SG/Chem Blog 1

Over the last two weeks we have begun our epic journey into the world of Sustainable Green Chemistry, Exploring the mystery of the Pom-Pom tubes, blowing up cans, and burning steel wool!

Part 1: Pom-Pom Tube

The first project we did was the Pom-Pom tube project, the tubes were made of PVC pipe, there were four holes on each where a string with a Pom-Pom could stick out. We were then showed what it could do, you could pull on one Pom-Pom and move every other Pom-Pom. Now that we knew what it was capable of doing, it was time to try and find out what was inside making it work.

We were given miniature Pom-Pom tubes and tasked to model the inside of the tube on a whiteboard.

*My group working with the Pom-Pom tube*

As we were shown more ways the Pom-Pom tube could move, our models gradually became more complex. Eventually most of the models ended up like this:

*Suspected Pom-Pom tube innards*

But, that was when the rug was pulled out from under us, when the Pom-Pom tube was opened there was nothing! To this day, nobody really knows what goes on inside the Pom-Pom tube.

Part 2: Blowing up Cans

The Second major thing we did was Blow up a can, We filled it with methane and lit it, it slowly burned and eventually there was a loud band as the can flew a little into the air and settle back down safely.

Like the Pom-Pom tube, we were challenged to create a diagram depicting what happened. While everyone sort of knew what had happened, the methane had burned and the released gasses built up enough pressure in the can top pop the top off, then the gasses escaped and air refilled the can. There were many ways that people depicted particles. Some used triangles, circles, and other shapes while others used colors to represent the particles. Here are some examples:

*Two examples of the can explosion diagrams*

Those are just a few examples of how the particles inside the can were shown. While there were many other ways the particles were shown, those are examples of the most common ways to show particles.

Part 3: Burning Steel Wool

The final project we did actually included many stations. All of the stations were about mass and change, for example we mixed two solutions together and saw how the mass changed, and putting salt cubes in water. But by far the most exciting experiment we did was burning steel wool. we pulled apart a part of steel wool and held it over a burner to burn, while most groups found that they lost mass or had the same mass, my group somehow gained mass. I think that this is just a little bit of human error. I think that the steel wool should have kept the same mass.

Conclusion

Those are the three major things that we did over the last two weeks, I am really looking forward to doing more in Sustainable Green Chemistry.