hey Squints! Dr Squishball: asks what are
some chemical reactions to do at home? to
answer that I wanted to take a look at
five different chemical reactions that
you can do with stuff you probably have
laying around the house and I brought in
some squints to help me out. these
reactions should be done with proper
safety and adult supervision... I'm an
adult. in this first reaction place a raw
egg in a jar full of vinegar and wait at
least one day... it's a slow reaction. this
is a classic acid-base reaction where an
acid (in this case vinegar) reacts with a
base (in this case calcium carbonate or the
shell of the egg). acids are molecules
that give up a proton, a base grabs that
proton. in this experiment the vinegar is
giving protons to the egg shell which is
made from the base forming carbon
dioxide which makes the air bubble
around the egg. this reaction is slowly
"eating away" molecules from the egg shell
and eventually the shell gets so thin
that it's basically gone. so eggs
are usually hard yeah? but this is not
hard huh? it's squishy right?
here I have nail polish remover.
do you wear nail polish? no, girls!
girls do. in this demonstration we use
nail polish remover chemically known as
acetone which is good at dissolving
certain materials. it's kind of like how
water is good at dissolving sugar making
the sugar seem to disappear. acetone is
especially good at dissolving styrofoam,
so good in fact that you can make an
entire block of it seem to disappear
just by touching the two together.
really the acetone dissolves the
styrofoam making it seem to disappear
which releases all the trapped air in
the styrofoam. and now it's all gone! have
you ever had cabbage? it's a vegetable
and I don't think it tastes very good but I'm
sure it's healthy for you. when we talk
about the pH of something we are saying
how strong of an acid or base something
is. but you can test the pH of liquids in
your house with glorious red cabbage
juice. side note this has to be the only
good use of red cabbage... all you do is
boil red cabbage until the water starts
turning a dark bluish purple. this color
means the liquid is a neutral pH meaning
it isn't an acid or a base it's in
between. that's because all that is in
the cup right now is red cabbage and
water, water is neutral. if the juice
turns red when you add something,
whatever you added was an acid. if it
turns green or yellow that thing
was a base. add any liquid you want to
some of the juice, liquids with little
coloring work best. as we already
mentioned vinegar is an acid, if you add
vinegar the juice turns a red color.
cleaners are usually a base so oven
cleaner has a strong base in it and
it'll turn the juice green. acids are
sour to the taste so when we add some
sour lime juice we see that it is an
acid.
try it out and find out what things in
your kitchen or acids or bases. elephant
toothpaste is a classic chemical
reaction, a household version of it uses
yeast. remember yeast is a living thing
it's a fungus. you can wake up the
sleeping critters with three tablespoons
of warm water and let them feed on half
a cup of hydrogen peroxide. as the yeast
eats the hydrogen peroxide molecules it
breaks them up, creating oxygen gas and
water. by adding soap the oxygen
gas gets trapped in the soap creating
soapy foaming bubbles that spew out of
the bottle. the last reaction deals with
fire and lighter fluid
so you definitely need some adult help. get
some sand and douse it in lighter fluid
make a pile of sugar and baking soda in
the middle and light it on fire. slowly a
carbon snake should rise from the sand...
or carbon larvae depending on the day.
there are several reactions happening
here but the main one is how the sugar
reacts with oxygen in the air and the
fire to break apart into pure carbon
atoms and water. the snake itself is
mostly made from the carbon atoms
similar to what pencil lead is made out
of. so try these reactions out for
yourself, keep asking questions, and keep
on squinting!
