Doing experiments in chemistry can be fun and exciting. Many students enjoy doing chemistry experiments. They get to do their own observations. Amazingly, there are a lot of things that you can learn from doing different experiments. You will be able to understand what happens to things when the experiments are done right and what will happen if the experiment is done wrong. There is the common and basic experiments that they teach students to understand what happens when elements or chemicals are mixed together. Here are the most common chemistry experiments done in schools and in O level chemistry tuition.
Briggs-Rauscher Reaction
Briggs-Rauscher reaction is the most common experiment in combining chemicals. You will be able to see the different chemical reactions and you can tell time using his experiment. The chemical reaction is also known as chemical clocks.
Diet Coke And Mentos
This experiment is very popular with kids that it has even been turned into an urban legend of some kind. Stephen Volts and Fritz Grove did the first Diet Coke and Mentos experiment. They added the Mentos candy to a bottle of Diet Coke and soon after, a volcano explosion of Diet Coke occurred. The Diet Coke solution exploded into the air through the top of the bottle. Many people have been warned not to drink Diet Coke after eating a Mentos candy because it can be harmful. Chemistry has explained what happened to the Diet Coke and Mentos after they are combined together, which is a process called nucleation. Mentos, when added to the Diet Coke solution causes the carbon dioxide of the coke to break free. The Mentos candy created a disturbance to the components of the Diet Coke solution causing this to happen.
Elephant Toothpaste
Can you imagine how enormous an elephant is and how much toothpaste it would need to clean its teeth? Elephants don’t actually brush their teeth but this experiment is named elephant toothpaste because of how enormous the experiment can become. By combining sodium peroxide, potassium iodide and dish soap you will be creating a gigantic solution looking like an elephant toothpaste.
Grape Plasma
This experiment is commonly explained and shown to class through a video since it is cool but dangerous for the microwave. The experiment will destroy the microwave literally, plus you might burn your place down. When grape placed inside a microwave, it creates plasma. Using the microwave, it is easy to create aplasmoid. Biological cells will be created through a grape and the plasmoid is created from a match flame that dances around the microwave. In sulfur lamps, this process is also used.
Burning Salts
Have you seen different colors of fire? Through the burning salts experiment, you will. By combining barium chloride, lithium, sodium, potassium, alcohol, boron,strontium and salt, you will be able to create fire of different colors.
Magnesium In Dry Ice
The basic principle that fire needs oxygen to keep burning is true, that is why fire extinguisherswere created to suppress the oxygen from the fire to stop it from burning. However, when you use shavings of magnesium and burn it in the inside of dry ice or what they called solid carbon dioxide, it will keep on burning even without the oxygen. In this experiment, it is important that you use magnesium since it will explode when you use magnesium powder.
Ferrofluid
A mixture of colloidal nanoscale magnetic particles will react to a magnetic field when mixed with a solvent. The reaction will create an awesome reaction called Morpho Towers which was done by Sachiko Kodama.
Mercury Beating Heart
In this experiment, the mercury will appear like a beating heart. In a solution of sulfuric acid and potassium, a drop of mercury is added to create this effect.
These experiments are used to explain the basics of chemistry. This is to encourage the students to understand simple things around them and why they happen. These are done in O level chemistry tuition and in school classes to help students understand chemistry better.