Silk and the Samurai Sword

Silk and the Samurai Sword both have gone through chemical changes to be created.

Silk has gone through a chemical change in which water turns into protein fiber. Silk solution is set at room temperature and lets protein fibers assemble. The solution is then boiled and the fibers are detached while the water evaporates. Which creates silk.



The Samurai Sword goes through a chemical change by mixing iron and charcoal to make steel. This happens when iron and charcoal are heated together. After steel is made and heated, it is separated into two groups; low carbon and high carbon, Low carbon allows shock absorption, and high carbon is used for the edge of the sword. A blacksmith will shape the high carbon steel so low carbon will be able to fit in. Later the sword is heated again and then placed in water to cool to create a curve on the sword. Which creates a Samurai Sword.

Moles

What are moles? Moles are unit of measurement for chemicals, just like grams is a unit for weight. A mole is a quantity of a chemical that contains 6.02*10^23.This number was determined by an Italian chemist named Amedeo Avogadro, so we call that number 6.02*10^23. In a chemical equation, moles are used to show how much of a chemical is needed to balance an equation. A mole is the atomic weight of a molecule of a chemical in grams. For example, a mole of oxygen(O) is 16 grams because its atomic weight is 16, and a mole of water(H2O) is 18 grams.

Baby Bottle Lab

This past week in class we did a lab using baby bottles. This was a really fun lab. We had to create a formula with baking soda and vinegar to shoot a baby bottle 600cm. The formula looked a little something like this, NaHCO3 + CH3COOH --> H2O + CO2. We had to figure out the best amount of vinegar to use with a certain amount of baking soda so there would be no excess vinegar. Here's an example, if you had 8g of baking soda, you would use this calculation: 8gNaHCO3/1*1molNaHCO3/84gNaHCO3*1molCH3COOH/1molNaHCO3*
60gCH3COOH/1molCH3COOH*100gvinegar/5gace acid
This would give you 114.29g of vinegar. I tried this many times with with different amounts of baking soda. My trial runs were making it to 550cm and 600cm, until the top of my lid blew off on one of the trial runs. So, then i had to use a new bottle with new amounts, but i was still able to reach 550cm. I believe this lab was the funniest I've done so far.