Activity: Tattoos and their Chemistry

This activity is intended for anyone in middle school through high school.
For this activity my group and I will be showing how to create a tattoo machine out of materials that can be found in homes. We will be wearing gloves and goggles during the process. Materials
Tattoo Machine Colored Ink Oranges/ bananas

Our 3 Big Ideas

Tattooing works with a machine that punctures through two layers of skin injecting drops of ink. This is repeated hundreds and hundreds of times to create a picture on someones body. The needle speed goes up to 3200 -3600 punctures per minute. Tattoo ink is a colloid, which is a mixture in which very small particles of one substance are distributed evenly throughout another substance. It is made from pigments dispersed in carrier solutions that holds it. Black pigment color comes from Iron and Carbon. Tattoo ink becomes permanent when it is inserted into the skin and the immune system of the body tries to rid itself of the ink. Since each pigment is too big for the immune system to fight off it is unable to get rid of the ink, and the body learns to accept it.

Description of Demonstration
For our chemistry demo we will be using our tattoo machine on multiple fruits such as bananas and oranges. We use these two specific fruits because they are the closest example to actual skin that we can use without using it on someone. There are two layers of skin, the dermis and the epidermis. A banana and an orange have layers as well, the peel and then the actual fruit. For the tattoo ink to become permanent the needle of the machine penetrates the epidermis and inserts the ink into the dermis. The ink for the tattoo machine is made up of powered pigments and a liquid dispersal which create a mixture. The ink that we are using is already premade, though in the past tattoo artists would make their own. The tattoo machine will pull ink to the needle so that the needle wouldnt have to be dipped into the ink.

How This Activity Demonstrates Them

To show what is used in tattoo ink we will have a chart that shows the different colored inks and how they are made from different pigments. To show how the machine inserts the ink into the skin to become permanent we will demonstrate the tattoo machine that we bring in on a banana, an orange, and other fruits. To show how the ink becomes permanent we will use a small piece of candy that has a hard shell and a liquid inside to show how the ink is contained. Chemistry Demo created by: - Domanic Asmar - Daniel Monreal - Ben Sanders - Arianna Garcia