Did you know that sand can be converted into a mixture of gases that spontaneously ignites in air? The procedures involved are relatively simple to perform, spectacular to observe, and relate to a rich assortment of chemical principles.
Inspired by a recent article in the Journal of Chemical Education, Tom Kuntzleman attempted to extract lithium from a coin battery, and to use the extracted lithium to produce a pink flame.
Check out the solution to Chemical Mystery #18: Peek A Boo Blue!
Allowing students to confront the failure of a model and then helping them construct a new or slightly modified model to account for new observations is at the heart of the process of science. Ben Meacham shares one approach that can be deployed with a variation of depth, making it attainable for anyone learning about chemistry.
Beautiful, metallic mirrors of copper or silver can easily be formed in test tubes. Simply add the appropriate metal salt to a test tube, and heat! These reactions should be performed in a fume hood.
This post describes a simple way to generate blue, green, orange, and yellow copper complexes, and to use these complexes to introduce students to the effect of temperature on chemical equilibria. The protcol avoids the use of caustic agents, allowing the experiments to be conducted by students as a laboratory-based investigation.
Per label, 39 grams of table sugar (sucrose) are in a 12fl.oz. can of a Red Bull beverage. Visually, how much is 39 grams of anything? Check it out in this post.
Learn how to give pennies a beautiful, silvery-colored plating.
Learn how to thermochemically analyze the Devil's Milkshake chemical demonstration - just in time for Halloween!
Liquid nitrogen is used to visualize the aerosol particles emitted while speaking, coughing, breathing, and sneezing. The ability of various masks to block these droplets was also tested.
