the inside walls of the tires as frequently, and the pressure in your car's tires decreases.

Gay-Lussac's Law

This relationship between temperature and pressure is known as Gay-Lussac's law. It states that if the volume of a container is held constant as the temperature of a gas increases, the pressure inside the container will also increase. As with the other gas laws, this one can be represented in the form of an equation:

P1 /T1 = P2 /T2

Recall that we use 1s and 2s to indicate the quantities before (1s) and after (2s) a change has taken place. Also, note that the units for pressure do not matter, as long as they are the same throughout the entire equation. The units for temperature must be Kelvins or the equation will not work. This is because the Kelvin scale is an absolute scale - it doesn't go negative. Finally, this equation only works for an ideal gas. Most gases that surround you and me behave very much like ideal gases, so we can use this equation as an approximation for the gases we encounter.

Practice Question 1

Let's say you are making dinner using a pressure cooker with an initial internal pressure of 1 atmosphere and an internal temperature of 100 degrees Celsius (or 373 K). Assuming the volume does not change and the gas behaves ideally, what will the pressure inside the container be if the temperature is raised to 200 degrees Celsius (or 473 K)?

To solve this, you will need to make sure you are using the Kelvin temperatures. Substituting the numbers into the correct locations in the equation given to us:

1 atm / 373 K = P2 / 473 K

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gay-lussac's law: gas pressure and temperature relationship - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Gay-Lussac's Law: Gas Pressure and Temperature Relationship - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Johnny Dalton is enjoying his day at the beach on Ideal Island, the place where all gases behave ideally. What makes them behave so ideally? Ideal gas particles move rapidly and randomly, they don't lose energy when they collide, and they do not have any intermolecular forces.

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Acidity and basicity, proton concentration, the pH scale, and buffers.

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What is Viscosity? Why is it important for fluids characterization?

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What is viscosity? The resistance of a fluid to flow is a fundamental concept to understand current viscometer technologies and liquid characterization.

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The sun, wave action and weather all contribute to the breakdown of oil in water. Eventually, the oil will evaporate. Because of this, experts leave some oil spills alone. If the slick doesn't threaten wildlife, business or civilization, cleanup agencies may choose to let the natural processes handle it. Oil always floats in salt water, and most of the time in fresh water. In fresh water, though, the heaviest crude oil may sink. Often, as it breaks down, oil will mix with water -- along with particulate matter like sand -- and become tar balls. These balls tend to harden on the outside and stay soft in the middle. Since they are separate and scattered, tar balls and other degraded forms of oil in the sea don't pose the same kind of environmental threat as concentrated oil slicks do.

Often, oil spills in tropical areas are handled with dispersants -- chemicals which break down oil much more quickly than the elements can alone. Dispersants break the oil slick apart, allowing oil droplets to mix with water and be absorbed into the aquatic system more quickly. These chemicals pose their own danger, however. This broken-down oil can be absorbed by marine life and into the food chain. A 2007 Israeli study also reported that the combination of dispersants and broken-down oil are actually more toxic to tropical coral reefs than raw crude oil [source: Science Daily].

When a slick threatens to infiltrate coastal areas -- or worse, an oil spill occurs near a coastal area, as when a tanker runs aground or a refinery leaks -- the situation becomes even more dire. Cleaning the spill becomes trickier as well, and methods to deal with the oil must also be more delicate.

One method for dealing with oil spills that have reached shore is to employ biological agents. Fertilizers like phosphorus and nitrogen are spread over the oil-slicked shoreline to foster the growth of microorganisms, which break down the oil into natural components like fatty acids and carbon dioxide. Other forms of biological agents can also be used in marine -- or open sea -- spills.

But spills on the shore are most likely to affect wildlife habitats.

The severity of the spill and its proximity to wildlife habitats have an effect on the numbers of aquatic wildlife hurt or killed. Waterfowl and other animals like seals and otters can become covered in oil, which breaks down the water-resistant properties of the birds' feathers, as well as the insulation provided by sea mammals' fur. Animals can be poisoned by the oil they ingest while licking themselves clean [source: NOAA].

Oil cleanup agencies use floating dummies and balloons to scare wildlife away from spill areas, but it doesn't prevent animals from being affected. Experts have techniques to help minimize the mortality rate among animals that become polluted by oil, but rescuing birds and sea mammals like walruses and otters present challenges. One thing is encouraging: Since the Exxon Valdez ran aground, the experts are having to clean up spills less often. The U.S. Coast Guard reports that by 2004 there was a 58 percent decrease in oil spills in American waters from 1989.

No matter how successful and extensive the recovery effort, oil spills leave an indelible mark on the environment they impact. In 2007, 18 years after the Exxon Valdez spill, areas along Prince William Sound are still polluted from oil that has yet to completely biodegrade [source: Science Daily].

For more information on oil, the environment and related topics, visit the next page.

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The sun, wave action and weather all contribute to the breakdown of oil in water. Eventually, the oil will evaporate. Because of this, experts leave some oil spills alone. If the slick doesn't threaten wildlife, business or civilization, cleanup agencies may choose to let the natural processes handle it.

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17 Ways To Clean Up The Spill

With the Gulf of Mexico oil spill now the worst in US history, public pressure is growing on BP to contain and remove the ever-spreading slick. There are numerous potential cleanup methods, some that are already being used and others that are... well, rather non-traditional.

BP has said it had received nearly 10,000 suggestions on alternate cleanup methods by the end of May and is seriously looking at 700 of them. With estimates of the total spilled so far ranging from around 700,000 barrels to over 2.5 million barrels, it will be a massive job.

So, what are some of the techniques-both traditional and non-traditional-that could be used to clean up the oil spill? Click ahead to find out!

By Paul Toscano and Daniel Bukszpan
Posted 9 June 2010

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With the Gulf of Mexico oil spill now the worst in US history, public pressure is growing on BP to contain and remove the ever-spreading slick. There are numerous potential cleanup methods, some that are already being used and others that are... well, rather non-traditional.

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Kid's learn about the science of crystals. Repeating patterns of molecules form interesting shapes.

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The Water Cycle for Kids - How it Works - Diagram & Facts

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Middle East water crisis: UAE plans man-made mountain to increase rainfall - TomoNews

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ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - The United Arab Emirates is considering building an artificial mountain to increase rainfall and address the country's water shortages. The International Business Times reports that according to the UAE's Federal Water and Electricity Authority, an average resident uses an estimated 550 liters of water daily - almost two to three times the international average of 170 to 300 liters.

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Abu Dhabi Water Source - From where does Abu Dhabi get its water?

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An animation video about water generation using desalination for the emirate of Abu Dhabi, published by WaterWise, Abu Dhabi. Learn more about water conservation at http://www.waterwise.gov.ae/ More about Abu Dhabi at http://www.abudhabi2.com

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by Chris Woodford. Last updated: August 9, 2018.

You can survive without food for several weeks, because your body will gradually switch to using stored fat and protein to make its energy. But cut off your water supply and you'll be dead within days. Water equals life: it's as simple as that. Around two thirds of your body (as much as 75 percent if you're a baby) is H2O. Even your bones, which you might think are completely solid, contain about 25 percent water. On average, we need 2.4 liters (0.6 gals) of water each day to keep ourselves healthy (though we don't have to drink anything like that much-we get a lot of our water from inside foods). With water so important to our lives, it's hardly surprising we like it clean, pure, and tasty. That's one reason people spend so much money on water filters that can remove any harmful impurities. How do they work-and do we really need them? Let's take a closer look!

Photo: An electric kettle with a built-in water filter. Photo courtesy of Lee J Haywood published on Flickr under a Creative Commons Licence.

How water filters work

Photo: Living filter: A classic wastewater filtering system outlined in a 1901 patent by Cleophas Monjeau of Middletown, Ohio. Dirty water drips down from the tank at the top (blue), passes through vegetation (probably a reed bed), which removes nutrients, organic matter, some kinds of pollution, and some bacteria, before dripping down through sand, charcoal, and gravel filters. The cleaner water is collected for reuse in another tank at the bottom. Reed beds are still widely used in purifying wastewater to this day, including in systems for cleaning up runoff from highways. Artwork from US Patent 681,884: Purifying water by Cleophas Monjeau, issued September 3, 1901, courtesy of US Patent and Trademark Office.

Thanks largely to an unusual molecular structure, water is amazingly good at dissolving things. (We look at this in more detailed in our main article on water.) Sometimes that's helpful: if you want to bust the dust from your jeans, simply throw them in your washing machine with some detergent and the water and soap will pull the muck away like a magnet. But there's clearly a downside to this too. All of our water constantly circulates through the environment in what's known as the water cycle. One minute it's rushing through a river or drifting high in a cloud, the next it's streaming from your faucet (tap), sitting in a glass on your table, or flushing down your toilet. How do you know the water you're about to drink-with its brilliant ability to attract and dissolve dirt-hasn't picked up all kinds of nasties on its journey through Earth and atmosphere? If you want to be sure, you can run it through a water filter.

Water filters use two different techniques to remove dirt. Physical filtration means straining water to remove larger impurities. In other words, a physical filter is a glorified sieve-maybe a piece of thin gauze or a very fine textile membrane. (If you have an electric kettle, you probably have a filter like this built into the spout to remove particles of limescale.) Another method of filtering, chemical filtration, involves passing water through an active material that removes impurities chemically as they pass through.

Photo: Physical filtration: A NanoCeram Nanoalumina filter is a physical filter made from an alumina-based ceramic. It has nanoscale fibers- small enough to remove 99.99999 percent of viruses and bacteria from polluted water or air. Photo by Warren Gretz courtesy of US Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory (DOE/NREL).

Four types of water filters

There are four main types of filtration and they employ a mixture of physical and chemical techniques.

Activated carbon

Photo: A water treatment plant filters water for reuse by passing dirty water from homes and factories through beds of charcoal and sand. It's like a giant version of the filter in our artwork up above, though there's no reed bed in this system. Photo by Betsy J. Weiner courtesy of US Army.

The most common household water filters use what are known as activated carbon granules (sometimes called active carbon or AC) based on charcoal (a very porous form of carbon, made by burning something like wood in a reduced supply of oxygen). Charcoal is like a cross between the graphite "lead" in a pencil and a sponge. It has a huge internal surface area, packed with nooks and crannies, that attract and trap chemical impurities through a process called adsorption (where liquids or gases become trapped by solids or liquids). But while charcoal is great for removing many common impurities (including chlorine-based chemicals introduced during waste-water purification, some pesticides, and industrial solvents), it can't cope with "hardness" (limescale), heavy metals (unless a special type of activated carbon filter is used), sodium, nitrates, fluorine, or microbes. The main disadvantage of activated carbon is that the filters eventually clog up with impurities and have to be replaced. That means there's an ongoing (and sometimes considerable) cost.

Reverse osmosis

Reverse osmosis means forcing contaminated water through a membrane (effectively, a very fine filter) at pressure, so the water passes through but the contaminants remain behind.

A closer look at reverse osmosis

If you've studied biology, you've probably heard of osmosis. When you have a concentrated solution separated from a less concentrated solution by a semi-permeable membrane (a kind of filter through which some things can pass, but others can't), the solutions try to rearrange themselves so they're both at the same concentration.

Wait, it's simpler than it sounds!

Suppose you have a sealed glass bottle full of very sugary water and you stand it inside a big glass jug full of less sugary water. Nothing will happen. But what if the bottle is actually a special kind of porous plastic through which water (but not sugar) can travel? What happens is that water moves from the outer jug through the plastic (effectively, a semi-permeable membrane) into the bottle until the sugar concentrations are equal. The water moves all by itself under what's called osmotic pressure.

That's osmosis, so what about reverse osmosis? Suppose you take some contaminated water and force it through a membrane to make pure water. Effectively, you're making water go in the opposite direction to which osmosis would normally make it travel (not from a less-concentrated solution to a more-concentrated solution, as in osmosis, but from a more-concentrated solution to a less-concentrated solution).

Since you're making the water move against its natural inclination, reverse osmosis involves forcing contaminated water through a membrane under pressure-and that means you need to use energy. In other words, reverse-osmosis filters have to use electrically powered pumps that cost money to run. Like activated charcoal, reverse osmosis is good at removing some pollutants (salt, nitrates, or limescale), but less effective at removing others (bacteria, for example). Another drawback is that reverse osmosis systems produce quite a lot of waste-water-some waste four or five liters of water for every liter of clean water they produce.

Here's what a reverse osmosis filter unit looks like in practice, shown in cutaway. Unfiltered water (blue pipe) is pumped into a purification unit (gray) and passes through a plastic, semi-permeable membrane (yellow) made (in this case) of cellulose acetate. Clean water flows out through the red pipe; impurities flush away through the green pipe:

Artwork: A cutaway of a basic, reverse osmosis membrane filter. Artwork courtesy of US Patent and Trademark Office from US Patent 3,390,773: Water purification system by Ulrich Merten. Gulf General Atomic Inc, July 2, 1968.

Ion exchange

Ion-exchange filters are particularly good at "softening" water (removing limescale). They're designed to split apart atoms of a contaminating substance to make ions (electrically charged atoms with too many or too few electrons). Then they trap those ions and release, instead, some different, less troublesome ions of their own-in other words, they exchange "bad" ions for "good" ones.

Artwork: How ion exchange works: Magnesium and calcium ions (orange and red) flow into the water filter crystals (gray), which initially contain sodium ions (yellow). The magnesium and calcium ions become trapped and the sodium ions are released in their place.

How do they work? Ion exchange filters are made from lots of zeolite beads containing sodium ions. Hard water contains magnesium and calcium compounds and, when you pour it into an ion-exchange filter, these compounds split apart to form magnesium and calcium ions. The filter beads find magnesium and calcium ions more attractive than sodium, so they trap the incoming magnesium and calcium ions and release their own sodium ions to replace them. Without the magnesium and calcium ions, the water tastes softer and (to many people) more pleasant. However, the sodium is simply a different form of contaminant, so you can't describe the end product of ion-exchange filtration as "pure water" (the added sodium can even be problematic for people on low-sodium diets). Another disadvantage of ion-exchange filtration is that you need to recharge the filters periodically with more sodium ions, typically by adding a special kind of salt. (This is why you have to add "salt" to dishwashers, from time to time: the salt recharges the dishwasher's water softener and helps to prevent a gradual build-up of limescale that can damage the machine.)

Distillation

One of the simplest ways to purify water is to boil it, but although the heat kills off many different bacteria, it doesn't remove chemicals, limescale, and other contaminants. Distillation goes a step further than ordinary boiling: you boil water to make steam, then capture the steam and condense (cool) it back into water in a separate container. Since water boils at a lower temperature than some of the contaminants it contains (such as toxic heavy metals), these remain behind as the steam separates away and boils off. Unfortunately, though, some contaminants (including volatile organic compounds or VOCs) boil at a lower temperature than water and that means they evaporate with the steam and aren't removed by the distillation process.

On balance

You can see that different types of filtration remove different pollutants-but there's no single technique that removes all the contaminants from water. That's why many home water-filter systems use two or more of these processes together. If you're looking for a home water filter, tread carefully. Bear in mind that you won't necessarily remove all the nasties. Remember, too, that most water filters require some kind of ongoing cost and, without regular maintenance to keep them working properly, can leave your water in worse shape than it was to begin with!

Should we stop drinking bottled water?

Many people buy water filters or bottled water in an often mistaken belief that tap water is dirty or harmful to drink. In fact, as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reveals, around 92 percent of US community water systems met "all applicable health-based drinking water standards" in 2018 (up from 85 percent in 2005). In England and Wales, for the year 2017, the Drinking Water Inspectorate reported that 99.96 percent of drinking water met national and European standards (involving some 40 different quality measurements). Those figures are pretty remarkable really, when you consider just how dirty we make water and some of the things (like pesticides and car oil) that people flush down their drains. Even so, the high quality of most drinking water doesn't stop people spending something like$280 billion, worldwide, each year, buying bottled water that's several thousand times more expensive than tap water.

Cost isn't the only drawback of bottled water. Most of it comes in disposable plastic bottles that are hard to recycle. Dumped in landfills, washed away in rivers, dropped on beaches, burned in incinerators-plastic bottles add to the pollution that's reducing the quality of Earth's natural water supply. How ironic: by buying "clean" bottled water to keep ourselves healthy, we're helping to make Earth a dirty place and making things worse overall.

Why not break the habit of buying bottled water? You can reuse certain types of disposable plastic bottles, providing you wash them out thoroughly and air dry them, but it's safer to buy yourself a hygienic reusable plastic or aluminum water bottle and fill that from the tap instead. Do that as few as 10-20 times and your bottle will soon pay for itself.

Best of all, give the money you save on bottled water to WaterAid and help some of the people who genuinely lack clean water in developing countries. Let's count ourselves lucky we don't have to drink water straight from a dirty river, like many people still do. As an interesting aside, remember that we spend $280 billion a year on bottled water? Let's put that in context. One of the UN's Millennium Development Goals was to "halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation"; in 2012, the World Bank estimated that the annual cost of achieving that would be $184 billion.

Find out more

London Mayor Seeks Revival of Public Drinking Fountains by Alan Cowell, Guardian, 4 December 2017. Providing more public water points is one way to solve the bottled water problem.

Should I stop drinking bottled water? by Luisa Dillner, The Guardian, 1 June 2015. Why tap water may be better for you than bottled.

Selling Bottled Water That's Better for the Planet by Gloria Dawson. The New York Times, April 30, 2016. The story of Just Water, which aims to provide a better alternative to bottled water.

The Story of Bottled Water: The Guardian, 14 December 2010. A couple of great videos here that explain the real cost of bottled water.

Bottled water: who needs it? by Tom Heap, BBC Panorama, 18 February 2008. Examines the case against bottled water asking questions such as this: is it morally acceptable to import bottled water from Fiji where one third of the population lack clean, safe drinking water?

Find out more

On this website

On other sites

Books and articles

Patents

For more details about how water filters are constructed in practice, try these references. I've picked one typical example of each of the main types of filter; you can find many more examples by searching Google Patents or the USPTO website.

US Patent 3,390,773: Water purification system by Ulrich Merten. Gulf General Atomic Inc, July 2, 1968. Describes a typical reverse-osmosis filter system.

US Patent US,7537,695 B2: Water filter incorporating activated carbon particles with surface-grown carbon nanofilaments by Michael Donovan Mitchell et al, Pur Water Purification Products, Inc., May 26, 2009. A state-of-the-art activated-carbon and carbon nanofilament water filter.

US Patent 4,474,620: Apparatus for purification of water by ion exchange by James W. Hall. October 2, 1984. A typical ion-exchange filter using gravity and a manometer pressure effect.

US 20040003990 A1: Water purification apparatus and method for purifying water by Pierre Mansur, January 8, 2004. A recent patent for producing "pure" distilled water from tap water using both distillation and carbon filtration.

More to explore on our website...

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How do water filters work? | Types of water filter

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by Chris Woodford. Last updated: August 9, 2018. You can survive without food for several weeks, because your body will gradually switch to using stored fat and protein to make its energy. But cut off your water supply and you'll be dead within days. Water equals life: it's as simple as that.

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Michael Pritchard: How to make filthy water drinkable

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Too much of the world lacks access to clean drinking water. Engineer Michael Pritchard did something about it -- inventing the portable Lifesaver filter, which can make the most revolting water drinkable in seconds. An amazing demo from TEDGlobal 2009.

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On approach it could be a superhero headquarters, built sleek and low into the dunes north of Cape Paterson. From within, the Victorian Desalination Plant looks more like an intricate mess.

That is a reasonable physical description of the facility, filled as it is with untold kilometres of piping and tubing that twist in all directions, but it operates just as well as a metaphor for the politics that has surrounded the plant since it was conceived under the Bracks Labor government.

Fifield: TV licence fees are from a bygone era

At that time, it was spoken about as our last, best protection against a brutal drought. Then the drought broke.

The Coalition government that followed painted it as a useless, unused, expensive white elephant.

The current Labor government is trying now to change the discourse again - to turn the white elephant into a white knight, ready to protect our city.

You don't get there by accident. Heading south, it's a right-hand turn into pasture; a windy road skirted by bovines and wind turbines that feed into the renewable energy industry the plant uses to offset its energy use.

Even when you are in front of it, you could miss it. Dunes have been specially constructed to obscure it from the road. Unused, it sits silent. Even when it runs, special compressed-straw roofing keeps the noise to almost nothing, or so we are told.

When you do finally see it, the facade seems to grow from the landscape. Adorned with green panels of various shades, its architecture manages to be both imposing and subtle.

The roof doesn't just seem to grow - it grows literally. It is built to be as tall as the crest of the dunes, and seems to extend from them. Covered in plant life, it is reportedly the largest "green roof" in the southern hemisphere.

It is not until you pass through the gate, or into the building to view the floor where the desalination process takes place, that you understand that what you see on approach is a small part of the whole.

The main building houses a welcome centre, a lab and the control room, from which a handful of people - fewer than a dozen when Fairfax Media visits - keep tabs on the plant's 10,000-plus valves. The plant employs about 40 people in total, whether it's running or not.

It also contains a viewing platform into the main room where the reverse osmosis filters do the work of separating salt from water.

To get to this room, water must be pumped from tubes that stretch 1.2 kilometres into the sea.

It must be passed through school bus-sized filters to capture any physical impurities. There are 72 such filters in operation when the plant is running at full tilt.

The main room contains 55,482 synthetic membranes. They resemble the plastic envelopes you might find in lever arch folders, except that they contain tiny perforations that break the salt and water apart. Dozens of these are wrapped around pipes that can eventually drain the cleansed water.

These scrolls are packed in to 7926 tubes, each about 30cm in diameter, which are stacked like wine bottles on to stands that climb high into the air.

Pipes of all sizes, made of special non-corrosive steel, branch from glass-reinforced tubes that are as wide as a person is tall.

Even though the plant is not running, each valve needs to be kept in fair nick.

The filters need to be kept in preservative so they are in pristine condition for when they are needed. Tests need to be run. All needs to be kept in readiness.

With areas of the state already in drought, and an El Nino developing that the World Meteorological Organisation says is the most powerful in 15 years, the state is incorporating the plant into its forward planning.

In political circles there is a sense of inevitability that the plant will pump water before this government ends.

Water Minister Lisa Neville says no decision has been made on whether the government will order water from the plant next year, but is actively pursuing reforms to water allocation and distribution that include the role the plant could play in the future.

This week, ministers have toured the Wimmera and Mallee regions and promised farmers there that water reserves in Lake Eildon will be kept in the state's north as long as it is dry.

Although ownership of the water remains with metropolitan retailers, they will be compelled under reforms announced this week to sell it into the north every year into perpetuity. It means the desalination plant is now Melbourne's primary protection from drought.

At an initial cost of $4 billion to build, and a current high-end estimate of up to $19 billion over 27 years for the state to pay off, the plant should be impressive, and it is.

But that fact serves to place in even stark relief that, for all this, it is yet to provide a single drop of water to the state's grid.

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Inside the desalination plant - your guided tour

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On approach it could be a superhero headquarters, built sleek and low into the dunes north of Cape Paterson. From within, the Victorian Desalination Plant looks more like an intricate mess.

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Crystallization | #aumsum #kids #science #education #children

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Rusting Out: How Acids Affect the Rate of Corrosion

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In this chemistry science fair project, students will investigate how pH levels affect the rate of a common form of corrosion, called rusting.

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Please ensure you have JavaScript enabled in your browser. If you leave JavaScript disabled, you will only access a portion of the content we are providing. Here's how.

Difficulty

Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Material Availability

Readily available

Safety

People with a latex allergy should not do this project. Use caution, as latex balloons are the leading choking hazard for children under 6.

Abstract

Expanding gases are everywhere, from the kitchen to the cosmos. You've tasted their pleasures every time you've eaten a slice of bread, bitten into a cookie, or sipped a glass of soda. In this chemistry science fair project, you'll capture a gas in a stretchy container you're probably pretty familiar with-a balloon. This will allow you to observe the gas expansion and contraction as the temperature changes.

Objective

To investigate how gases expand and contract with temperature, using latex balloons.

Credits

Kristin Strong, Science Buddies

Edited by Peter Boretsky, Lockheed Martin

Cite This Page

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Balloon Morphing: How Gases Contract and Expand" Science Buddies. Science Buddies, 15 June 2015. Web. 6 May 2017 <http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p077.shtml>

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2015, June 15). Balloon Morphing: How Gases Contract and Expand. Retrieved May 6, 2017 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p077.shtml

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Last edit date: 2015-06-15

Introduction

Imagine your friend has a cold January birthday and you bundle up and go to the store to buy him a "Happy Birthday" Mylar® balloon. You pick out a plump, cheerful balloon and head back to your car. By the time you get home though, you realize that the balloon you picked out isn't so plump anymore. In fact, it's starting to look a bit limp already! Should you take it back to the store? Is it defective? What's going on?

Everything in the world around you is made up of matter, including the balloon you just bought and what's inside it. Matter comes in four different forms, called states. The states, going (generally) from lowest energy to highest energy are solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas. Gases, like the helium gas inside your balloon, take the shape of the containers that they are in. They spread out so that all the space is filled up evenly with gas molecules. The gas molecules are not connected together. They move in a straight line until they bounce into another gas molecule or hit the wall of the container, and then they rebound and continue off in another direction until they hit something else. The combined motion energy of all of the gas molecules in a container is called the average kinetic energy.

This average kinetic energy (energy of motion) changes in response to temperature. When the temperature increases, the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules also increases. The molecules move faster and have more frequent and harder elastic collisions with the inside of the container. So, when your balloon was in the store, at room temperature, it was plump and full. When the balloon was taken outside into the cold January air, though, the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules was lowered, so the elastic collisions of the molecules with the inside wall of the balloon became less frequent and weaker, making your Mylar balloon saggy.

What do you think would happen if you took a room-temperature balloon and put it inside a car on a hot day? The average kinetic energy of the gas molecules inside would increase, creating more frequent and forceful collisions with the inside walls of the balloon. The balloon would look very puffy and full, and because Mylar balloons are not stretchy and elastic, the balloon might even burst.

In this chemistry science fair project, you'll investigate these changes in average kinetic energy by using a different kind of balloon-a latex balloon, which is able to expand and contract as the force and frequency of the elastic collisions change with temperature.

Terms and Concepts

Questions

How do gases behave?

How does temperature affect gas molecules?

What happens in an elastic collision?

Bibliography

This source describes the different states of matter:

This source discusses what gases are and how they behave:

This source provides an interactive tool to investigate what happens when gases are heated and cooled:

This source discusses elastic and inelastic collisions:

This source describes how to turn an expanding balloon into a model of the expanding universe:

For help creating graphs, try this website:

Materials and Equipment

Note: To do this science fair project, you will need to place balloons in areas with three distinctly different temperatures:

1. Room temperature

2. Hot temperature that is well above room temperature; for example, outdoors on a hot day or inside a car on a hot day.
Note: Do not put the balloon in direct sunlight or under a heat lamp because this causes the gas to escape from the balloon and will deflate it due to losing gas. This will not let you determine whether the gas contracted or expanded.

3. Cold temperature that is well below room temperature; for example, in a freezer, or outdoors on a cold day

To do this science fair project, you will need the following materials:

Latex balloons, round rather than oblong (1 package; you will only need 3, but should have extra in case any of them pop).
Note: Larger balloons allow you to see circumference changes more easily, but if you plan to use a freezer for your cold-temperature trials, your balloon must be able to fit in the freezer when inflated, so a small- to medium-sized balloon is a better choice if your freezer is not very large.

Marker

Thermometer with a range that spans the temperatures you will be testing (below freezing to well above room temperature) like the thermometer available from Carolina Biological catalog #745380.

Cloth tape measure with millimeter (mm) markings

Helper

Clock

Lab notebook

Graph paper

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Experimental Procedure

Preparing for the Balloon Tests

1. Blow up one of the balloons until it is quite full, but not close to popping, and tie it off.

2. Mark the balloon with the number 1.

3. Measure the circumference of this first balloon with the cloth tape measure, selecting the fullest part of the balloon to measure, as shown in Figure 1 on the right. Hold the tape measure snug on the balloon, but not so tight that the balloon is being squeezed by the tape measure and changing its shape. In your lab notebook, make a data table like Table 1, below, and record this starting circumference in millimeters (mm) in the data table.

Figure 1. This drawing shows where to measure the circumference of the balloons.

4. Blow up the second balloon so it looks about the size of the first balloon, but do not tie it off yet. Pinch the opening closed between your thumb and finger so the air can not escape. Have your helper measure the circumference of the second balloon, just as you measured the first balloon. Adjust the air in the second balloon until its circumference is within 0.5 cm of the starting circumference of the first balloon, as follows:

If the circumference of the second balloon is smaller than the starting circumference of the first balloon, then blow up the second balloon some more.

If the circumference of the second balloon is larger than the starting circumference of the first balloon, then let some air out of the second balloon.

5. Tie off the second balloon and mark it with the number 2. Record the balloon's circumference in your data table.

6. Repeat step 4 for the third balloon, adjusting the circumference until it is within 0.5 cm of the starting circumference of the first balloon, then tying it off, marking it with the number 3, and recording its circumference in your data table.

Table 1: Circumference Data Table

Temperature (°C)

Balloon 1 Circumference (mm)

Balloon 2 Circumference (mm)

Balloon 3 Circumference (mm)

Average Circumference (mm)

Average Circumference Cubed (mm ³)

Testing Your Balloons at Room Temperature

1. Measure the temperature of the room with the thermometer and record your measurement in the data table.

2. Measure the circumference of each balloon with the tape measure, selecting the fullest part of each balloon to measure, as shown in Figure 1. Hold the tape measure snug on the balloon, but not so tight that the balloon is being squeezed by the tape measure and changing its shape. Record your measurements in the data table.

Testing Your Balloons in the Cold Area

1. Place the thermometer and all three balloons-one at a time, if necessary-in the area where you have chosen to do your cold-temperature testing; such as in the freezer.

2. Wait approximately 1 hour. If you can only put one balloon in at a time, this step will take 3 hours.

3. Remove the balloon(s) from the freezer and immediately measure the circumference(s) and record your measurements in the data table.

4. Record the temperature inside your cold area in the data table.

5. Repeat steps 1-3, if necessary, until all three balloons have been tested in the cold area.

Testing Your Balloons in the Hot Area

1. Wait 20 minutes to allow your balloons to come to room temperature.

2. Place the thermometer and the balloons-one at a time, if necessary-in the area you have chosen to do your hot-temperature testing; such as inside a car on a hot day.
Note: Do not put the balloons in direct sunlight or under a heat lamp because this causes the gas to escape from the balloons and will deflate them due to losing gas. This will not let you determine whether the gas contracted or expanded.

3. Wait approximately 5-10 minutes, or until you can see obvious changes. If you can only put one balloon in the hot area at a time, this step will take up to 30 minutes.

4. Remove the balloon(s) from the hot area and immediately measure the circumference and record your measurements in the data table(s).

5. Record the temperature inside your hot area in the data table.

6. Repeat steps 1-4, if necessary, until all three balloons have been tested.

Analyzing Your Data Table

1. For each temperature, calculate the average circumference and enter your calculations in the data table.

2. For each temperature, cube the average circumference by multiplying the average circumference by itself three times. For example, if the average circumference is 60 mm, then the average circumference cubed is 60 X 60 X 60, or 216,000 mm³.

3. Plot the temperature on the x-axis (in °C) and the average circumference cubed on the y-axis (in mm³). You can make the line graph by hand or use a website like Create a Graph to make the graph on the computer and print it.

4. Assuming the balloon is a sphere, the volume is proportional to the circumference cubed, meaning there is a linear relationship between volume and circumference if you plot them on a graph. In your graph, is there a linear relationship between the circumference cubed and the temperature? If not, was there a greater change in circumference cubed in going from room temperature to a cooler temperature, or in going from room temperature to a warmer temperature? As the temperature increases, what do you think happens to the space between the gas molecules inside the balloon? What do think happens to the space between the gas molecules inside the balloon as the temperature decreases?

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Variations

Create a balloon model of the expanding universe. Place three small pieces of masking tape at different locations on a lightly inflated balloon that is clamped shut with a clothespin. Make a dot in the center of each piece of tape and have each one represent a different galaxy. Measure the distance between all the galaxies and the circumference of the balloon. Record the distance between all the galaxies and the circumference of the balloon. Blow up the balloon more, clamp it closed again, and repeat your measurements. Repeat this two more times, adding more air each time. In several graphs, plot the circumference of the balloon on the x-axis and the distances between the galaxies on the y-axis.

For a similar science project to this one, check out Racing to Win That Checkered Flag: How Do Gases Help?

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Ask an Expert

The Ask an Expert Forum is intended to be a place where students can go to find answers to science questions that they have been unable to find using other resources. If you have specific questions about your science fair project or science fair, our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.

Related Links

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Balloon Morphing: How Gases Contract and Expand

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Please ensure you have JavaScript enabled in your browser. If you leave JavaScript disabled, you will only access a portion of the content we are providing. Here's how. Difficulty Time Required Very Short (≤ 1 day) Material Availability Readily available Safety People with a latex allergy should not do this project.

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*Note: This is an abbreviated Project Idea, without notes to start your background research, a specific list of materials, or a procedure for how to do the experiment. You can identify abbreviated Project Ideas by the asterisk at the end of the title. If you want a Project Idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk.

Abstract

In this project you'll make a liquid that will contradict your expectations. Hold it loosely in your hand and it will drip off your fingers, but grab it tightly and it will feel solid. Slap a bowl of it with a spoon, and instead of splattering, it solidifies. Do background research on colloids, and be sure you can explain the following terms: colloid, Newtonian fluid, non-Newtonian fluid, thixotropic. (For instructions on how to make it see the link listed under Exploratorium, 1998, in the Resources section, below.) What happens if you put it on a flat surface? Does ooze leak through a small hole in a piece of paper? Are there other examples of non-Newtownian fluids? What do they have in common? How does "ooze" differ from a solution, such as sugar in water? (Exploratorium, 1998; Gardner, 1999, 30)

Cite This Page

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Ooze: A Cornstarch Colloid" Science Buddies. Science Buddies, 30 June 2014. Web. 6 May 2017 <http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p031.shtml>

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2014, June 30). Ooze: A Cornstarch Colloid. Retrieved May 6, 2017 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p031.shtml

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Last edit date: 2014-06-30

Bibliography

News Feed on This Topic

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Ask an Expert

The Ask an Expert Forum is intended to be a place where students can go to find answers to science questions that they have been unable to find using other resources. If you have specific questions about your science fair project or science fair, our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.

Related Links

If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:

Materials Scientist and Engineer

What makes it possible to create high-technology objects like computers and sports gear? It's the materials inside those products. Materials scientists and engineers develop materials, like metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites, that other engineers need for their designs. Materials scientists and engineers think atomically (meaning they understand things at the nanoscale level), but they design microscopically (at the level of a microscope), and their materials are used macroscopically (at the level the eye can see). From heat shields in space, prosthetic limbs, semiconductors, and sunscreens to snowboards, race cars, hard drives, and baking dishes, materials scientists and engineers make the materials that make life better. Read more

Chemical Engineer

Chemical engineers solve the problems that affect our everyday lives by applying the principles of chemistry. If you enjoy working in a chemistry laboratory and are interested in developing useful products for people, then a career as a chemical engineer might be in your future. Read more

Chemical Technician

The role that the chemical technician plays is the backbone of every chemical, semiconductor, and pharmaceutical manufacturing operation. Chemical technicians conduct experiments, record data, and help to implement new processes and procedures in the laboratory. If you enjoy hands-on work, then you might be interested in the career of a chemical technician. Read more

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Please ensure you have JavaScript enabled in your browser. If you leave JavaScript disabled, you will only access a portion of the content we are providing. Here's how. *Note: This is an abbreviated Project Idea, without notes to start your background research, a specific list of materials, or a procedure for how to do the experiment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Race Your Marbles to Discover a Liquid's Viscosity

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In this hydrodynamics science fair project, you will find the viscosity of common liquids by dropping small spheres through the liquids.

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Difficulty

Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Material Availability

Readily available

Safety

This science project uses hot liquids. Adult supervision and/or help is needed.

Abstract

"Plastic made from milk" -that certainly sounds like something made-up. If you agree, you may be surprised to learn that in the early 20th century, milk was used to make many different plastic ornaments -including jewelry for Queen Mary of England! In this chemistry science project, you can figure out the best recipe to make your own milk plastic (usually called casein plastic) and use it to make beads, ornaments, or other items.

Objective

In this chemistry science project, you will investigate which is the best recipe for making plastic out of milk.

Credits

Sandra Slutz, PhD, Science Buddies

Cite This Page

General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed.

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Turn Milk into Plastic!" Science Buddies, 28 July 2017, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Chem_p101/chemistry/turn-milk-into-plastic. Accessed 19 May 2018.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2017, July 28). Turn Milk into Plastic! Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Chem_p101/chemistry/turn-milk-into-plastic

Last edit date: 2017-07-28

Introduction

What can you make out of milk? Cheese, butter, whipped cream, sour cream, yogurt, ice cream, and...plastic! Are you surprised by plastic? It is true. In fact, from the early 1900s until about 1945, plastic made from milk was quite common. This plastic, known as casein plastic or by the trade names Galalith and Erinoid, was used to manufacture buttons, decorative buckles, beads, and other jewelry, as well as fountain pens and hand-held mirrors and fancy comb-and-brush sets. Figure 1 shows examples of belt buckles made from casein plastic in the 1930s and '40s; more examples can be found in the references in the Bibliography.

Figure 1. These decorative belt buckles were all manufactured from casein plastic in the 1930s and '40s. (Photograph courtesy of Galessa's Plastics Photostream, 2007)

But how can milk be changed into plastic? To answer that we need to think first about what plastic is. The word plastic is used to describe a material that can be molded into many shapes. Plastics do not all look or feel the same. Think of a plastic grocery bag, a plastic doll or action figure, a plastic lunch box, and a disposable plastic water bottle. They are all made of plastic, but they look and feel different. Why? Their similarities and differences come from the molecules that they, like everything else, are made of. Molecules are the smallest units (way too small to see with your eye!) of any given thing. Plastics are similar because they are all made up of molecules that are repeated over and over again in a chain. These are called polymers, and all plastics are polymers. Sometimes polymers are chains of just one type of molecule, as in the top half of Figure 2. In other cases polymers are chains of different types of molecules, as in the bottom half of Figure 2, that link together in a regular pattern. A single repeat of the pattern of molecules in a polymer (even if the polymer uses only one type of molecule) is called a monomer.

Figure 2. The top image shows a polymer where the monomers are just one type of molecule. The bottom image shows a polymer where the monomers are made up of three different molecules. In both polymers, the monomers link in a repeating pattern.

Milk contains many molecules of a protein called casein. When you heat milk and add an acid (in our case vinegar), the casein molecules unfold and reorganize into a long chain. Each casein molecule is a monomer and the polymer you make is made up of many of those casein monomers hooked together in a repeating pattern like the top (all pink) example in Figure 2.. The polymer can be scooped up and molded, which is why it is a plastic.

In this chemistry science project, you will investigate what is the best recipe for making casein plastic by making batches of heated milk with different amounts of vinegar. How much vinegar is needed to give you the most plastic? Without enough vinegar the casein molecules do not unfold well, making it difficult for them to link together into a polymer. Of course, if you were manufacturing you would be thinking about both the amount of plastic you can make and the cost. The more of any ingredient you use the more expensive the end product is. The "best" recipe will have the highest yield (make the most plastic) for the smallest amount of vinegar.

The plastic you make will be a bit more crumbly and fragile than Galalith or Erinoid. That is because the companies that made those casein plastics included a second step. They washed the plastic in a harsh chemical called formaldehyde. The formaldehyde helped harden the plastic. Although you will not use formaldehyde because it is too dangerous to work with at home, you will still be able to mold the unwashed casein plastic you make. Once you have a recipe, with the best ratio of vinegar to milk, for your casein plastic, you can have fun with it. Try shaping it, molding it, or dyeing it to make beads, figures, or ornaments, such as those shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The casein plastic you will make in this project can be used to make beads, figures, or ornaments like the ones shown here.

Terms and Concepts

Questions

What is the smallest unit of a polymer?

What are some properties of a plastic?

What are plastics made of today?

Besides casein, what is in milk?

Can you make casein plastic from soy milk? Why or why not?

Bibliography

These resources have more information about, and photos of, casein plastic:

This website is a fun introduction to polymers:

For help creating graphs, try this website:

Materials and Equipment

The materials listed below are for doing the experimental procedure exactly as written. However, you can make changes to the experimental procedure in order to use a different size measuring cup and/or a stovetop rather than a microwave.

Mugs or other heat-resistant cups (4); they should all be identical so as not to introduce another variable (See Variables in Your Science Fair Project), and large enough to hold more than 8 oz. of liquid

Masking tape

Pen or permanent marker

Teaspoon measuring spoon

White vinegar (at least 8 oz.)

Milk (at least 12 cups); nonfat, 1%, 2%, and whole milk will all work

Microwavable liquid measuring cup; should be large enough to hold 4 cups of milk like this one from Amazon.com

Microwave

Cooking or candy thermometer, such as this one from Amazon.com

Spoons (4)

Cotton cloth (12 squares, each 6 x 6 inches); cutting up old T-shirts works just fine

Rubber bands (4)

Clear plastic or glass drinking cups (4), each large enough to hold 8 oz. of liquid

Kitchen scale, should be accurate to 1 gram, such as this one from Amazon.com

Wax paper (in 12 identical pieces); each piece should be smaller than the weighing surface of the kitchen scale

Paper towels

Lab notebook

Optional (for fun): molds, cookie cutters, food coloring, paint, glitter, permanent markers

in locating specialty items for individual projects. The information is provided solely as a convenience to our users. We do our best to make sure that part numbers and descriptions are accurate when first listed. However, since part numbers do change as items are obsoleted or improved, please send us an email if you run across any parts that are no longer available. We also do our best to make sure that any listed supplier provides prompt, courteous service. Science Buddies does participate in affiliate programs with Disclaimer: Science Buddies occasionally provides information (such as part numbers, supplier names, and supplier weblinks) to assist our users Home Science Tools, Amazon.com, Carolina Biological, and Jameco Electronics. Proceeds from the affiliate programs help support Science Buddies, a 501(c)(3) public charity. If you have any comments (positive or negative) related to purchases you've made for science fair projects from recommendations on our site, please let us know. Write to us at scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org.

Remember Your Display Board Supplies

Experimental Procedure

Making Casein Plastic

This experiment uses hot liquids, so an adult's help will be needed throughout.

1. Using the masking tape and pen, label the four mugs: 1, 2, 4, and 8.

2. Use the measuring spoon to add 1 teaspoon (tsp.) of white vinegar to the mug labeled "1," 2 tsp, to the mug labeled "2," 4 tsp. to the mug labeled "4," and 8 tsp. to the mug labeled "8."

3. Heat 4 cups of milk (1 quart) in a large measuring cup in the microwave.

1. The exact amount of time needed will depend on your microwave. Start by warming the milk at 50% power for five minutes. The 50% power will help you avoid scalding (burning) the milk.

2. Have an adult check the milk with a thermometer to make sure it is at least 49°C (120°F). If it is not heated enough, put it back in the microwave for another two minutes at 50% power. Repeat this step until the milk is hot. Warmer than 49°C is fine.

3. In your lab notebook write down the total number of minutes it took you to warm the milk and the final temperature of the hot milk. When you repeat these steps later you should try to get as close to these numbers as possible. 1 or 2 degrees warmer or cooler is fine as long as the milk is at least 49°C.

4. Carefully pour 1 cup of hot milk in to each of the four mugs with vinegar in them. (You may need to ask an adult to pour the hot milk for you.) What do you see happening in each mug? Write down your observations in a data table, like Table 1 below, in your lab notebook. In at least one of the mugs you should see that the milk has separated into white clumps (called curds).
Make sure to pour the milk in to all four of the mugs at the same time so that the milk is the same temperature across all four vinegar amounts.

Number teaspoons of vinegar

Forms curds? (yes/no)

Describe liquid after sieve

Weight of casein plastic (in grams)

Write down any other observations

Table 1. Make a table like this in your lab notebook to write down your data. Make a new table for each repeat of this experiment, for a total of three tables.

1. Mix each mug of hot milk and vinegar slowly with a spoon for a few seconds. That will help make sure the vinegar reacts with as much of the milk as possible.

2. Meanwhile, take one of the cotton-cloth squares and attach it with a rubber band to the top of one of the clear cups so that it completely covers the cup's opening. This will make a sieve as shown in Figure 4 below.

1. Make sure the cloth hangs down a bit inside the cup so that you have room to pour liquid in.

2. Repeat this step with the other three clear cups.

3. Label the clear cups 1, 2, 4, and 8 with the tape and pen.

3. Once the milk and vinegar mixture has cooled a bit, carefully pour the mixture from mug "1" into the cotton cloth sieve on cup "1." If there are any curds, they will collect in the cloth sieve. The leftover liquid will filter into the clear cup. Figure 4 below shows what the setup looks like. Where do you think the casein is, in the liquid in the cup or the curds in the sieve? Tip: You may want to do this step over a sink just in case any of the liquid spills.

Figure 4. A piece of cotton cloth and a rubber band are used to make a sieve at the top of a clear glass. Once the milk and vinegar mixture is poured into the sieve, the curds will gather on the top of the sieve, and the liquid will drain through into the clear cup.

1. In your table in your lab notebook, write down what the leftover liquid in the clear cup looks like. What color is it? How clear is it? Be sure to write the information down for each cup on the corresponding line on the table (for instance, cup "1" for the cup with 1 tsp. of vinegar, and so on).

2. Over a sink, carefully remove the rubber band sieve on cup "1." With your hands, squeeze all the extra liquid out of the curds. Scrape the curds off of the cloth and knead them together, as you would bread dough, into a ball. This is your casein plastic. Before it dries, the ball of dough will look similar to Figure 5 below.

Figure 5. The wet casein plastic will form a lumpy ball of whitish dough like the one shown here.

1. Weigh the ball of casein plastic on a kitchen scale (set for grams) using a piece of wax paper to keep the scale clean. Record the weight in your table.

1. When weighing, remember to turn on the scale and first make sure it reads zero with nothing on it. This will help make sure your measurements are accurate. Also, use a new sheet of wax paper each time you weigh a different ball of casein plastic. This will give you exact weights (without crumbs and liquid from the last ball)

2. The amount of casein plastic each recipe makes is called the yield for that recipe. The more plastic, as measured by weight in this case, the greater the yield.

2. Repeat steps 7-10 for the other three mugs of milk and vinegar.

3. If you want to make your casein plastic into something, you can color, shape, or mold it now (within an hour of making the plastic dough) and then leave it to dry on some paper towels for at least 48 hours. See the "Ideas for Fun with Casein Plastic" for more suggestions.

4. For your science project you will want to repeat steps 1-11 again two more times. This will give you enough data to see whether one recipe reliably yields more casein plastic than another.

Analyzing Your Data

1. Calculate the average yield (amount in grams) of casein plastic made from each recipe. If you do not know how to average, ask an adult to show you.

2. Make a bar graph showing the average yield for each recipe. You can make the bar graph by hand or use a website like Create A Graph to make the graph on the computer and print it.
On the left axis (the y-axis) write the average yield of casein plastic. Make a bar along the x-axis for each of the four recipes you tested.

3. When you look at your observations about the liquid left over after straining out the curds, do the weights of the yields make sense? Why or why not?

4. Which recipe yielded the most casein plastic on average? Was any other recipe a close second? Based on this data, which do you think is the "best" recipe in terms of yield?

Ideas for Fun with Your Casein Plastic

Try making beads, ornaments, or figurines out of your casein plastic. You should do the molding and coloring steps (except for paint and/or marker) within the first hour of making the plastic or it will start drying out.

1. Shaping the plastic:

1. Knead the dough well before shaping it.

2. Molds and cookie cutters work well on the wet casein plastic.

3. You can also sculpt the wet casein plastic into figures, but it takes a bit more patience.

2. Coloring the plastic:

1. Food coloring, glitter, or other decorative bits can be added to the wet casein plastic dough. The beads in Figure 3 above were made from casein plastic dough that had yellow food coloring and multicolored glitter kneaded into it.

2. Dried casein plastic can be painted or colored on with markers. The smiley face in Figure 3 is on uncolored casein plastic and was drawn on using a black permanent marker.

3. Hardening the plastic:

1. Casein plastic will be hard once it has dried.

2. Drying time varies depending on the thickness of the final item (thicker pieces take longer), but most casein plastic requires at least two days to become hard.

Communicating Your Results: Start Planning Your Display Board

Create an award-winning display board with tips and design ideas from the experts at ArtSkills.

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Variations

How does the temperature of the milk affect how much casein plastic you can produce? Design an experiment to find out.

In this science project you added vinegar, an acid, to milk to make casein plastic. There are a lot of other acids you can probably find around the house, such as lemon juice, orange juice, soda pop, and tomato juice. Do some of these acids work better than others to make casein plastic? Design an experiment to find out. Tip: To learn more about acids and bases, seeAcids, Bases, & the pH scale by Science Buddies.

If you are interested in making another fun polymer, try the Bouncy Polymer Chemistry project.

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The Ask an Expert Forum is intended to be a place where students can go to find answers to science questions that they have been unable to find using other resources. If you have specific questions about your science fair project or science fair, our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.

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Abstract

You know that water can exist in three separate phases: solid (ice), liquid (water), and vapor (steam). To change from one phase to another, you simply add (or remove) heat. When water boils, what happens to molecules (for example sugar or salt) that are dissolved in the water? Do they boil off too, or do they stay behind?

Objective

The goal of this project is to separate pure water from fruit juice using a simple stovetop distillation apparatus.

Credits

Andrew Olson, Ph.D., Science Buddies

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MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "What's the Point of Boiling?" Science Buddies. Science Buddies, 22 Oct. 2014. Web. 6 May 2017 <http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p024.shtml>

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2014, October 22). What's the Point of Boiling?. Retrieved May 6, 2017 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p024.shtml

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Last edit date: 2014-10-22

Introduction

This project uses the technique of distillation. Distillation is when you boil a liquid, and then capture the vapor that escapes from the liquid and cool it. The cooled vapor condenses back into liquid. The condensed liquid is called the distillate. Do you think this process changes the liquid?

What if the liquid you boil has substances dissolved in it? For example, what if you started with a solution of sugar water? If you boiled the sugar water, you know from experience that there would be steam rising up from the pot on the stove. If you condensed that steam back into liquid, do you think the condensed liquid (the distillate) would contain sugar or not?

In this project, you will learn how to build a simple stove top distillation apparatus with stuff that you probably have in your kitchen right now. All you need is a deep pot with a sloping lid, a coffee cup, a bowl, some ice, and a stove. Of course, you'll also need a liquid to distill. Colored fruit juice will work fine, or you could make a solution of sugar water. Add food coloring to it if you like. The Experimental Procedure section, below, shows you how to put it all together to find out what happens.

Terms and Concepts

To do this project, you should do research that enables you to understand the following terms and concepts:

Boiling point

Phases of matter:

Condensation

Solvent

Solute

Distillate

What happens to solute molecules when the solvent evaporates or boils?

How will the distillate compare to the original juice for:

Bibliography

For information on phase changes of water, see:
Nave, C.R. 2005. "Phase Changes," HyperPhysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University [accessed April 26, 2007] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/phase.html.

Chamot, E. and B. Chamot, 2003. "Molecular Level Motion of Different Phases," Chamot Laboratories, Inc. [accessed April 26, 2007] http://www.chamotlabs.com/Phases.html.

For information on the water cycle, see: USGS, 2006. "The Water Cycle," USGS Water Science Basics [accessed April 26, 2007] http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html.

Materials and Equipment

To do this experiment you will need the following materials and equipment:

Stove

Deep cooking pot with sloped lid

Ceramic coffee cup

Ceramic bowl

Ice

Hot mitts

Colored fruit juice (e.g., orange juice, grape juice, cranberry juice, etc.)

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Experimental Procedure

1. Do your background research so that you are familiar with the terms, concepts, and questions, above. For more information on distillation methods see Chemistry Lab Techniques.

2. The line drawing below is an illustration of the stove-top distillation apparatus used in this experiment.

Line drawing of a stove top distillation apparatus. The text explains how to use it.

3. Here are the steps for using the distillation apparatus.

1. Pour the colored fruit juice into the bottom of the pot. Save at least 200 ml of the original juice for comparison to the distillate.

2. Place the ceramic coffee cup, open side up, in the center of the deep pot. (That's correct, right in the juice!)

3. Place a bowl on top of the coffee cup. (The bowl will catch the condensed liquid that drips down from the lid.)

4. Put the cover on the pot, upside down.

5. Put ice in the cover of the pot. (You may have to replace the ice in the lid as it melts.)

6. Turn on the burner to medium heat. You want the juice to boil moderately (not a rolling boil).

7. Allow the pot to boil for 10 minutes or so (enough time to collect a sufficient amount of distillate for testing).

8. When done, turn off the burner. Allow the pot to cool for a few minutes.

9. Put on hot mitts and carefully remove the cover from the pot.

10. Still wearing hot mitts, lift the bowl off of the coffee cup and set it down on a heat-resistant surface.

11. Remove the coffee cup.

12. After it cools, pour the remaining juice from the pot into a clear container.

4. How do the original juice, the remaining juice from the pot, and the distillate compare in terms of color?

5. Ordinarily in a chemistry experiment, you would not taste any of the solutions. In this case, since you are using clean kitchen utensils, and edible fruit juice, a taste test is OK. Let the liquids cool to room temperature before tasting them! How do the three different liquids compare for taste?

1. Which liquid is sweetest?

2. Which is least sweet?

3. You should be able to explain why.

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Variations

In this experiment, you have three different liquids: the original liquid, the distillate, and the concentrated solution that is left over after boiling. Think of ways besides color and taste to compare the three liquids. For example:

You could measure and use the conductivity of the original solution and distillate to compare various sports drinks and juices. Many claim that sports drinks help athletes because they are high in electrolytes, meaning they are electrically conductive. Are sports drinks really more conductive than juices? How does distillation affect conductivity of the liquids? Is there a certain brand of sports drink that is more conductive than others? For one method of measuring conductivity, see the Science Buddies project idea Electrolyte Challenge: Orange Juice Vs. Sports Drink.

You could use pH paper to measure and compare the pH of each liquid.

Pure water boils at 100°C at normal atmospheric pressure. As solute molecules are added to water, the boiling point increases. You could heat each of the liquids and measure their boiling points with a thermometer. Can you determine the concentration of solute molecules in each of the three liquids?

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*Note: This is an abbreviated Project Idea, without notes to start your background research, a specific list of materials, or a procedure for how to do the experiment. You can identify abbreviated Project Ideas by the asterisk at the end of the title. If you want a Project Idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk.

Abstract

Disposable diapers contain a polymer, called sodium acrylate, which is useful for absorbing water. Do background research to learn about sodium acrylate, and how it reacts with water. Make sure that you understand the terms hydrophilic, polarity and hydrogen bonding. Cut out the middle, padded section of a disposable diaper. Cut this into equally-sized square pieces, approximately 10-12 cm on a side. Remove some of the stuffing material so that you can staple the open ends closed. Measure water into a quart jar to fill it half-way. Immerse a diaper pad square in the jar and leave it for at least twenty minutes. Take out the diaper pad square, and allow any dripping water to go back into the jar. Measure how much water is left in the jar, and subtract from the original amount to see how much water the diaper pad square absorbed. Here are some questions you can think about answering with this project. How much water can the diaper pad absorb? Ordinary table salt makes a strongly ionic solution, dissociating into positively-charged sodium ions and negatively-charged chloride ions. What effect will the presence of dissolved salt have on the ability of sodium acrylate to absorb water? How much salt water solution can the diaper pad absorb? (Note: a solution of 10 g salt in 110 ml of water will have about the same concentration of dissolved salt as baby urine.) Sugar makes a non-ionic solution. How much sugar water solution can the diaper pad absorb? How does temperature affect absorption? (Goodstein, 2004, 49-55)

Cite This Page

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Polymer Absorbance: A Swell Project" Science Buddies. Science Buddies, 30 June 2014. Web. 6 May 2017 <http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p035.shtml>

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2014, June 30). Polymer Absorbance: A Swell Project. Retrieved May 6, 2017 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p035.shtml

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Last edit date: 2014-06-30

Bibliography

Goodstein, M., 2004. Plastics and Polymers Science Fair Projects: Using Hair Gel, Soda Bottles, and Slimy Stuff. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers.

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Chemist

Everything in the environment, whether naturally occurring or of human design, is composed of chemicals. Chemists search for and use new knowledge about chemicals to develop new processes or products. Read more

Materials Scientist and Engineer

What makes it possible to create high-technology objects like computers and sports gear? It's the materials inside those products. Materials scientists and engineers develop materials, like metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites, that other engineers need for their designs. Materials scientists and engineers think atomically (meaning they understand things at the nanoscale level), but they design microscopically (at the level of a microscope), and their materials are used macroscopically (at the level the eye can see). From heat shields in space, prosthetic limbs, semiconductors, and sunscreens to snowboards, race cars, hard drives, and baking dishes, materials scientists and engineers make the materials that make life better. Read more

Chemical Technician

The role that the chemical technician plays is the backbone of every chemical, semiconductor, and pharmaceutical manufacturing operation. Chemical technicians conduct experiments, record data, and help to implement new processes and procedures in the laboratory. If you enjoy hands-on work, then you might be interested in the career of a chemical technician. Read more

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Difficulty

Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Material Availability

Readily available

Safety

Avoid dispersing the powdered activated carbon into the air and try not to breathe in the particles.

Abstract

Do you filter your tap water before drinking? Many commercials claim these filters make your drinking water cleaner and safer. But what, exactly, are these filters doing and is the water really cleaner afterwards? The cleaning power comes from their filling material, called activated carbon. It exists in all kind of forms: powder, granules, foams, and blocks. Do you think it matters what type of activated carbon is inside the filter? In this activity you will investigate whether larger or smaller particles of activated carbon work better for cleaning drinking water-with results you can see!

Objective

Investigate how the particle size of activated carbon affects drinking water filtration efficiency.

Credits

Svenja Lohner, PhD, Science Buddies

Alex Andres, Laboratory Assistant, UC CEIN
Courtney R. Thomas, PhD, Education Coordinator, UC CEIN
Catherine Nameth, PhD, Former Education Coordinator, UC CEIN

This science project is a collaboration between Science Buddies and the Education Division of California (UC) Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEIN).

Cite This Page

MLA Style

Lohner, Svenja. "Which Filtration Material Leads to the Best Drinking Water?" Science Buddies. Science Buddies, 8 Mar. 2017. Web. 6 May 2017 <http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p108.shtml>

APA Style

Lohner, S. (2017, March 8). Which Filtration Material Leads to the Best Drinking Water?. Retrieved May 6, 2017 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p108.shtml

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Last edit date: 2017-03-08

Introduction

Clean water is an essential part of life. Just think about how often you use water every day-for cooking, drinking, washing your clothes and dishes, brushing your teeth, or showering. You wouldn't want to do this with dirty water, right? Filtration is one important step in water cleanup. During the filtration process, particles or impurities such as chemicals and bacteria are separated from the solution that is filtered. The method of separation can be mechanical, physical, chemical or even biological. To find out how water filters work, it is probably best to have a look inside the filter. Most of the filters that are used for home water treatment are carbon filters. That means the material inside the filter is carbon or a special form of it, called activated carbon or activated charcoal, which is shown in Figure 1.

What makes activated carbon special is that it is a very porous form of carbon-almost like a sponge. It has many tiny microscopic pores that can soak up water or gases. Also, the surface of activated charcoal is not smooth-if you look under the microscope you see that the particles have a very crumbly shape as shown in Figure 2. All these little micropores, together with its rough surface, create a huge surface area for each particle. About five teaspoons (10 grams) of granular activated carbon has a surface area that is approximately the area of a football field!

This massive surface area gives activated carbon unique properties. When water or liquid travels through the porous structure of the filter, impurities (such as small amounts of chemicals or metals) can be removed by a process called adsorption. Adsorption occurs when compounds physically or chemically adhere to the carbon surface. Physical or chemical trapping happens due to van der Waals forces, weak forces that exist between molecules or particles that can be attractive or repulsive, as well as to chemical bonding on the carbon surface. This is why the surface area, or the surface area to volume ratio, of the activated carbon matters. The more surface area (area exposed to the surroundings), the more possible bonding sites there are for contaminants. If all the bonding sites are taken up, then the impurities remain in the water and it is time to replace your water filter.

Activated charcoal can come in many forms and particle sizes (some of them are shown in Figure 1). The two types you will be using in this experiment are the granular and powder forms. Granular carbon can be compared to small pebbles, while powdered carbon can be compared to fine sand. Looking at Figure 3, you can think of the left cube as the granulated carbon and the smaller cubes as the powdered carbon. They both have the same volume (a total of 8 small cubes), but the surface area exposed to the surrounding is much larger with the 8 individual cubes compared to the one large cube. Therefore, the granular form has a smaller surface area to volume ratio than the powder form.

Besides the surface area to volume ratio, the time the water spends in contact with the activated carbon is also an important factor that determines the efficiency of the filtration process. The longer the contact time or the slower the flow rate of the water through the filter, the more adsorption can take place. You will see for yourself in this project when you clean up colored tap water with activated carbon. Which material do you think will be better to clean up your water, powdered or granular carbon?

Terms and Concepts

Filtration

Carbon filter

Activated carbon, or activated charcoal

Surface area

Adsorption

Van der Waals forces

Surface area to volume ratio

Particle size

Contact time

Questions

What are typical uses of activated carbon?

Why does the form of activated carbon and its particle size matter for filtration?

How do carbon filters clean contaminated drinking water?

Can you think of other processes or reactions in which the particle size or surface area to volume ratio matters?

Bibliography

Science News. (2006, November 8). Activated-Carbon Filtering Pitcher Significantly Reduces Chemicals in Tap Water. Science Daily. Retrieved January 17, 2017, fromhttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061102110310.htm

McGrath, J. (2012, April 10). How are adsorbents used for environmental cleanup? HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/adsorbents-for-environmental-cleanup.htm

Lemley A., Wagenet L., Kneen B. (1995, December 3). Activated Carbon Treatment of Drinking Water. Water Treatment Notes, Cornell Cooperative Extension, College of Human Ecology. Retrieved January 17, 2017, fromhttp://waterquality.cce.cornell.edu/publications/CCEWQ-03-ActivatedCarbonWtrTrt.pdf

For help creating graphs, try this website:

Materials and Equipment

Granulated activated charcoal; available from Amazon.com

Powdered activated charcoal; available from Amazon.com

Plastic cups (no lids necessary), transparent 20 oz (90, 30 per trial); available from Amazon.com

Food color (green, blue or red work well); available from Amazon.com

Spoon

Tap water

Coffee filters (bleached or unbleached), size 4 for 20 oz cups (108, 36 per trial)

Rubber bands (9)

Measuring cup

Timer

Paper towels

Scale that can measure in 0.1 g increments. A digital scale that would be suitable is the Fast Weigh MS-500-BLK Digital Pocket Scale; available from Amazon.com.

Permanent marker

Optional: Camera (phone or digital)

Optional: Computer with access to the internet, and permission to use it.

Lab notebook

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Experimental Procedure

In this experiment you will filter three water samples with different "contaminant" (food color) concentrations using three different filtration conditions (granular activated carbon filter, powdered activated carbon filter and no carbon filter). Once you have completed the filtration, you can assess the filtration efficiency of each filter by looking at the color change of your samples.

Preparing Your Samples and Filters

In this section, you will prepare a total of 21 cups: 3 cups with different food color solutions, 9 cups with either no carbon, granulated carbon, or powdered carbon (3 of each type), and 9 filtration cups (empty cups with filters attached).

First, you will prepare the water samples that you are going to filter. You will use food color as a model contaminant that needs to be removed from the water. Prepare three food color solutions, each with a different dye concentration.

1. With a permanent marker, label three cups, one for each dye concentration: 0 drops per cup of liquid, 2 drops per cup of liquid and 5 drops per cup of liquid.

2. Measure 2 cups (about 500 mL) of tap water into each plastic cup using the measuring cup.

3. You will only add food color to two of the three cups as shown in Figure 4. The first cup (0 drops per cup of liquid) will remain colorless. As you have 2 cups of liquid in each of your cups, you have to add 4 drops of food color to the cup that you labeled with 2 drops per cup of liquid and 10 drops of food color to the cup that you labeled 5 drops per cup of liquid.

4. Stir each of the solutions with a clean spoon to disperse the food color evenly.

1. Next, prepare the activated carbon for your filter. You will test three different experimental conditions (granular activated carbon, powdered activated carbon and no activated carbon) for each of the dye concentrations.

1. As you will test all three dye concentrations, you have to label 3 cups for each form of carbon you test. You can make up your own labeling abbreviations such as "PC" for powdered carbon and "GC" for granulated carbon. Your label should tell what form of carbon and what dye concentration you will use (0, 2 or 5 drops per cup of liquid) for that cup. At the end, you should have 9 labeled cups.

2. Use a scale to weigh out 3 grams of granular activated carbon into each cup that you labeled with granular carbon. Then add 3 grams of powdered activated carbon into each cup with the respective label. The remaining 3 cups (no activated carbon) stay empty. Note: Avoid breathing in the activated carbon powder and try not to disperse too much of the powder into the air.

3. You should have 3 empty cups and 6 cups filled with activated carbon: 3 cups with the powdered form and 3 with the granular form.

2. Next, you will set up filters for the different forms of activated carbon and dye concentrations.

1. Label 9 cups in total, one for each testing condition. Again, make sure that your label is specific to the type of activated carbon and the dye concentration that you are going to test.

2. Take 4 coffee filters and stack them into each other. As shown in Figure 5, press the filters into the top of a cup, fold their edges over the cup's rim, and secure them with a rubber band.

3. Repeat step b. for the remaining filtration cups.

Filtering Your Samples

In this section, you will prepare an additional 9 cups for your colored water samples. When starting your filtration process, you should have a set of 9 cups for each experimental condition (27 cups total).

1. Before you start the filtering process, prepare your water samples for each filter using the water samples you prepared in step 1 of "Preparing Your Samples and Filters".

1. For each experimental condition (granular activated carbon, powdered activated carbon and no activated carbon), label 3 fresh cups with 0 drops per cup of liquid, 2 drops per cup of liquid and 5 drops per cup of liquid.

2. With a measuring cup, add 0.5 cups (about 120 mL) of the dye solutions that you prepared in step 1 of "Preparing Your Samples and Filters", to each of the cups with the respective label. Note: You will have 0.5 cups dye solution left over that you can use at the end of the experiment for color comparison.

3. Before you switch to the next dye concentration, rinse out the measuring cup and clean it with a paper towel.

4. Do not add the solutions to the prepared charcoal cups yet!

2. Arrange all your prepared cups as shown in Figure 6. For each experimental condition and dye concentration, place the colored water sample, the activated carbon and the filtration cup next to each other. You should have a set of 9 cups for each of the 3 experimental conditions (27 total).

Before you start with your filtration experiment, prepare a data table such as Table 1 in your lab notebook. Copy this table into your notebook three times, once for each type of carbon (granular activated carbon, powdered activated carbon, no activated carbon).

Table 1. Data table in which to record your filtration results.

1. You will rate the color of your water samples on a scale from 0-10, where 0 is totally clear (the cup on the left in Figure 4) and 10 is the darkest (the cup on the right in Figure 4). You will have to choose a number to assign to the intermediate cup, which may vary slightly depending on the type or color of food color you use. We chose to assign a value of 7 to our 2 drops/cup of liquid sample, since it is fairly dark.

2. Assess all your water samples before the filtration. Within a specific dye concentration, they should all look the same. As mentioned in step 4, they all will start out with an assigned color number before filtration. These will be your starting (before filtration) values.

3. If you have a camera available, take a photo of all your solutions before starting the filtration. This will be helpful for your display board. Make sure that all the pictures are taken with the same lighting, background, and camera settings (it is probably best to use a white background) so you can compare them to each other. Note: You can use the left-over dye solutions that you prepared in the beginning as a color reference for "before treatment" samples.

4. Continue with the filtration. You can do the following steps either back-to-back or set them up and run them at the same time.

1. Start with the filtration experiment using granular activated carbon.

1. Pour each concentration of the prepared dye solutions into the respective cups containing the granular activated carbon that you prepared in step 2 of "Preparing Your Samples and Filters".

2. Set your timer to 10 minutes and quickly stir each solution with the activated carbon using a clean spoon.

3. After 10 minutes, pour the water and carbon mixture into the filters that you prepared in step 3 of "Preparing Your Samples and Filters," and let the water seep through the filters. Note: Make sure that the water drains out of the filters completely and collects in the cup below the filter. There should not be any water remaining in the filter. If the the water level reaches the bottom of the filter once it has seeped through, either choose a larger cup or use shorter, basket shaped coffee filters instead of the longer, conical ones.

2. Next, continue with the filtration experiment using powdered activated carbon.

1. Slowly pour each concentration of the prepared dye solutions into the respective cups containing the powdered activated carbon that you prepared in step 2 of "Preparing Your Samples and Filters". Important: Pour slowly so you avoid creating a lot of powder dust in the air.

2. Set your timer to 10 minutes and quickly stir each solution with the activated carbon using a clean spoon.

3. After 10 minutes pour the water and powdered carbon mixture onto the filters that you prepared in step 3 of "Preparing Your Samples and Filters" and let the water seep through the filters. Make sure that no water is staying inside the filters.

3. For the filtration experiment using no activated carbon, pour each of the prepared water samples onto the filtration cups prepared for this condition in step 3 of "Preparing Your Samples and Filters". Again, let the water seep through the filters completely.

5. Let the solutions in each cup seep through the 4 layers of coffee filter. Write down your observations about the collected water samples after filtration in your lab notebook. Did any of the water samples change color? Do you observe a difference depending on dye concentration or type of activated carbon?

6. Assess the color of all the filtered water samples. Carefully remove the coffee filters to have a better look inside the cup. Assign each of the water samples a color number based on the color scale described in step 4. Write down your results in your data table.

7. If you have a camera available, take a photo of all the solutions that you collected in the filtration cups after the filtration experiment. Again, this will be helpful for your display board. Make sure that all the pictures are taken with the same lighting, background, and camera settings that you used in step 6 (it is probably best to use a white background) so you can compare them to each other.

8. Once you have filled out your data for trial 1, set up and perform two more filtration trials starting with "Preparing Your Samples and Filters". Responsible scientists always do their experiments at least three times to confirm that their results are always showing the same trend, meaning that they are reproducible.

Analyzing Your Data

1. Calculate the average color rating for each of your water samples after treatment. To do this, for each of your samples add the color values from each individual trial and then divide the result by 3. Write down the average into your data table.

2. Compare the average color values that you wrote down for each experimental condition before and after the filtration. Can you see a trend in your data? Did your water samples become less colored or even colorless after filtration? Did the filtration material or the dye concentration make a difference?

3. More advanced students can do more quantitative measurements of the water colors, using acolor picker tool online. Looking at each of your filtered water samples, select the corresponding color from the color palette for each one. You can use the left-over dye solutions that you prepared in the beginning as reference for the "before treatment" samples. The tool gives you color values for H (Hue), S (Saturation), B (Brightness) and R (Red), G (Green) and B (Blue). Stay within the same Hue for your color assessment (keeping the arrow on the right bar fixed at one setting) and for each selected color write down the color saturation (S) and brightness (B) value. Calculate the average of your determined brightness and saturation values from the three trials for all your experiments. Note: With lighter colors of your water samples, you should see an increasing value for brightness.

4. For each type of carbon (granular carbon, powdered carbon and no activated carbon) make a bar graph comparing the observed color (either using the average color numbers or for more advanced students the average brightness values) before and after filtration. On the x-axis put the dye concentration (0, 2 and 5 drops/cup of liquid) and on the y-axis graph the average color number (or if you chose the color picker tool, the average color brightness values) before and after the filtration process. You can either make a separate graph for each dye concentration or use one bar graph with different colors indicating the different dye concentrations. The Bibliography lists an online graphing tool that can help you create graphs.

5. If you chose to use the color picking tool, make another graph similar to that in step 4, but this time plot your average saturation values on the y-axis.

6. When using the color picker tool, remember that the higher your brightness values are, the clearer your water is. A higher saturation value means that the water is more colored. A combined saturation value of 0 with a brightness value of 100 means that your water is clear and has no color anymore!

7. Comparing all your graphs, can you tell if granular or powdered carbon is the more efficient filter using a contact time of 10 minutes? How do you think you can improve the efficiency of your filters?

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Variations

In this project you used the same amount of activated carbon for each experimental condition. Do you think the results will change when you use more, or less activated carbon? Repeat this experiment but this time vary the amount of activated carbon you put into your filters. You can either choose another amount of activated carbon for the different dye concentrations, or keep the dye concentration constant and vary the amount of activated carbon instead.

You may want to find out how water cleanup is dependent on the contact time. Design an experiment in which you investigate the dependence of contact time on the filtration efficiency. Do a time series with different contact times for your water samples and activated carbon. You can also change the dye concentration in your water sample for these experiments if necessary.

Can the activated carbon you used for your experiment be re-used for another water sample? After how many filtration steps did you reach the adsorption capacity of the carbon? Does it depend on the dye concentration of your water sample? Design an experiment to find out!

What else can be filtered with activated carbon? Do other food colors give you the same results? Try separating other mixtures with your carbon filter such as a sand/soil and water mixture, or a mixture of oil and water. What about removing smells from your water sample, do you think you can filter out a vanilla or peppermint aroma?

Besides contact time and particle size, what other parameters can influence the filtration efficiency of your water filter? Do you think the temperature of the water sample makes a difference? What about the pH of your water sample? Test your hypotheses by varying these parameters and see how clean your water gets each time!

If you are interested in the environmental aspect of water filtration or using more different filtration materials, check out the Science Buddies science project From Contaminated to Clean: How Filtering Can Clean Water.

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Which Filtration Material Leads to the Best Drinking Water?

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Crazy Crystal Creations: How to Grow the Best and the Largest Crystals

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Chemistry science fair project to find the best temperature for growing borax crystals

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Difficulty

Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Material Availability

Readily available

Safety

Requires adult supervision-some household solutions can be poisonous when mixed together or swallowed.

Abstract

This experiment is for all the kids out there who love boiled cabbage! You say you do not like cabbage? Well maybe you will like this amazing color-changing liquid you can make with cabbage. Which solutions around your house can make the cabbage juice change color? Find out while you learn about acids and bases and how to test for them.

Objective

Make your own pH indicator and use it to test the pH of various household solutions.

Credits

Sara Agee, Ph.D., Science Buddies

Cite This Page

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Cabbage Chemistry" Science Buddies. Science Buddies, 25 Sep. 2014. Web. 6 May 2017 <http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p013.shtml>

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2014, September 25). Cabbage Chemistry. Retrieved May 6, 2017 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p013.shtml

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Last edit date: 2014-09-25

Introduction

A solution is a mixture of a soluble chemical dissolved in water. Think about the difference between salt water and tap water. The salt in the salt water has dissolved and the solution looks clear, but the salt is still there and will taste salty if you taste it. Because solutions are made with water, which is made of hydrogen and water, the hydrogen in the water can make a solution into an acid or a base.

You might think about an acid as something that an evil villain uses to trap a super hero, but actually some very common household solutions are acids. Acids are solutions that will donate hydrogen ions in a solution, and usually taste sour. Some common acids are citrus fruit juices and household vinegar. Bases are solutions that accept hydrogen ions in solution, and usually feel slippery. Bases have many practical uses. "Antacids" like TUMS or Rolaids are used to reduce the acidity in your stomach. Other bases make useful household cleaning products.

How do you tell if something is an acid or a base? You use a chemical called an indicator, which changes in color depending on whether a solution is acidic or basic. (Specifically, an indicator works by responding to the levels of hydrogen ions in a solution.) There are many different types of indicators, some are liquids and some are concentrated on little strips of "litmus" paper. Indicators can be extracted from many different sources, including the pigment of many plants.

Red cabbage contains an indicator pigment molecule called flavin, which is one type of molecule called an anthocyanin. This water-soluble pigment is also found in apple skin, red onion skin, plums, poppies, blueberries, cornflowers, and grapes. Very acidic solutions will turn anthocyanin a red color. Neutral solutions result in a purplish color. Basic solutions make a greenish-yellow or yellow color. For some examples, see Figure 1, below.

Figure 1. This picture shows some of the different colors that red cabbage juice can become. From left to right, the solutions shown range from very acidic (red) to very basic (yellow).

Because red cabbage has this indicator pigment, it is possible to determine the pH of a solution based on the color it turns the red cabbage juice. The pH of a solution is a numerical measure of how basic or acidic it is. A solution with a pH between 5 and 7 is neutral, 8 or higher is a base, and 4 or lower is an acid. For more detailed information, consult the Science Buddies guide to Acids, Bases, & the pH Scale.

Watch to learn more about why science is so important to our everyday lives and watch Science Buddies board member Courtney Corda, her son, and another mother-daughter team demonstrate how to put cabbage to work as a pH indicator.

Watch this video clip at http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=6867956 to learn more about why science is so important to our everyday lives and watch Science Buddies vice president Courtney Corda, her son, and another mother-daughter team demonstrate how to put cabbage to work as a pH indicator.

In this science experiment, you can extract your own cabbage juice indicator and use it to test the pH of different solutions around your home. You might be surprised to find out what common items around your house are acids or bases.

Terms and Concepts

Bibliography

This web site at Chemistry 4 Kids has a great tutorial on chemistry, matter properties and mixtures. Go check it out:
Rader, Andrew, 2005. "Rader's Chem4Kids." Andrew Rader Studios. 12/13/05.
http://www.chem4kids.com/files/matter_intro.html

Here is a good website about acids and bases, including information about indicators with very nice pictures:
Carboni, Giorgio, 2004. "Fun Science Gallery: Experiments with Acids and Bases." Pianoro, Italy. 12/13/05.
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/acids/acids.htm

Cobb, Vikki, 1972. "Science Experiments You Can Eat." Harper Collins, New York, NY. 12/13/05

Materials and Equipment

A small red cabbage

Boiling pot of water

Strainer

Small white Dixie cups (one for each household item you want to test the pH of)

Medicine dropper

Large bowls or pots (2)

Lab notebook

A series of household items to test the pH of:

Fruit juice: lemon, lime, orange, apple

Soda pop (dark sodas might be tricky to see)

Vinegar

Baking soda solution

Cleaning products. Note: Always use caution when handling cleaning products.

Anything you want!

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Experimental Procedure

Grate a small red cabbage and place the pieces into a large bowl or pot, as shown in Figure 2, below.

Figure 2. Grated red cabbage in a pot.

1. Pour boiling water into the bowl to just cover the cabbage. Use caution when handling the boiling water.

2. Leave the cabbage mixture steeping, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is room temperature. This may take at least half an hour. The liquid should be reddish purple in color, as shown in Figure 3, below.

Figure 3. While steeping in the water, the liquid in the pot should be reddish purple in color.

Place a strainer over a second large bowl or pot and pour the mixture through the strainer to remove the cabbage pulp, as shown in Figure 4, below. Press down on the pulp in the strainer, such as by using a large spoon, to squeeze more liquid out of the pulp.

Figure 4. Cabbage pulp being removed from the mixture using a strainer.

In the bowl, you should now have a clear liquid that will either be purple or blue in color, as shown in Figure 5, below. (It should look darker after the pulp is removed.) This will be your indicator solution.

Figure 5. This shows what the indicator solution can look like in a clear glass. (Note that you will be using the solution in white Dixie cups.)

The color of the liquid will change depending upon the pH. Use Table 1, below, to figure out the pH of the liquid by observing the color.

Table 1. This data table shows what the pH of the liquid should be based on its color.

1. Set aside your indicator solution. You will use it as your "stock" solution for your experiments.

2. Next you will test various household solutions with your indicator. Use a separate Dixie cup for each solution you want to test because you do not want to mix chemicals that do not go well together or contaminate your results.

3. Fill about half of the Dixie cup with your cabbage indicator solution. You can use less indicator solution for each cup if you do not have a lot of indicator solution.

4. Add drops of a liquid you want to test until you see the solution change in color. Gently swirl the cup as you add the drops, being careful not to spill the solution.

5. Record the pH and a description of the each solution in a data table in your lab notebook like Table 2 below.

6. Analyze your results. How does the pH of the different household items you tested compare to each other? Are you surprised by any of your results?

Table 2. You can write down your observations and results in your lab notebook in a table like this one.

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Variations

There are other plants that can be used to make pH indicators as well: red onion, apple skins, blueberries, grape skins, and plums. Experiment with different sources of pigment, to see which produce the best indicators.

Can you use your pH indicator to conduct other useful experiments? What about testing the acidity of rain on a smoggy day? Or the usefulness of various antacid brands in reducing acidity of a solution?

You can use an indicator to write secret messages. Just use full strength lemon juice to write an invisible message on paper and let the message dry. To reveal the message, paint indicator over the paper with a paint brush.

You can actually buy pH strips that tell you the pH of a solution. How accurate is the pH indicator you made using cabbage compared to store-bought pH strips? You can purchase pH strips from aquarium stores or an online vendor such as Amazon.

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Difficulty

Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Material Availability

Readily available

Safety

Wear eye protection and gloves when preparing coconut husks. Adult supervision required when cutting sorbents with scissors or cracking coconuts with hammers.

Abstract

Have you ever seen news coverage or other pictures of an oil spill in the ocean and wondered how all of that oil could be cleaned up? Oil spills can devastate wildlife by covering them with oil, and they can damage our precious water resources by contaminating them with oil. Part of the problem of dealing with oil spills is that the oil can be challenging to clean up. In this science project, you will test the absorptivity of different materials (called sorbents) to discover which ones are best at removing oil from water.

Objective

Compare the absorptivity of different sorbents used for cleaning up an oil spill in water.

Credits

Kristin Strong, Science Buddies

Cite This Page

General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed.

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Goo-Be-Gone: Cleaning Up Oil Spills." Science Buddies, 28 July 2017, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/EnvEng_p025/environmental-engineering/cleaning-up-oil-spills. Accessed 19 May 2018.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2017, July 28). Goo-Be-Gone: Cleaning Up Oil Spills. Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/EnvEng_p025/environmental-engineering/cleaning-up-oil-spills

Last edit date: 2017-07-28

Introduction

Stop, look down, and wiggle your toes. Are you wearing shoes? If you are, chances are good that some part of those shoes is made from petroleum oil. Now look at the fabric of your clothes, chair cushion, bedspread, mattress, carpet, and drapes. Many of these fabrics were made from oil. Wander into the kitchen for a glass of milk or soda. The wax in that milk carton and materials in the soda bottle were made from oil. Open up the fridge and look at all the fruits and vegetables-those were grown with the help of fertilizers and pesticides, also oil-containing products. Check out your cupboards. All the packaging you see is made from oil, and the canned goods have additives made from oil, too. Next, head to the bathroom and take a look at all the make-up, medicines, lotions, toothpaste, shampoos, and bandages made from oil. The laundry room also has oil-derived detergents to keep all those oil-made fabrics clean. And even the roof that keeps you dry needs oil to make it waterproof. Seems like everywhere you look around your home, from the ink in your pen to your movie DVDs, you see something that was made from oil.

Oil products are everywhere, including the outdoors: car tires, roads, fuel that powers cars and ships, and heats homes. As you can tell, oil continues to be a very important product in our society, despite climate change fears. Because oil is used in so many ways, great amounts of it are carried long distances to the factories and plants all over the world that use it to make the products that keep our society running. Every day, millions of barrels of oil are moved around, mostly on big ships, called oil tankers. Each tanker can carry more than 200,000 tons of oil.

Occasionally, these tankers have accidents-they hit other ships or scrape against rocks or ice and their hulls break open, spilling oil into the sea. Oil spills can also happen when oil rigs are damaged. The spilled oil can contaminate water resources and devastate wildlife nearby. For an example of what this looks like, see Figure 1, below, which shows workers cleaning up an oil-covered beach after an oil spill.

Figure 1. This picture shows workers cleaning up a beach after an oil spill.

One way environmental engineers try to clean up the oil spills before they kill wildlife and damage habitats is with sorbents - materials that are good at absorbing liquids. If you have ever used a sponge, paper towel, or kitty litter, you have used a sorbent. In this project, you will evaluate the absorptivity of common sorbents, many of which are currently used on a large scale to clean up real oil spills.

Terms and Concepts

Questions

What characteristics make a good sorbent?

Is a sorbent enough to clean up an oil spill?

Bibliography

This source provides an overview of petroleum oil uses and oil spills:

This page on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website discusses the properties of oil that affect cleanup:

For help creating graphs, try this website:

Materials and Equipment

Newspaper

Large plastic garbage bag

Liquid measuring cup, 4-cup size; the angled, read-from-the-top types are easiest to use. These types of measuring cups are available at some grocery stores or through online suppliers such as Amazon.com.

Four or more sorbents that you want to test (3 cups of each)
Examples include: cotton, hair, fur, straw, coconut husks, corn cobs, corn husks, polypropylene pads, shop towels, and bird feathers. Barber shops or pet groomers are good places to get hair or fur. Shop towels and polypropylene pads can be purchased in the automotive section of many stores.

Scissors, if sorbent needs to be cut into smaller pieces

If you are using a coconut husk as one of your sorbents, you will need the following materials:

Gloves and eye protection

Hammer

Large towel or burlap bag

Paper or glass bowls, 12-oz size (need three bowls for each sorbent you are testing)

Vegetable oil (1 gallon)

Pitcher of water

Dry measuring cup, 1-cup size

Reusable mesh coffee filter. It should fit easily inside the 4-cup liquid measuring cup; available at stores that sell coffee supplies, such as some grocery stores, or through online suppliers such as Amazon.com.

Stopwatch, timer, or clock that shows seconds

Liquid soap

Lab notebook

Graph paper

Remember Your Display Board Supplies

Experimental Procedure

1. Spread newspaper onto your work surface, to make cleanup easier.

2. Open your garbage bag and put it close to the liquid measuring cup.

3. Prepare your sorbents one at a time so you can keep your workspace uncluttered.

1. Cut large sorbents into small, thumb-sized pieces so that they can easily fill a measuring cup. Figure 2, below, shows examples of prepared sorbents. Prepare at least three cups of each sorbent you want to test this way.

2. Use caution when crushing or smashing coconut husks. Wear eye protection and gloves, and cover the coconut with a large towel or place it in a burlap bag before smashing it. Be sure to only smash the coconut on a surface that you have permission to hammer on.

Figure 2. Four prepared sorbents (clockwise from top left): shop towels, coconut husk, hair, and cotton.

1. After you have prepared your first sorbent, divide it into three piles of 1 cup each and place each pile in a glass or paper bowl.

2. In your lab notebook, make a data table, like Table 1, below, for each sorbent to record your results. Be sure to fill in your tables with the actual names of the sorbents you are testing.

Sorbent 1 Name (for example, Fur)

Total Water and Oil Level
(A)

Remaining Water Level After Removing Sorbent
(B)

Remaining Oil Level After Removing Sorbent
(A-B)

Ratio of Remaining Water Divided by Remaining Oil
(B / (A-B))

Trial 1 (using first cup of sorbent)

Trial 2 (using second cup of sorbent)

Trial 3 (using third cup of sorbent)

Table 1. In your lab notebook, make a data table like this one for each sorbent you want to test. Fill in your data table (in the top left corner) with the actual name of the sorbent you are testing.

1. Pour 3 cups of water into the liquid measuring cup.

2. Slowly add 1 cup of vegetable oil. Do the oil and water separate or mix?
Note: In some trials, a layer of bubbles may form between the water and oil layers. If this happens, wait a few minutes until the bubble layer mostly disappears.

3. Put 1 cup of your first sorbent into the reusable mesh coffee filter. Lower it slowly into the water-oil mixture and gently move it from side to side for a few seconds until the sorbent is completely submerged, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. You may need to slowly lower the filter below the surface of the liquid in the measuring cup for liquid to easily get into the filter.

Figure 3. Testing hair as a sorbent.

Figure 4. Testing coconut husk as a sorbent.

1. After the sorbent has been submerged in the liquid, start your stopwatch or timer (or note what time it is on your clock).

2. After 30 seconds, lift the filter with the contents of the sorbent inside and hold it just above the surface of the water-oil mixture for 30 more seconds to drain.

3. Dump the contents of the mesh coffee filter into the plastic garbage bag.

4. Get down level with the liquid measuring cup and read and record the total water and oil level (measure A, as shown in Figure 4).

5. Measure and record the remaining water level (measure B, as shown in Figure 4).

Figure 5. Measure point A and point B after removing sorbent.

1. Wash out the mesh coffee filter and measuring cup with soap and water.

2. Repeat steps 6-14 for the remaining piles of your first sorbent.

3. Then repeat step 6-15 for the rest of the sorbents you chose.

4. Now calculate the remaining oil after removing the sorbent (by subtracting B from A) for each trial and record it in your data table.

5. Calculate the ratio of remaining water to remaining oil for each of the trials and record it in your data table.

6. Average the ratios for each sorbent (for the three trials for each sorbent) and record them in a new data table, like Table 2, below.

Table 2. In your lab notebook, make a new data table like this one and record the average ratios for your trials with each sorbent. Note that this data table shows several sorbents you may have tested, but you only needed to test at least four sorbents in this science project.

1. Make a bar graph of your results. You can make a graph by hand, or use a computer program like Create a Graph to make a graph on a computer and then print it out.
Plot the average water-to-oil ratios (on the y-axis, or the vertical axis) vs. the sorbents you tested (on the horizontal axis, or the x-axis). Make a bar for each sorbent you tested.

2. Analyze your results. The higher the ratio, the better the sorbent was at removing oil.

1. Are any sorbents less than the starting ratio of 3? This means that the sorbent absorbed more water than oil and would not be a good candidate for cleaning up oil spills.

2. Which sorbents have the highest average water-to-oil ratio? These would be the best sorbents for oil out of the different sorbents you tested.

Communicating Your Results: Start Planning Your Display Board

Create an award-winning display board with tips and design ideas from the experts at ArtSkills.

If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:

Variations

This science project let you investigate which sorbent was the best based on the volume of oil and water it absorbed. Which sorbent is the best by mass? Figure out a way to do this by weighing the liquids and sorbents you used (before and after soaking the sorbents in the water and oil mixture), and then give it a try!

Do some sorbents work faster than others? Investigate which sorbent is the best by time.

Does shape impact absorptivity? For the same weight, what happens when you twist or roll a sorbent tightly? What if you leave it in big pieces or chop it up? Devise a way to figure this out and then give it a try!

Ask an Expert

The Ask an Expert Forum is intended to be a place where students can go to find answers to science questions that they have been unable to find using other resources. If you have specific questions about your science fair project or science fair, our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.

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Difficulty

Time Required

Average (6-10 days)

Material Availability

Some specialty items needed, see Materials list for details. For your convenience a kit is available for purchase from the Science Buddies Store.

Safety

A hand drill is needed for some steps. Adult assistance is needed for the steps involving a hand drill. All items in the Science Buddies Kit come pre-drilled, eliminating this safety issue.

Abstract

How can seawater from the oceans be turned into fresh water that is suitable for people to drink? Through a process called solar desalination! In this science project, you will make a solar desalination apparatus using readily available materials, and a power source that is free. How much water can the device produce, and is it still salty at all? What factors affect how effectively saltwater is turned into fresh water?

Objective

Build and test a solar-powered device for desalinating water and investigate how the color of the bottom of the device affects its efficiency.

Credits

Andrew Olson, Ph.D., and Teisha Rowland, Ph.D. Science Buddies

Sources

This project is based on the following 2007 California State Science fair project, a winner of the Science Buddies Clever Scientist Award

Cite This Page

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Solar-Powered Water Desalination" Science Buddies. Science Buddies, 12 Dec. 2015. Web. 6 May 2017 <http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/EnvEng_p022.shtml>

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2015, December 12). Solar-Powered Water Desalination. Retrieved May 6, 2017 from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/EnvEng_p022.shtml

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Last edit date: 2015-12-12

Introduction

Nicholas Kinsman is interested in inventing solar-powered devices to reduce our dependence on other energy sources. He is also a winner of a Science Buddies Clever Scientist award for his 2007 California State Science Fair project (Kinsman, 2007). Nicholas set out to build a simple, inexpensive device to desalinate seawater, using readily available materials and easy construction methods.

Typical seawater contains dissolved salts at concentrations between 32 and 37.5 parts per thousand. That means that if you started with one kilogram of seawater (which is approximately one liter of seawater) and then you allowed all of the water to evaporate, you would be left with between 32 and 37.5 grams of salts (also called "total dissolved solids").

With all of that salt, seawater is not suitable for drinking nor for watering most plants. The fluid circulating in your body (blood plasma) contains much less salt than seawater (on the order of 9 grams of total dissolved solids). If you were to drink seawater, your body would actually lose water, because the high salt concentration of the seawater causes an osmotic pressure gradient which drives water out of your cells. Desalination is the process of removing the dissolved salts from water, making it pure enough for drinking or irrigation.

Nicholas's first design for a desalination device is shown in Figure 1 below. There are eight small bottles surrounding the large collection jug. Each of the small bottles is filled with seawater. The small bottles have holes in their caps. One end of a flexible straw is inserted into the hole, and the other connects to the large collection jug at the center. When the entire device is set out in the sunlight, the seawater in the small bottles heats up, which causes the water to evaporate and fill the small bottles with water vapor. The idea was that as the water vapor increased, it would condense in the straws and flow down into the collection jug. Unfortunately, the idea did not work. You can see in the picture that there is condensation on the inside of the top of the bottles, but there was very little condensation in the straws.

Figure 1. This is Nicholas's first try at a solar-powered desalination device. The idea was to add saltwater to the eight small bottles. The condensation was supposed to drip down from the straws into the large collection jug. Unfortunately, this design did not work.
(Photo from Nicholas Kinsman's display board at the fair.)

Like any good inventor, Nicholas did not let an initial setback discourage him. He analyzed what was wrong with the design and set out to improve it. His second design, shown in Figure 2 below, still follows the same principles of using readily available materials and easy construction methods, but also includes some important improvements. One important change is that this time Nicholas's design uses a container with a larger surface area to hold the seawater.

Figure 2. Here are two examples of Nicholas's second design for a solar-powered desalination device. The large jug, laying on its side, holds the seawater. The top side of the jug has been cut out with a utility knife. Plastic cling wrap seals the top side, and a quarter is used as a weight to make a low point in the center. Beneath that low point, Nicholas placed a collector, made from the top of a small water bottle with a flexible straw inserted into a hole in the cap. The other end of the straw passes through the side of the large jug, and then to a plastic cup where the condensate collects. The device on the left has an aluminum foil reflector covering the back side and bottom of the large jug while the device on the right has no reflector.
(Science Buddies photo of Nicholas Kinsman's display board at the fair.)

Why is it important that in the improved design a large jug is used to hold the saltwater? The jug, which is laid on one side, lets the saltwater cover a relatively large area. Because water molecules can only evaporate from the surface of water, a body of water with a large surface area will have a greater rate of evaporation than a body of water with a smaller surface area (assuming all other conditions are the same). The top side of the jug is cut out, using a utility knife, and covered tightly with plastic cling wrap. The cling wrap covering the large opening provides a large surface area on which condensation can form, which is another reason why using a larger container is an important change in this design. A quarter is used as a weight to make a low point at the center of the cling wrap. When the device is heated up in the sunlight, the condensation that forms on the cling wrap eventually flows down to this low point and drips into a "funnel." In Nicholas's design, the funnel is simply the cut-off top of a small water bottle, which has a flexible straw inserted into a hole cut in the cap. The other end of the straw passes through a small hole in the large jug, and then to a plastic cup (tightly covered with cling wrap using a rubber band to prevent evaporation).

For his science fair project, Nicholas tested the desalination devices based on his second, improved design with and without aluminum foil reflectors (you can see examples of each type in Figure 2 above). For each device, he made several measurements so that he could compare the performance, including the amount of condensate collected, or his condensate yield, and the conductivity of the saltwater and condensate. The yield measurements told him how efficient his devices were at heating the saltwater and producing desalinated water. The conductivity measurements (which can be taken using a handheld meter) told him how well the condensed water had been purified of dissolved salt because water that contains dissolved salt can conduct electricity, and the more salt that is dissolved in the water, the higher the conductivity of the water.

In this environmental engineering science project, you will build desalination devices similar to Nicholas's second design and see how the design can be improved even more. Specifically, you will investigate how the color of the bottom of the device affects its efficiency. You will compare a device with a white-colored bottom to a device with a black-colored bottom. Something that is light-colored reflects more light than something that is dark-colored, which absorbs a lot of the light that hits it. Light is a form of energy and energy can be transferred to nearby objects (such as a body of water) in the form of heat, in a process known as heat transfer. Which colored bottom do you think will result in a more efficient desalination device?

Terms and Concepts

Solar-powered devices

Desalination

Water purity

Evaporation

Water vapor

Condensation

Surface area

Yield

Reflection of light

Absorption of light

Heat transfer

Questions

Why does condensation form when water is heated up?

What are some factors that affect the rate of evaporation?

Do you think a desalination device with a black-colored bottom would be more efficient than one with a white-colored bottom? Why? Can you relate your answer to the concept of heat transfer?

Bibliography

Do further research by visiting the following websites, which give information about salts in seawater, desalination, and rate of evaporation:

Swenson, H. (n.d.). Why Is the Ocean Salty? U.S. Geological Survey Publication. Retrieved June 27, 2007 fromhttp://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/salty_ocean.htm

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. (2007). Water, Desalination of. Pearson Education, publishing as Fact Monster. Retrieved June 28, 2007, fromhttp://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0851566.html

Meng, A. and Meng, H. (n.d.). Factors Affecting the Rate of Evaporation. Interactive Assessment Worksheets. Retrieved September 27, 2012, fromhttp://www.vtaide.com/png/evaporation.htm

This project is based on the following 2007 California State Science fair project, a winner of the Science Buddies Clever Scientist Award:

Materials and Equipment

These specialty items can be purchased from the Science Buddies Store:

Solar Powered Water Desalination kit (1). Includes:

Clear plastic rectangular containers with pre-drilled holes (2)

Plastic cups with pre-drilled holes (2)

25 mL graduated cylinder

800 mL tripour beaker

Thermometer

Modeling clay, 1 stick

5 mL funnels (2)

Flexible straws (2)

Steel washers, 7/16 size (2)

Rubber bands (2)

Black construction paper, 8 1/2 inch by 11 inch (3)

White construction paper, 8 1/2 inch by 11 inch (3)

You will also need to gather these items:

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Experimental Procedure

Making the Desalination Devices

In this part of the science project, you will make two desalination devices.

1. Look at Figure 3 to get an overview of what you are making. Fit the stem of a funnel inside the short end of a straw. Push the funnel in as far as it will go. Securely tape the straw to the funnel. Repeat for the second straw and funnel.

2. Push a straw-funnel assembly through the hole near the bottom of each container so that the funnels are on the inside of the containers. Adjust the straw-funnel assemblies so that the funnels face up. Put some modeling clay around the hole, on the outside of the container, to hold the funnel in place. Your setup should now look similar to Figure 3. Do not worry if the funnel will not stay in place. The next steps will solve that.

Figure 3. After putting the straw-funnel assembly in the hole in the container and securing it using some modeling clay, your setup should look similar to the one shown here. The top picture shows a close-up from the side and the bottom picture shows an overall view from above.

1. Look at Figure 4 to get an overview of what you are making in the next couple of steps. Start by putting the long end of each straw through the hole in a plastic collection cup. Adjust the straw so that the funnel faces up. Put some modeling clay around each hole, on the outside of each collection cup, to keep each cup in place.

2. Now you will need to do some tinkering to get everything positioned correctly:

1. The straw should slope down slightly from the box to the cup. This will allow gravity to help the water you collect flow from the straw to the cup. If there is no slope, the water will collect in the straw rather than in the cup.

2. If the straw is too long for the funnel to face up and the straw to slope down towards the collection cup, cut a little bit off of the long end of the straw and test the setup again. Keep cutting a little bit of the straw off and re-assembling until it is right.

3. Do not worry if the collection cups do not sit completely flat.

3. Cover the opening of one container with a single large piece of plastic cling wrap. To seal the container closed, pull the wrap tightly over the opening and tape it in place at the four corners of the container. Repeat for the second container.

4. Set a washer on the plastic cling wrap, right above the funnel. Do this for each desalination device. Adjust as needed so that the washer creates a low point in the cling wrap right above the funnel, but make sure it is not so low that the cling wrap touches the funnel. For an example of this, see Figure 4.

1. If the plastic cling wrap is touching the funnel, not all of the condensation will go down into the funnel. To fix this, either lower the funnel (such as by cutting the straw) or raise the cling wrap (by taping it tighter).

2. If the cling wrap is so tight that it does not form a low point where the washer is, un-tape it in places and re-tape it more loosely.

Figure 4. Place the washer on the cling wrap, right above the funnel. Make sure that the cling wrap is not so low that it is touching the funnel. The top left picture shows the entire setup at this point. The top right picture shows a close-up of the collection cup and washer. The bottom picture shows a close-up of just the washer and funnel.

After you are done adjusting your setup, cover each collection cup with plastic cling wrap and secure the plastic tightly with a rubber band, as shown in Figure 5. This prevents your desalinated water from evaporating.
Make sure that there are no gaps or holes in the cling wrap.

Figure 5. Secure a piece of cling wrap on to the top of each collection cup using a rubber band, as shown here.

1. Cover the outside bottom of one desalination container with black construction paper and cover the other one with white construction paper. Tape the paper in place.

1. Arrange the construction paper so that it goes up about 2 to 3 cm on the sides of each container.

2. You may need to cut a small slit in the construction paper for the straw to get through.

2. Make up a single batch of saltwater for both desalination containers.
Add 1 tablespoon of salt to the tripour beaker and fill it with tap water to the 500 mL mark. Mix with a spoon until the salt is dissolved. Each of the desalination containers will need 250 mL of saltwater.

3. For each desalination container, remove the washer, gently remove the tape on one corner, lift the cling wrap, and pour in the saltwater. Add enough so that it just barely covers the bottom of the container, approximately 250 mL per container.
Be careful not to let any saltwater spill into the funnel or onto the construction paper.

4. Put the cling wrap back in place, making sure it is taped on all four corners of each container. Put the washer back on top of the plastic wrap directly above the funnel.

5. Your desalination devices should look similar to the ones in Figure 6 below. They are now ready for testing!

Figure 6. When your desalination devices are ready for testing, they should look similar to the one in the top picture (except yours should have black or white construction paper on the bottom). The diagram on the bottom shows what the desalination devices should look like during testing as condensation is collected. (The construction paper is not shown in the diagram.)

Testing the Desalination Devices

In this part of the science project, you will test the performance of the desalination devices.

1. Carefully take the desalination devices outside to an area that will receive direct sunlight for at least four hours.

2. Prepare your desalination devices for testing and do a final check to make sure that everything is in place and ready.

1. One device should have black paper on the outside bottom of the container, the other should have white paper.

2. Both devices should contain 250 mL of salt water.

3. Plastic cling wrap should completely seal the top of the devices. If it does not, water vapor may escape and your results will not be reliable.

4. On each desalination device, a washer should be sitting on top of the plastic wrap directly above the funnel. This should cause the plastic wrap to sag slightly such that water that condenses on the plastic wrap rolls down the plastic, towards the washer, and drips into the funnel.

5. Get rid of any large wrinkles that do not flow down to the washer. Wrinkles can prevent the condensation from smoothly rolling down to the collection point.

6. Make sure that the funnel in each device is facing up, directly below the washer, and not so high that it is touching the cling wrap. If the funnel is touching the cling wrap, either lower the funnel or raise the cling wrap by taping it higher.

7. Make sure that the modeling clay has sealed the holes to prevent evaporative losses. Add extra modeling clay if needed.

8. Check that the straws slope down towards the collection cups. Even a mild slope is enough to work.

3. In your lab notebook, record the time. Measure and record the temperature near the desalination devices. You can use this information later to determine how temperature affects the condensation yield.

4. Check on the desalination devices after about 30 minutes. You may see condensation starting to form small drops on the cling wrap right below the washer. However, it may take longer, depending on how sunny and warm it is.

1. If you see condensation forming small drops, do you see it on both desalination devices, or only one of them? Record your observations in your lab notebook.

2. If needed, adjust the washer and funnel-straw assembly on each device to make sure that the drops fall into the funnel. Make sure to record any adjustments you make in your lab notebook.
You can arrange the washer so that one edge of it is the lowest point on the cling wrap, and this edge is positioned over the funnel so that condensation drips into it, as shown in Figure 7 below.

Figure 7. As shown in this close-up picture, you can arrange the washer so that its edge is the lowest point on the cling wrap and is positioned over the funnel, allowing condensation to drop into it.

1. Continue checking on your desalination devices every 30 minutes to make sure that they are still in the sunlight and that the condensation drops are falling into the funnel.

1. If the desalination devices are not in the sun, gently move them to a sunny location.

2. Does it look like one desalination device is making more condensation drops than the other? Record your observations in your lab notebook.

3. If it is warm enough, the modeling clay may melt a little. If it does, just make sure that the holes are still sealed by the modeling clay. Add more clay if needed.

4. If it is windy, you may want to check on your desalination devices more frequently to ensure that everything is still in place and functioning properly.

2. Leave your desalination devices in the sunlight for at least four hours before stopping your experiment.

1. In your lab notebook, record the time when you stop your testing. How long were your desalination devices in the sunlight?

2. Again, measure and record the temperature near the desalination devices.

3. Open the large cling wrap covering on each device and try to get any condensate that is still in the straw to go out and into the collection cup. You can do this by gently blowing into the straw.

4. To determine the condensate yield of each desalination device, carefully disconnect the collection cup, remove its cling wrap covering, and pour the collected condensate into the 25 mL graduated cylinder.
What was the condensate yield of each device? Record your results in your lab notebook.

5. To determine whether the collected condensate is still salty, taste a little bit from each device. Record your observations in your lab notebook.

6. Repeat this experiment at least two more times on different days for a total of three trials. This will help ensure that your results are consistent and reproducible.
Between trials, carefully rinse out each desalination device with tap water and let them dry along with all of the other desalination device components.

1. Use the same amount of saltwater in each device and trial.

2. For each trial, perform the testing for the same length of time.

7. After you have tested both devices in three trials, make a bar graph of your condensate yield results.

1. On the x-axis of the graph, list your desalination devices. You can average the results for each device for the three trials, or you can show all three trials separately.

2. On the y-axis, put the condensate yield in milliliters.

8. Analyze your results.

1. Did one color of desalination device consistently have a higher condensate yield than the other? If so, why do you think this is? What does this tell you about the features an effective solar desalination device should have?

2. Was the collected condensate ever salty?

3. If the temperature near the desalination devices varied a lot between your three trials, do you see a correlation between the temperature and the condensate yield?

9. Taking 3 liters as the minimum required amount of drinking water per person per day (NAS, 2004), how many devices would you need to produce enough water for your survival needs?
You can divide the condensate yield by the testing time to get an average collection rate (mL/hour). You will need to think about how many hours of sunlight there are in your area. Would it change with the season?

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Variations

In this science project you compared the performance of desalination devices with a black-colored bottom and a white-colored bottom. What do you think would happen if you used an aluminum foil reflector, as Nicholas Kinsman did (as discussed in the Background)? How do you think you could set up such a reflector so that it heats up the water in the device as much as possible? Hint: research parabolic reflectors.

How does the temperature of saltwater affect the rate of evaporation? You can try this science project again but this time fill one desalination device with ice-cold water and the other with hot water. Is one device much more efficient than the other?

Surface area is a factor that affects the rate of evaporation. Think of a way to modify one of your desalination devices so that the same volume of saltwater takes up only half of the surface area of the bottom of the jug or container, such as by attaching a plastic divider to the bottom. Test the two desalination devices again, using the same volume of saltwater in each. Does the change in surface area correlate with a change in condensate yield?

Saltwater has a higher boiling point than freshwater. Does this mean that you would get a higher condensation yield using freshwater than you did using saltwater? To find out, you can try this science project again but this time use saltwater in one desalination device and freshwater in the other. To make sure you are collecting "pure" water, you can add some food coloring to the initial water in each device. Are the condensate yields very different between the two devices? If you try even saltier saltwater than was used in this science project, is there a greater difference?

How does the collection rate change during the course of the day? To investigate this, it would be a good idea to have your collection container marked with graduated volumes. That way you can measure collection volumes easily without disturbing the collection system.

In what other ways do you think you could change your desalination device to improve its efficiency? Find out what factors affect the rate of evaporation and how other desalination devices are designed. Figure out how you can use this information to modify your device, or design a completely new device, to improve efficiency.

You can build other useful devices that use solar power. For example, the Science Buddies project Now You're Cooking! Building a Simple Solar Oven shows how to build a solar oven. Can you adapt a solar oven to make a solar-powered desalination device? Is it more or less efficient than the plastic bottle desalination device from this project?

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: I think I am having low yields. What yields should I expect and what are some things I can do to improve my yields?

A: If you are using the Science Buddies kit for this project idea, the setup should yield at least 8 milliliters (mL), but depending on the weather conditions and other factors it may yield significantly more. There are a number of factors that can affect the yield in this science project. Here are some things to check:

Make sure there are no large wrinkles in the plastic cling wrap, as this can trap condensation. To get rid of a large wrinkle, try taping up a little more cling wrap in that area. Also make sure that the corners and sides of the jug or container are taped to the cling wrap. The cling wrap should allow condensation to roll smoothly down to the collection point, below the washer or quarter.

If you are using funnels made from the tops of 500 mL plastic water bottles, make sure that condensate is not pooling and getting trapped in the funnel. Make sure the straw is not sticking into the funnel, but is flush with the cap. You may want to try small, pre-made funnels as an alternative.

You can try filling the jug or container with less salt water. You should fill it with enough to just barely completely cover the bottom of the jug or container, but do not add any extra salt water. All of the water needs to be heated up enough for water to start evaporating, so if you use more water then more energy will be required to heat it up.

Watch to make sure that the condensation is actually dripping directly into the funnel, and make adjustments to the position of the funnel and washer or quarter if it is not.

Make sure that all holes are sealed using modeling clay. If it gets very warm, the modeling clay may melt, so make sure that there is enough modeling clay that even if a little melts it is still sealing the holes.

This science project will work best when it is warm and done in direct sunlight, so try to avoid testing it when it is cool and/or overcast.

If you are not using the Science Buddies kit, selecting the right jug or container is important. Use a jug or container with a large surface area, since water molecules can only evaporate from the surface of water. It is recommended to use a jug or container with at least 1500 cm² of flat surface area on the bottom. Make sure the jug or container has straight sides that do not lean inwards and has no overhangs, as these features can trap condensation.

Q: Why is it important that I make the hole in the jug or container near the bottom of the container?

A: If the hole it too high, the funnel may touch the plastic cling wrap, which can prevent some condensation from dripping into the funnel and result in lower yields. The hole should ideally be placed as low as possible, just above the water level in the jug or container. The hole in the collection cup should be lower so that the straw slopes down towards the collection cup.

Q: The funnel keeps tilting so that it does not completely face up. What should I do to fix this?

A: If the funnel is tilted a little it should still work fine, as long as you can see that the condensation drips directly into the funnel.

If you need to change where the condensation is collecting, you can move the washer or quarter and/or adjust the saran wrap (by taping or re-taping it). You may need to move the washer or quarter so that the condensation collects along one edge, and position this edge over the funnel, as shown in Figure 7 in the project idea.

Without taking apart your setup, you can try adjusting the position and angle of the funnel by moving the part of straw that is between the jug or container and the collection cup, or by moving the collection cup.

The collection cup does not need to sit completely flat to function, but if it is windy and the collection cup is being knocked over, you can tape it to the jug or container.

If the funnel seems too heavy to stay upright, try using a long, thin piece of tape to tape the funnel (on the outside rim) to the inside top edge of the jug or container to keep it upright. If you do this, a little condensation will be lost on the tape, but it will be much better than having a funnel that does not work.

Q: My results are not what I expected them to be. Why might this be?

A: If different amounts of salt water were added to each jug or container at the beginning of the experiment, or the salt water added was a different temperature in each one, this could affect how well the water evaporated in each one. All factors should be the same for each jug or container, except the color of the construction paper. You may also want to make sure that the condensation is dripping directly into the funnel for each setup, and make adjustments to the setup if it is not.

Q: My washer or quarter is bigger than the funnel. Is this a problem?

A: No, you should be able to move the washer or quarter so that the condensation collects right beneath one edge of the washer or quarter. Position this edge over the funnel and watch to make sure that the condensation drips directly into the funnel, as shown in Figure 7 in the project idea. Make further adjustments to the setup if needed.

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Difficulty

Time Required

Average (6-10 days)

Material Availability

Readily available

Safety

This science fair project requires adult help. The boiling sugar solution is extremely hot.

Abstract

Here is a riddle for you: what kind of rock grows? The answer is: rock candy! This delicious candy is actually crystallized sugar and you can "grow" it from a sugar-water solution. In this science fair project you'll learn how to grow your very own rock candy and determine if using seed crystals changes the growth rate of your sugar crystals.

Objective

In this science fair project you will investigate how the presence of seed crystals changes the growth rate of rock candy.

Credits

Sandra Slutz, PhD, Science Buddies

Cite This Page

General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed.

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "When Science is Sweet: Growing Rock Candy Crystals." Science Buddies, 2 Apr. 2018, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/FoodSci_p005/cooking-food-science/growing-rock-candy-crystals. Accessed 17 Oct. 2018.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2018, April 2). When Science is Sweet: Growing Rock Candy Crystals. Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/FoodSci_p005/cooking-food-science/growing-rock-candy-crystals

Last edit date: 2018-04-02

Introduction

Have you ever looked at rock candy and wondered how it's made? Rock candy is actually a collection of large sugar crystals that are "grown" from a sugar-water solution. Sugar, like many other materials, can come in many different physical states. As a solid it can either be amorphous, without shape, like when it forms cotton candy, or crystalline, with a highly ordered structure and shape, like when it forms rock candy crystals.

Crystals form when the smallest particles of a substance, the molecules, arrange themselves in an orderly and repetitive pattern. Molecules are too small for us to see moving around and arranging themselves, but you can get a rough idea of what this would look like by taking a small shallow tray and filling it with marbles, ball bearings, or other spheres. As you add more spheres, the bottom of the tray becomes covered, then the spheres must form layers on top of one another, and a structure or pattern emerges.

So how do the molecules of a substance get together to form a crystal? First there have to be enough molecules in one area that they have a high chance of bumping into one another. This happens when a solution, which is made up of a liquid and the compound that will be crystallized, is saturated. In the rock candy, the liquid is water and the compound is sugar. A solution is saturated when the liquid holds as much of the compound dissolved in it as possible. For example, when making rock candy, you dissolve as much sugar as possible in water to make a saturated solution. If you add more compound than can dissolve in the liquid, the undissolved bits remain as solids in the liquid. In a saturated solution, the molecules bump into one another frequently because there are so many of them. Occasionally when they bump into each other, the molecules end up sticking together; this is the beginning of the crystallization process and is called nucleation. Once several molecules are already stuck together, they actively attract other molecules to join them. This slow process is how the crystal "grows."

Figure 1. This diagram illustrates the large number of molecules in a saturated solution. With so many molecules in the liquid, there is a high chance of them bumping into one another and creating a nucleation event.

In this science fair project you will make a saturated solution of sugar and water in order to grow your own rock candy sugar crystals. You will compare the rate of growth between rock candy that is left to nucleate on its own in the solution, and rock candy that starts off with some assistance. To assist this rock candy, you will jump-start the nucleation process by adding sugar crystals, called seed crystals, to the string first.

Terms and Concepts

Here are some terms you should know, and questions you should think about before starting this science project. Have an adult help you look up these words and concepts.

Amorphous solid

Crystalline solid (also known as crystal)

Molecule

Solution

Compound

Saturated

Nucleation

Seed crystal

Questions

How do you make a saturated solution?

Which holds more sugar: cold water or hot water?

How do crystals grow?

What is nucleation?

Bibliography

Materials and Equipment

This project is customized for jars that hold approximately 14 oz. If your jars are larger you will need to double the amount of water and sugar.

Yarn or cotton string (about 1.5 feet)

Water

Cup

Tablespoon measuring spoon

Small plate

Granulated white sugar (3 cups)

Wax paper

Screws, wooden beads, or other small nontoxic objects to use as weights (2)

Wooden skewers, Popsicle® sticks, or pencils (2)

Marker to write with

Ruler (with centimeter markings)

Tape

Glass jars, make sure they are identical in size and shape (2)

Pot

Stove

Measuring cup (for liquid ingredients)

Measuring cup (for dry ingredients)

Wooden mixing spoon

Pot holders

Paper towel

Lab notebook

Remember Your Display Board Supplies

When Science is Sweet: Growing Rock Candy Crystals

www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/FoodSci_p005/cooking-food-science/growing-rock-candy-crystals

Experimental Procedure

Caution: This science project requires the use of a stove to make a boiling sugar-water solution. Use caution and only do this under the supervision of an adult; the sugar-water solution is extremely hot and can cause a bad burn if spilled.

Day 1

1. To start this science fair project, cut two pieces of yarn. Each piece should be approximately 1 inch longer than the height of the glass jars.

2. Set one of the pieces of string aside and do nothing to it. Soak the other piece of string in a cup of water for 5 minutes.

3. After soaking, use your hand to squeeze the excess water from the string. Roll the string in 1 tablespoon of sugar on a plate. The string will be coated with sugar. These small bits of sugar are the seeds on which other sugar crystals might grow.

4. Lay both your seeded (sugar-coated) string and your non-seeded string on a piece of wax paper overnight. Make sure they are not touching.

Day 2

1. Prepare the strings.

1. Take your seeded string and tie one end to a screw, wooden bead, or other small object that can serve as a weight. It is ok if some of the sugar falls off while you're tying it to the weight. Repeat the process with the non-seeded string and a second weight. Be sure to use the same type of weight for each string.

2. Tie the other end of each piece of string to a skewer, Popsicle stick, or pencil. See Figure 2 below.
Using a marker, color the edges of the skewer that is holding the seeded string. That way you will know later which string had sugar on it. Make sure to write down in your lab notebook the marking of your seeded string skewer in case you forget later.

Figure 2. The string in this photo has been tied to a skewer and weighted down with a screw on the other end. It is ready to be used to make rock candy.

3. Lower the weighted end of the seeded string into one of the jars and rest the skewer across the mouth of the jar. Roll the skewer to wind the string until the weight is suspended approximately 1 centimeter (cm) from the bottom of the jar, which you can measure with your ruler. Tape the string around the skewer so that the length of the string cannot change. Repeat this process for the non-seeded string, then take the skewers and strings out of the jars and set them aside.

2. Preheat the glass jars. This will ensure that you are not adding your hot sugar-water solution to a cold jar, which would result in a dramatic temperature change that might make small crystals form along the glass. The small crystals would disrupt your rock candy formations.

1. Caution: get help from an adult when handling boiling water.

2. Boil enough water to fill both jars.

3. When the water is boiling, carefully pour it into the jars. You might want to use a funnel to avoid spilling too much water.

4. Let the full jars sit, with the hot water in them, until your sugar-water solution is ready.

3. Make the sugar-water solution.

1. Using a liquid measuring cup, add 1 cup of water to a pot. Bring the water to a rolling boil on the stove. Turn the heat down to low. Note: if you are using jars that are larger than 14 oz, heat 2 cups of water.

2. Using a dry measuring cup, add 2 cups of sugar to the hot water. Note: if you are using jars that are larger than 14 oz, add 4 cups of sugar.

3. Mix with a wooden mixing spoon until all the sugar has dissolved.

4. Turn the heat back up and wait until the sugar-water solution returns to a rolling boil. Make sure to keep stirring so the temperature is consistent throughout the solution.

5. Remove the boiling sugar-water solution from the stove.

6. Continue to add sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. Stir thoroughly after each added spoonful, making sure that the sugar is completely dissolved before adding another spoonful. Note: do not confuse the tiny little bubbles in the solution for undissolved sugar. You can tell them apart by stopping your stirring for a moment; the sugar will settle to the bottom of the pan, the bubbles will remain suspended throughout the solution.

7. Keep adding sugar until no more will dissolve in the solution. If you think you've added too much sugar to your solution, don't worry. Keep stirring and if even after a full 2 minutes of stirring, you have undissolved sugar at the bottom of your pot, return the pot to the stove. Heat the solution until it just begins to boil, then remove it from the stove. This should help you to get that last bit of sugar into the solution.

4. After the last bit of sugar has been dissolved, allow the solution to cool for 5 minutes.

5. Pour the hot water out of the preheated glass jars. Caution: the jars will be hot, so use oven mitts or pot holders to handle them.

6. After the sugar-water solution has cooled for 5 minutes, pour the solution into the two preheated glass jars, dividing the liquid equally between the two containers. Caution: Be extremely careful when pouring the sugar-water solution; it is hot and will burn if spilled on your skin.

7. Using pot holders, move the jars of sugar-water solution to a place where they can be left undisturbed for one week. Place both jars in the same location. Large fluctuations in temperature can interfere with the crystallization process, so avoid putting the jars in places that get direct sunlight, or are near a heating or cooling vent.

8. Gently lower the weighted strings into the jars of sugar-water solution, one string per jar.

9. Securely tape the skewers holding the strings to the edges of the jars to prevent the strings from being accidentally jostled. See Figure 3 below.

Figure 3. When the experiment is all set up, your rock candy growing jars should look like the one pictured here.

10. Loosely cover the jars with a paper towel to prevent dust and debris from flying in, while still allowing evaporation to occur.

Observations and Measurements

1. Look at your jars once a day. What do you see? Are there any crystals growing? Where are the crystals? Which string has more crystals: the one that was or wasn't seeded? Make a data table, like the one below, in your lab notebook and record your observations every day. While you actually prepared your strings on the "Day 1" step above, for the purposes of the experiment, Day 1 in your data table will be the day you made your solution and began running the experiment.

2. Make observations of your sugar-water solution jars for one week. On the seventh day, remove the strings from the jars and take measurements of your rock candy crystals.

1. If there is a layer of hardened sugar syrup coating the top of your jar, you can use a spoon to gently break that layer before pulling out your sugar crystals.

2. Briefly rinse the rock candy crystals in cold water, then leave them on a paper towel for 30 minutes to dry.

3. Using a ruler, measure the length of the rock candy, and the width at the widest point. Record your measurements in a data table, like the one below, in your lab notebook. Did seeding make a difference in the size of the rock candy that you grew?

3. Once you've recorded all your measurements and observations, you can enjoy all your hard labor by eating the rock candy you grew!

If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:

Variations

How big can your rock candy grow? This will take a little more patience, but instead of stopping your experiment at Day 7, keep going! Do the crystals continue to grow? For how long?

Is there any difference between starting with one large seed crystal versus many small seed crystals? Design an experiment to find out. Hint: you can find directions on how to make a single large seed crystal at this website: http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/a/seedcrystal.htm.

Cold water holds less dissolved sugar than hot water. What happens to the rate of crystallization if you rapidly cool your sugar-water solution? Do crystals form? Design an experiment to compare the size and structure of sugar crystals formed by rapid versus slow cooling.

Try making crystals from other substances. You'll need to do a little reading and experimenting on your own to figure out which substances might make crystals. Hint: Try starting with materials you already know come as mini crystals, such as salt.

Try enhancing your rock candy by adding a few drops of food coloring or flavoring (vanilla, mint, etc.) to your sugar water solution in step 2. Will you end up with colorful or flavorful candy, or do you think the additives will evaporate away with the water?

Want to learn more about crystals and try your hand at growing the best and biggest crystals around? See "Crazy Crystal Creations: How to Grow the Best and Largest Crystals."

Try growing crystals from another kind of sugary solution-maple syrup! Check out "Maple Syrup: For Pancakes, Waffles and...Crystal Candy?"

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When Science is Sweet: Growing Rock Candy Crystals

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Please ensure you have JavaScript enabled in your browser. If you leave JavaScript disabled, you will only access a portion of the content we are providing. Here's how. Difficulty Time Required Average (6-10 days) Material Availability Readily available Safety This science fair project requires adult help. The boiling sugar solution is extremely hot.