Tag: experiments

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Slimes and States of Matter

How to make Slime in Three Steps (and states of matter)

I’ll show you how to make slime in the easiest way. It’s going to be messy but it’s worth to try.

Things you’ll need: Borax, water, a spoon, school glue, and two cups.

  1. Add one teaspoon of borax to 75ml of water into the cup and stir until all of the borax is dissolved. Add a few drops of food coloring if you like.
  2. Pour one teaspoon of water and one teaspoon of school glue. Use the spoon to mix the water and glue.
  3. Add about 30 drops of the solution from step 1. and stir. If necessary, add a few more drops of the solution and stir until all of the glue and water is thick and not sticky.20170521_093721

Your slime is very similar to “Silly Putty” or  “GAK”. Silly Putty was accidently created 50 years ago by an engineer trying to develop a  synthetic rubber from silicone oil and boric acid (a chemical relative to borax).

When you added the borax solution to the glue mixture, you could see how they came together to form a glob. The borax solution links or bonds parts of the glue together into tiny structures that are atomic or molecular nets that can trap and hold water.

A solid, such as ice, is rigid or stiff and has a definite shape and volume. The parts are held together, and cannot move past one another. But, if ice is melted, it forms liquid water. A liquid has a definite amount of space or volume, but its parts can move easily and a liquid will flow and take the shape of its container.

The slime is a substance between a solid and a liquid like clay. They call that oobleck. If you pull the slime apart very quickly, it will break like a stick which is a solid. But you can put the slime back together again because the parts can flow like a liquid.

To learn more about slimes and gels go and buy this kit at Amazon.com.41mRyuITCsL

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Invisible ink

Invisible ink

We know that phenolphthalein will turn pink if you drip 2-3 drops into a chemical that is base. That gave me an idea of how to make invisible ink.

Things you’ll need: phenolphthalein solution, white paper, Q-tip, and ammonia-based glass cleaner (like Windex)

  1. Put a few drops of phenolphthalein onto a Q-tip. Use the Q-tip as your pen to write a simple message (like “hello”).
  2. Let the paper dry. You cannot see the message.
  3. Once the paper is dry, spray it with a few squirts of glass cleaner. The message will appear again in purple.20170519_165110

Phenolphthalein is a PH indicator that is pink in the presence of bases. Since the window cleaner is a base, it reacted with your phenolphthalein writing to change color and appear visible. Look at this picture below.

 

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In the first test tube is vinegar. In the second test tube is water. In the last test tube is borax. Each test tube has 2 drops of phenolphthalein.