Chem Blog Week 16/17

When I came back to school the class was talking about mixtures, compounds, and elements, how they were different and how they relate to each other. While I was behind a week I had some understanding of the concepts. When I was sick, I checked up on Google Drive an experiment the rest of the class did last week. It involved having to separate different materials from each other using different tactics of removal. The mixture of these materials is just that a mixture:  a group of matter that is physically combined. While a compound is chemically combined. I also found a worksheet that they did in class. It had particle diagrams that had different looking figures in each box. One showed one element combined to a different element and then another one with a different element but not combined. The top picture showed two elements in a substance not chemically bonded. I found out this is a mixture because the elements have still retained their physical properties, and as a result, they haven't changed. The bottom picture showed two different elements chemically combined together. Therefore, this is a compound because their properties have changed as they have formed a new substance. This week we did another separation but it was the separation of a compound: Pepsi. Mr. Abud told us to break up into teams so we could plan out and find information that would contribute to the process of separation. My table along with another tables did research on the ingredients of Pepsi which include high fructose corn syrup, sugar, dyes, and of course water. When we found out the ingredients the other groups were working on the distillation of the compound. When this was done we were asked to find the volume of the water.  Because we distilled the water all we had to do was measure it.  But I still questioned if we got all of the water because ingredients left still looked watery because I would think that what was left behind would have been a darker and thicker substance. But we ran out of time in class to find out if I was right.   While I was gone a week I was able to catch up with the class pretty quickly. I felt like I was talking and answering questions more than a lot of  the kids in class were.  When I came back I was also able to help my friends on past subjects and then they helped me on what I missed. However , I am still slightly behind on some of the things they studied while I was gone. Hopefully this does effect on how I do on the midterm. But thanks to Google drive I am not too behind.

Chem Blog Week 15

This week I along with my group formed a soap company with our self- made soap!

For this project, we were told that we were going to make soap and would have to present it as an actual company with company name, packaging, and a business card. We also had to make an Evernote presentation on our process in creating our soap along with information pertaining to the questions asked in the rubric. There are two ways of making soap that we talked about, mixing a fat base like coco butter or olive oil with lye or the melt and pour ,method using a soap base and melting it along with adding essential oils, dye, and a scent. Mr. Abud said that we will be using the melt and pour method because when using lye it is necessary to have more ventilation. He also recommended that we buy additional supplies like molds, packaging, special ingredients and soap bases.

A few days later we were ready to make our soap. I brought my group Chinese takeout boxes which were all decorated for the holidays to create a type of theme. I also brought plastic wrap for the soap so the bars could stay neat in the boxes. Everyone came into class excited and ready to work on their soaps. It was pretty entertaining see the entire class go into attack mode to get the best supplies Mr. Abud brought with him! When we all had our supplies we began to work. We started by dividing our soap base up into four parts for each person. We then melted ¼ of the base but I noticed that it was going very slowly so  conjured up the idea of cutting the base into smaller pieces to quicken the melting process. We then cut the cubes smaller and that really helped the base melt faster. We found that the melting point of our base was about 80 degrees and it took it a few minutes for it to completely dissolve into its liquid form. We were told that when melting the soap that we should be careful  of not boiling the soap base because it would mess up the following processes. When it melted we then added the essential oils and he the dyes and the poured the mixture into the molds.

The next day they were ready to take the soaps out of their molds and put them into their packages. We then later on had to show our presentations to the class. Our presentation had a good layout, great explanation, and an awesome logo edited by yours truly! We were able to answer all of the questions given by Mr. Abud thoroughly.  

I had a lot of fun with this project because I was able to practice my team work skills. I am the type of person who likes to work alone because I have had experiences with people not doing their part in the assignment. But also working by myself I do not have debate with decisions that need to be made. However, this project went fine teamwork wise but I wish we were more prepared and connected but overall it was great!

Chem Blog Week 14

This week, we learned more about energy, particle arrangement and particle motion.

I also learned about Heat of Vaporization and Heat of Fusion. Heat of Vaporization is the amount of energy that is required to convert a unit mass of a liquid into the vapor without a change in temperature. Heat of Vaporization occurs in state changes of liquid to gas and vice versa: (Vaporization) or (Condensation). Heat of Fusion is the amount of energy that is required to convert a unit mass of a solid into the liquid without a change in temperature. Heat of Fusion occurs in state changes of solid to liquid and vice versa: (Melting) or (Freezing).

We spoke more about solid, liquid and gas. We used water the most as an example. The states of water are very different not only because of their physical states but because of the attraction of their particles. Solid has stronger attraction between particles because the particles in a solid have the least amount of energy so the particles are closer together. It’s like a spring being pulled apart. It takes more energy to hold on to the ends of the spring when the spring is stretched. The same thing applies with the movement of particles. In a solid,  particles have strong attractions and move the least because there isn't enough energy to change the arrangement of particles. In a gas, the particles barely bump into each because they are farthest apart. The particles in a gas have the most amount of energy because it takes a higher amount of energy to separate the particles and make them move faster.

When physical states of substances change, this is because the attractions between the particles must be overcome in a solid to change to a liquid or gas (Eph). Just because the arrangement of particles changes, it doesn't mean that the motion of particles has changed. They could still move at the same rate (Eth). This is what Mr. Abud was saying about water  on the T-shirt if it evaporated. The state of the water changed from liquid to gas, but the temperature of the water couldn't have change because if it were at the boiling point (100ºC), it would be pretty noticeable to the person wearing the shirt! While the Eth did not increase the Eph did because the water turned from a liquid to a gas.

Therefore, a solid has the most orderly arrangement of particles and the lowest amount of energy as well as motion of particles. The liquid has the second most fluid arrangement of particles, meaning they move freely about but not as rapidly as gas particles. Thus, liquid is more structured than a gas and has less energy. Gas has the most amount of energy with the particles being the farthest apart with the least attraction. Thus, the distance between the particles and the attraction between them has an inverse relationship much like volume and density.

This week was pretty great because I got all 4’s and one 3 on my assessment! I was so excited and proud of myself and I was able to tutor some people this week for the reassessment next week. I’m glad that Christmas break is almost here so I can somewhat relax but I don’t think that will happen…

Chem Blog Week 13

This week, I learned about energy transfer through the three states of matter, and I learned about ETh and EPh.

 Eph is the energy transferred when a state of matter is changed. When a substance changes state from liquid to gas, the particles of gas are arranged even more freely and are spread out the most. So, if a solid changed to a liquid, there would be more phase energy because the arrangement of the particles is farther apart than that of a solid. So when you think about state changes think about phase energy.Eth is associated with temperature changes and the movement of particles. The increase of Eth means that the speed of the particles is more fluid and that the temperature is higher . To change the motion and speed of the particles, the amount of energy changes the attraction between the particles. If the particles have a weak attraction, then the particles will move faster, and if they have a strong attraction, then they will move slower. Thus, in a liquid, the particles of a liquid have a weak attraction since they are not closely together. In contrast, a solid has the strongest attraction between the particles since they are the closest together. A gas has the weakest attraction because the particles are the farthest together.

We also did an experiment to find the specific heat of copper. This week, my group and I had to come up with a procedure before we started. First, we had to measure the mass of the copper, then the water's mass, then, the temperature change of copper after putting it in water and the temperature change of water . This also included us to find the original temperature by looking at a graph of different metal colors depending on their temperature.  Then, I set the specific heat formula of water to the specific heat formula of copper equal to each other to figure out the specific heat (c) with E=mcΔT formula for both. Since the volume of water was 150 ml, and the density of water is 1g/ml, its mass was 150 g, the temperature change was 12.5ºC, and the specific heat is 4.18J/gºC. With the copper, the mass was 39.5 g, and its temperature change was around 480ºC. When we found our specific heat , all the other groups  compared and averaged them all out. However we found the actual measurement of specific heat wasn’t really close to our results!

This week was pretty easy. I understood all of the concepts and I really enjoyed doing the experiment with the copper. I learned that when doing an experiment like this one it is essential to pay attention to the directions and not to rush, if not it could skew the results and someone could be injured due to carelessness. While I still don’t have a computer these weekly blogs still help me remember the things I learned. Hopefully I will have it back soon, but writing them down still does the job!

 

Chem Blog Week 11

In this blog I will be talking about my experience of making my thermos!

We were assigned by Mr. Abud to make a thermos that would be able to hold a Styrofoam cup and to maintain the same temperature of water (or at least as close to the original temperature) as possible.

The Design

 

When planning out my thermos design I knew that it needed 1 thing: insulation. I then looked up materials that would be the best to insulate liquids. The main material was foam. I then looked up the construction methods of different types of thermoses. The ideal design was a vacuumed container with a reflective inside. I knew that I would have to make a vacuum but I didn’t know what to use. I needed something that would be able to take out as much air form in between the two containers as much as possible then my dad told me about expanding foam. With expanding foam you are able to spray the substance where you want it and then it will expand taking up all of the space in between. I then used aluminum foil for the inside container. While it is metal, the aluminum reflects not allowing energy escape the thermos. The containers I started were tin cans but found out that metal was a conductor and would make the water become cooler. I then found a different inner container but I wasn’t able to find a big enough outer container so I used the can I already had. But what I changed was that I “painted” the inside of the can with the spray foam to make it better insulated. I also found shiny house insulation with bubble wrap inside to wrap the inner and outer containers in before spraying the inside. I made a cap for the thermos with a Styrofoam circle and aluminum foil putting a hole for the thermometer. I then made a “hat” for my thermos for more lining with the same insulation putting a small cut at the top for the thermometer.  My motto was “when in doubt, spray foam” during that time and it worked wonders!

                                       The Test    

        The day of the testing was a day to remember. Everyone came to class with their thermoses and no one's looked the same. But most to all of the thermoses had styrofoam and aluminum foil included in their designs. For testing, everyone had to heat up their water to 80 degrees celsius and then we poured in our styrofoam cups then place it in our thermoses. We checked the temperature of the water every minute writing down its changes in temperature. When I began, I made the mistake of not having a hole for the thermometer. This lead to me to putting a hole in the bottome of the cup and having to continually take te top on and off to check the temperature making the water lose more energy than it should. Thankfully Mr. Abud counted that day as a practice day so we could improve our thermos designs. What I changed is that the top of my thermos had a slit at the top to insert the thermos. The next day we tested out thermoses and my new designed while being a simple change worked out perfectly. I only lost about 3 degrees from my water and I got the highest percentage in my class! 
It was fun creating the thermos and I can't wait for our next project.