My expert chemistry team and I mixed the following:
Calcium Chloride: 3.69 g
Marble Chips: 2.11 g
Iron Shavings: 6.28 g
Sugar: 12.20 g
Watching the other team separate them: Priceless
Yeah, yeah, it was a cheap joke but lists are just so droney and the priceless gag always breaks the tedium.
But I digress, after we switched beakers with another team the first thing we observed about our beaker was the calcium chloride sitting on top. So, we grabbed a screen and sifted the calcium chloride out of the iron and sugar. The amount of calcium chloride we measured for the other team was 8.82g. They measured 8.84 so it was accurate.
The sugar and iron was a bit trickier. We tried running a magnet through the mixture but the sugar stayed stuck to the iron. So we measured the sugar and iron together and came up with 14.17g. After we took our measurements we mixed the sugar and iron in water until the sugar was completely dissolved and sent the mix through a filter in a funnel over a flask in order to isolate the iron filings. We measured the iron at 9.11g and subtracted the measurements to find that the sugar was at 3.09g. The other team's measurements for their sugar was 3.11g, close enough. But, the measurement for the iron fillings was 4.51g, which is pretty far from 9.11g. But, I'm pretty sure that my impatience is what skewed the measurement. I didn't wait until the iron was completely dry to measure it so there was quite a bit of water still stuck in-between the filings.
All in all, the lab was really interesting. Using the physical properties of the different elements inside the mixtures to separate them was a fun experiment. Because calcium carbonate was much larger than the iron and sugar we were able to simply filter it out. Sugar stuck to iron but it also dissolves in water, which is the best way to separate it from the iron filings. Having even a basic knowledge of the physical properties of different substances is all it really takes to separate a mixture.
PART 2
Chromatography!
The colors were so pretty...
The chromatography experiment showed us the physical properties of colors. What were the colors made of? How could we tell?
For this lab we used a sheet of filter paper, markers, paper towels, and petri dishes.
First, you take the markers and scribble whatever you like on the filter paper. Then, you pierce a hole in the filter paper and shove a rolled up piece of paper towel through the hole.
Cover the bottom of the petri dish with a bit of water and place the filter paper with its paper towel 'wick' over the petri dish so the end of the paper towel is touching the water.
Then the waiting......
........
Oh look the water has spread through the paper!
The water traveled up through the wick provided by the paper towel and spread through the filter paper, taking the different parts of the ink with it. The permanent marker stayed but the other types of markers were separated into different sections, with the yellow colors closer to the center because the particles are heavier or bigger, and the smaller, lighter blue particles are taken all the way out to the edge by the water.
These labs were very interesting and a lot of fun. Not as much fun as blowing stuff up, but that comes later I'm sure.
