This experiment is for advanced students.
Who gets to burn something today? YOU get to burn something today!
You will be working with Zinc (Zn). Other labs in this kit allow us to burn metal, but there is a bit of a twist this time. We will be burning a powder.
Why a powder instead of a solid ribbon or foil as in the other labs? Have you heard of surface area being a factor in a chemical reaction? The more surface area there is to burn, the more dramatic the chemical change. So, with this fact in mind, a powder should burn faster or be more likely to burn than a large solid.
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No, zinc oxide won’t work. It needs to be zinc powder.
Can this experiment be done with zinc oxide? Someone forgot to order the zinc for tomorrows experiment
Our zinc dust turned purple and stayed purple.
The flame should be turning blue and that would indicate that the zinc is undergoing a chemical change to zinc oxide. If this didn’t happen, I suspect that your additional variables (wind and possibly sunlight?) could be impacting the experiment, resulting in the zinc not getting oxidized. The other issue could be impure zinc samples.
My recommendation would be to try again if you’re able, while controlling for wind and sun as much as possible. If the flame is blue, you should see the change to yellow and back to while once it cools. Let us know how it goes!
We used the wick-less alcohol burner with denatured alcohol for fuel, the flame looked normal. We were outside, with a slight wind, so maybe the temp of the flame varied. Three different samples of zinc dust. Each sample turned a different color- one purple, one yellow/green, one black.
Do you mean that the zinc itself turned purple, then yellow/green, then black? What color was the flame?
It sounds like there are other variables impacting the results. The spoon is a metal alloy, but it should be fairly stable.
We tried this three different times today. The first time, the zinc turned purple; second time the zinc was yellowish while hot and green when cool; third time the zinc turned black. Any ideas why? All the samples were from the same, newly opened bottle, same location, same alcohol burner, same spoon. The spoon was stainless steel.