Education

DIY science

Chemistry

How to make cornflour

slime
Did you know cornflour slime is a very special fluid? Follow this
simple recipe to make slime without borax and find out why this
fluid can behave like a solid. A great kids science activity!

You will need

cornflour

food colouring

small mixing bowl

plastic spoon

water.

What to do
1.

Pour some cornflour into a mixing bowl.

2.

Stir in small amounts of water until the cornflour has become a very thick
paste.

3.

To make the slime the colour of your choice, thoroughly stir about five
drops of food colouring into the mixture.

4.

Stir your slime really slowly. This shouldn't be hard to do.

5.

Stir your slime really fast. This should be almost impossible.

6.

Now punch your slime really hard and fast. It should feel like you're
punching a solid.

7.

You can keep your cornflour and water mixture covered in a fridge for
several days. If the cornflour settles, you need to stir it to make it work well
again.

What's happening
Anything that flows is called a fluid. This means that both gases and liquids are
fluids. Fluids like water which flow easily are said to have low viscosity, whereas
fluids like cold honey which do not flow so easily are said to have high viscosity.
Cornflour slime is a special type of fluid that doesn't follow the usual rules of fluid
behaviour. When a pressure is applied to slime, its viscosity increases and the
cornflour slime becomes thicker. At a certain point, slime actually seems to lose its
flow and behave like a solid. Cornflour slime is an example of a shear-thickening
fluid.
The opposite happens in shear-thinning fluids; they get runnier when you stir
them or shake them up. For example, when toothpaste is sitting on a toothbrush it
is pretty thick, so you can turn the toothbrush upside down and the toothpaste
doesn't fall off. But if it was that thick when you tried to squeeze it out of the tube,
there is no way you could manage it. Fortunately, toothpaste gets runnier when you
are squeezing it out of the tube.
Other shear-thinning fluids include:

blood

paint

ballpoint pen ink

nail polish.

Although there are lots of shear-thinning and shear-thickening fluids, nobody has a
really good idea why they behave the way they do. The interactions between atoms
in the fluids are so complicated that even the world's most powerful
supercomputers can not model what is happening. This can be a real problem for

people who design machinery that involves shear-thinning fluids, because it makes
it hard to be sure if they will work.

2. Chemistry Rocket
Using vinegar and soda bicarbonate

water

measuring cup

zipper-lock plastic sandwich bags

paper towel

tablespoon
baking soda

vinegar

Figure out where you

want to explode your Bubble
Bomb. Sometimes the bags
make a mess when they pop,
so you may want to
experiment outside. If it's a
rainy day, you can explode
your Bubble Bombs in the
bathtub or sink.

Tear a paper
towel into a square
that measures about
5 inches by 5 inches.
Put 1 1/2
It's very important to use tablespoons of
a bag without holes. To test baking soda in the
Pour into
center of the square,
the zipper-lock bag, put
your
plastic
bag:
then fold the square
about half a cup of water
into it. Zip it closed and turn as shown in the
1/2 cup of vinegar
it upside down. If no water picture, with the
baking soda inside. 1/4 cup of warm water
leaks out, you can use that
This is your "timebag. Unzip it and pour out
release packet."
the water. If the bag leaks,
try another one. Keep testing
bags until you find one that
doesn't leak.
Now here's the tricky part.
You need to drop the timerelease packet into the vinegar
and zip the bag closed before
the fizzing gets out of control.

Shake the bag a little, put it

in the sink or on the ground, and
stand back! The bag will puff up
You can zip the bag halfway
closed, then stuff the packet in dramatically and pop with a
and zip the bag closed the rest bang.
of the way in a hurry. Or you
can put the time-release packet
into the mouth of the bag and
hold it up out of the vinegar by
pinching the sides of the bag.
Zip the bag closed and then let

the packet drop into the vinegar.

One way or another, get the
packet in the vinegar and zip the
bag closed.

Why does the Bubble Bomb explode?

The bubbles in the Bubble Bomb are filled with carbon dioxide, a gas that forms when the
vinegar (an acid) reacts with the baking soda (a base).
If you've ever made a cake or baked a loaf of quick bread (the kind that doesn't use yeast),
you've already done some experimenting with the bubbles that come from an acid-base
reaction. Most cakes and quick breads rise because of bubbles in their batter. Those bubbles,
like the ones in your Bubble Bomb, are created by the chemical reaction of an acid and a base.
Take a look at a recipe for quick bread. If the recipe includes baking soda but no baking
powder, it will probably also include an ingredient that's acidic-such as buttermilk, sour milk,
or orange juice.
Quick-bread recipes may call for baking powder in addition to or instead of baking soda.
Baking powder is made by combining baking soda with an acidic ingredient, such as tartaric
acid or calcium acid phosphate. When you add water to baking powder, it will fizz as the acid
and base interact. In fact, if you ever run out of baking powder, you can make your own by
mixing two teaspoons cream of tartar (it provides the acid), one teaspoon of baking soda (it's
the base), and a half-teaspoon of salt.

Try using a different size of zipper-lock plastic bag. What do you think might happen?
Do you think you'll need to use more baking soda, vinegar, and water to make the bag
explode? Try it and see.

In the original experiment, we asked you to use warm water. Try using cold water or hot
water. Does changing the temperature change your results? How?

The first time you tried this, you mixed the vinegar with water. Try doing the experiment
again with just vinegar. How did this change your experiment?

Instead of using paper towel, make your "time release packet" using a different kind of
paper, like toilet paper, tissue paper or notebook paper. What happened?

Any baked goods that rise rely on carbon dioxide bubbles to get the job done. You can make
these bubbles either by using yeast or by using the acid-base reaction like you did in the
experiment.
Yeast is a one-celled fungus which converts sugar to carbon dioxide gas. Because this process
takes a while, bakers use yeast in doughs that they leave alone for several hours.
Another method that cooks use to make something rise is a combination of baking soda and an
acidic ingredient, like orange juice or buttermilk. This is the same kind of chemical reaction that
took place in your bubble bomb.
Next time someone you know is baking, check the recipe to see if you can figure out what
ingredients make the bubbles that make the cake or bread or cookies rise.

Black Snake Version 1 (Fire)

Powdered sugar

Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)

Lighter fluid or alcohol

Mix together a batch of 4 parts powered sugar to 1 part baking soda. Add a little fuel to the
mixture and ignite.
After the black snake is lit, the firework smokes and creates ash resembling a snake. This
happens due to an intumescent reaction. The sodium bicarbonate produces carbon dioxide gas,
while the sugar creates carbon containing ash.
Your snake will stay on the ground, and will not do any fancy fireworks stuff like emit sparks or
flares, and won't produce any sound, but their will be smoke.

Black Snake Version 2 (No Fire)

Sulfuric acid (drain cleaner)

Powdered sugar

This experiment should be performed outside or in a fume-hood

In a glass beaker or other sturdy canister with sugar lining the bottom, pour in a little sulfuric
acid until the sugar is completely covered, then just sit back and watch the reaction. The sugar
will change from white to dark brown, then to black carbon.
Sugar is a carbohydrate, so when you remove water from the molecule using the sulfuric acid (an
excellent dehydrating agent), you're basically just left with elemental carbon.

Tea Bag Rocket

Heres another Im doing to show off my astounding talents for our Family Talent Show
Take an unused tea bag ([wrinkles her nose] something icky like licorice) and empty it of its contents.
(Just take out the staple, and unfold it.)

Open it up so that it will stand upright, as a cylinder.

Light the top of it on fire with a match or lighter.

Count down

and then shwoosh!!!

Up it goes into the sky.
Have another one ready for back up, cause theyll probably wanna see it again. And again.
_____
How it works: Everyone knows that hot air rises and this experiment demonstrates that idea as well
as the principles of convection currents. As the tea bag burns, hot air is being created, as well as a
thermal, or convection current, under the bag. When the tea bag burns down into a small enough ball of
ashes, the convection current causes it shoot up in the air.