52/54 Vanishing Peanuts

Didn’t you just love sticking your arm in the box full of packing peanuts when you were a kid? I did! But I think I just found a new way to enjoy the existence of packing peanuts!! I had two bowls full of water and two kinds of packing peanuts- Styrofoam and starch-based. I took a hand full of the Styrofoam and set it in the water.

 

After I had push and pinched the pieces.. nothing exciting happened. So I moved on to the starch-based packing peanuts and did the same thing but this time was different- it seemed that these corn-made packing peanuts started to break down.

With further peanut dipping, they turned into this green, gooey shlump (yes, shlump).

Ok, so obviously we can break down these starch-based peanuts with water. But what about Styrofoam?

That’s where this experiment turns into the “Super Secret Teachers Only” section. One ingredient- Acetone.

With gloves, I carefully poured a small amount of acetone into my beaker. Then I threw in a handful of Styrofoam!

 

I literally threw in a handful of peanuts in the beaker and it was gone within seconds!! It bubbled and fizzed like it was in a movie. But I could not stop there, I cut a strip of insulation and…..

 

This is all on one little amount of acetone!! It was like it was bigger on the inside!!

What was really happening was the acetone was breaking down the elements in the Styrofoam into its original polystyrene form of the polymer.  More companies these days are turning to the starch-based peanuts because they break down in water so they are more environmentally friendly.

WOW-rating is a 7! I really enjoyed it. And I remembered something very annoying about packing peanuts…….

Static electricity.

Guys we are a mere 2 experiments away from finishing!! This is crazy but we will have so much fun finishing up.

 

 

 

51/54 Exploding Toothpaste- Adult Version!

Remember the last experiment where we used a very low concentration of hydrogen peroxide to make that fun bubbly reaction? We will be doing the same thing with this experiment but we are going to use a different catalyst and the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide is 9 times the concentration compared to the last experiment!

As a reminder, I am doing this experiment with the supervision of my mom. She used to be a bio chemist and knows how to deal with dangerous chemicals. This concentration of hydrogen peroxide is very caustic and will burn. Please DO NOT attempt this.

I carefully made a saturated solution of our catalyst. If you don’t remember what a catalyst is, it is a chemical that speeds up the reaction of another chemical. In this instance, the catalyst speeds up the reaction of the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide into hydrogen and oxygen.

 

A saturated solution is when you mix something like salt into water and keep adding salt until the water can no longer dissolve the salt crystals. Then you have a saturated solution of salt.

Then I needed to measure out the amount of the hydrogen peroxide into a large graduated cylinder. I had to be extra careful not to spill.

Then I made a mixture of the hydrogen peroxide, some food coloring, and some soap! I gave it a good swirl and we are ready to go!

 

Then I was ready to head outside! I thought it would be best to do it in our rock area so it wouldn’t do anything funny with the grass and easy to wash with a hose.

After I planted the cylinder in the rocks, it turns out you only need about a tablespoon of the catalyst for the reaction. So here we go! I have been waiting to do this experiment for years and I am finally going to do it!

Whoopie-doo! Look at that blue eruption!

The science behind this experiment is the same thing as the previous, its just in bigger proportions! This reaction was actually so warm (see previous post) that is was steaming!

The bubbles, however, are still not quite safe to touch because there could still be some hydrogen peroxide left over that we do not want to come in contact with.

This was foam-tastic! let’s give it a WOW-rating of 8! I would definitely love this forever!

50/54 Kid-Friendly Exploding Toothpaste

Here we enter into the really big (and dangerous) experiments of the chapter “The Super Secret Teachers Only Section”. As a reminder, do NOT do these experiments. During this chapter, I will not name all of the materials for safety reasons. My mother is behind the camera supervising me the whole time.

This one I did at my 13th birthday party with my good friends (because its kid-friendly). Take a look at the picture for a moment.

This is a 1-liter bottle and the solution at the bottom has red food coloring, a couple squirts of dish soap, and a very low concentration of hydrogen peroxide. I made this solution using gloves because hydrogen peroxide is very caustic. I have a little bit lower concentration then the experiment called for. So low, it’s safe to touch, but I STILL used gloves for safety.

The next step is to make my catalyst. I put my catalyst in some warm water and mixed it well.

 

  After it was thoroughly dissolved, I poured the catalyst in the solution in my bottle. Let’s see what amazing reaction took place!

 It took a second to happen but once it did……

 

Look at that bubbly volcano of AWESOMENESS!!!

Really cool looking right??

But what is happening? Well, the hydrogen peroxide is made of hydrogen and oxygen, H2O2. Hydrogen Peroxide naturally breaks down into hydrogen and oxygen, but this breakdown of the chemical is VERY slow. Do you know what a catalyst is? It is a chemical that speeds up the reaction of another chemical. So when we added the catalyst, it sped up the breakdown of the hydrogen and oxygen molecules significantly. Thus, the gas that was being rapidly produced was captured by the soap, making tons of tiny bubbles that ended up as a colorful soapy reaction. All that is in those bubbles is oxygen, so (for this low of a concentration of H2O2) it is safe to touch.

Do you see that I am touching the bottle in that last picture? It is because it’s warm! Not only does the reaction produce a bunch of gas, it also produces a lot of energy. This is an exothermic reaction!

This was fun wasn’t it? The WOW-rating was an 7 1/2! I would do this over and over!!

This was the “Kid-friendly” version of exploding toothpaste. Next time we will explore this experiment again but the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide will be 9 TIMES the concentration of this one!

Stay tuned!!

A Word About the Next Chapter

The next chapter should be an adventure. BUT it IS entitled “Super Secret Teachers Only Section” for a reason. These next experiments are dangerous and not for kids. I have SPECIAL permission from my parents to do these experiments and we are going to take every safety precaution along the way.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to do these next experiments (or any other experiments for that matter) without safe instructions and permission.

As a side note, I will not be doing the experiments in this chapter in order. I will be doing them in the order in which I have the materials available.

These are going to be the last experiments of our adventure (sad, I know!) so lets enjoy it safely!

Now, let’s do some more science!

49/54 Floating Bowling Balls

You are probably looking at this title and thinking, “What?”

It’s ok, that’s what I thought too! But you and I both should know by now that these books have made us do a lot of weird things! This should be no different…. or will it?

I filled up my container full of water. Nothing special about it, just good, fresh water. I have two bowling balls, the blue one is 16 pounds and the red one is 7 pounds. The blue one belongs to my dad so we had it on hand. The red one, however, I got from a bowling center. They were throwing it away because it has this big crack!

I just asked them if they had a bowling balls under 12 pounds (you’ll find out why that is important in a little while) that they were throwing away and the kind lady set this beauty in front of me. Because I will be putting this in the water, I covered the crack with a piece of duck tape so that it would not affect my results.

To start the experiment, I carefully set the 16 pound bowling ball into the bucket of water…… Guesses?

You got it…….

Straight to the bottom.

No surprise, right?

I, then, followed the instructions and set the 7 pound ball into the water.

Wait, did you see that right?

 

Yes, You did! That ball of 7 pounds is floating in water!

How can this be? Well, if you did not know this already, bowling balls have a standard size but they have different weights. How? One word, density. The 7 pound ball is less dense than the water, thus it floats. The 16 pound ball is more dense than the water so it sinks. 12 pounds is kind of the tipping point. Anything greater will sink and anything less will float. 12 pounds, according to the book, will barely float in the water because it is barely less dense than the water. There are some calculations that you could do to measure the exact density of the ball. Pretty cool, huh?

The WOW-rating for this one is a 5. I would love to do this again with various weights of bowling balls but unfortunately I do not have that luxury!

I would like to thank the Isleta Fun Center for proving the red bowling ball for me!

That ends our last experiment in the chapter, “Must-See Science” and on to the big chapter….. “The Super-Secret Teachers-Only Section”!! 

48/54 Skewer Through A Balloon

Another balloon experiment!

This one is fun! Have you ever noticed that dark spot on the top of the balloon when you blow it up? That’s going to be very important here in a minute. I take a bamboo skewer and I cover it with dawn soap, I am using it as a lubricant.

Being very gentle with a twisting motion, I pushed the pointy end of the skewer into that dark spot of the balloon.

 

It was so funny seeing my mom taking pictures and trying to cover her ears at the same time!

Just as I thought the balloon would pop, the skewer punctured through and the balloon was still intact!

Pretty cool, right? But we are not done yet! Now it is time to push the skewer straight across through the other side. Because the side were you tie off the balloon is dark as well.

Here we go…

Then………

Voila!! That balloon has been impaled and is alive!!!

It wont be for long though.

Small amounts of air was escaping, but it won’t pop.

The reason the dark spot is so important is because those two areas is where there is the least stress on the balloon. But if we tried to do this through the middle of the balloon, it will surely pop! Do you want to see the stress areas on the balloon more closely? Try this! Take a marker and put dots all over the balloon then blow it up with air! See what happens.

As I said, you cant put the skewer through the middle, but lets try this! I put a piece of tape on another balloon, but I put it right on the side.

Then, I took a thumb tack and…..

HA HA! I was so happy when it worked. I was honestly really frightened by that second part with the tack, I had never done it before and I really wasn’t sure if it was going to work. But how did it work? I am not completely sure myself but here is my guess. When you pop a balloon by puncturing it, it shreds from the point you hit. Now the tape holds the hole together and the balloon does not shred via popping. Do you have any hypotheses?

The WOW-rating for this one is a 6. I had a lot of fun!