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.
