What You Need:
- Two jars
- Water
- Food coloring
- Vegetable oil
- Rubbing alcohol
Instructions:
- Take a jar, and fill it up with water. Then add a drop of food coloring to it.
- Now pour in some vegetable oil.
- Stir or shake the jar. Do the oil and water mix?
- Now, make a second jar of colored water.
- Pour some rubbing alcohol slowly down the inside edge of the jar.
- Now stir or shake the jar. Do the liquids stay mixed?
How does it seperate?
Like what makes it seperate?
A material in alchohol?
Nevermind I found out.
If any of you want to know, it’s because of the density
Joyce, the density is what decides which is on top and which is underneath. The reason they separate is because they can’t mix at a chemical level. Water is polar (which means its individual building blocks have an electrical charge) and oil is non-polar. Normally, polar things mix with polar things (salt in water) and non-polar mix with non-polar.
So a second part of the experiment: If you add a little squirt of liquid soap, the soap attaches a polar bit onto the oil, and presto! it doesn’t separate any more!
That’s how soap helps to remove fatty dirt using water…