So, now in my 40s, my teenage daughter heard that story about my mother and crystals and asked if I could "teach her some Chemistry". I told her quoting That '70s Show line: "You can't teach to be Zen, you can only learn to be Zen".
Green "Zen" color of a shot-glass that my daughter holds after toady's experiment
What I meant was my mother did not teach me Chemistry. In fact, she was horrible with Chemistry in the following years and failed pretty much every Chemistry test since then. The story that created the drive for me to become a Chemist (for a few years anyway) was the key, not what followed after. In fact, I can honestly say that my parents were just standing by in amusement in the 80s and 90s as I was exploding and otherwise damaging household and other items.
However, since this is just pure form of fun, I decided to oblige my daughter's request and get some chem gear. Disclaimer - I have been Chemistry-free for 12 years now. I got another Master's in Computer Science and now work in aviation-related industry (that was my father's thing, but it's a different story).
After some unsuccessful attempts to find Chemistry equipment in the local stores we went online and I assembled a kit, a dream kit for me, only 30 years ago. Initial set wasn't too expensive, about $100. OMG, what would I give for a set like that in the 80s. The set included some flasks, beakers, test tubes and some most basic things to hold, mix and measure stuff. We will probably add a few more things like ability to control temperature and pressure if things go well.
Next thing we did was exactly what I did 30 years prior - went to a hardware store. It was an amazing flashback. I have been to Menards about 217 times now. Today was the first time I went into that store as a twelve year old. Things on the shelves transformed from things you use to live to things you use to figure out how the Universe works.
Hydrogen pops later in experiment today
After two hours of walking and asking store personnel for things like potassium permanganate and copper sulfate, I am pretty sure we were reported to the store manager. They did not stop us and that's all that matters. We got some good stuff, in bulk for dirt cheap. For about $50 we got a few lbs of CuSO4, KMnO4, NaNO3, NAOH, 1,2-Ethanediol (glycol), Aluminum, NaHCO3, anhydrous ethanol. We also got a couple of jugs of distilled water. Paired that with some other chemical we already had at home, like Acetic acid (vinegar), Hydrogen Peroxide, Acetone, and most importantly NaCl (table salt) - we could do some very cool stuff.
I will probably also order some convenient chemicals, like HCl, H2SO4, KOH and pH paper to save us some time, but again it depends on how things go in the next few weeks.
So, as we got home back from the store, I decided to show one of my favorite reactions of the teenage times. Funny thing is I never could figure out what that reaction was back then. I knew it worked and was a reliable source of molecular Hydrogen for me. Just for starters and before we had any fancy equipment arrived, we put some copper sulfate in distilled water and then dropped a piece of Aluminum into it. Nothing happened, exactly as I told my daughter it would go.
Before doing this experiment we spent about an hour (while her patience was still very high) on Periodic Table, anions, cations and metals reacting with water. I told her exactly what will happen when we start mixing stuff together. She obviously had no reason not to believe me, but it was still fun to observe the process.
Aluminum would eventually substitute copper from sulfate, forming metallic copper, but that was not the goal. The goal was to get to what I observed as a teenager that the Aluminum, when it gets exposed to water without the protective oxide film, reacts vigorously with water. The result is Hydrogen. Hydrogen is flammable and explodes. Explosions are fun.
Long story short, adding salt (NaCl) makes reaction dramatically more vigorous. We added some salt and lo and behold, things happened.
Since we did not have the equipment yet to produce bigger explosions, we just did this:
Video of hydrogen bubbles popping. Flame is tinted green on due to Copper ions emission spectrum
I was very pleased with a few of her observations.
First she noticed that the flame was green and also that the aluminum pieces were hot. I let her (hell, I encouraged her to) put her hands into the terrible chemical mixture to touch the pieces. We talked about why it was green and why they were hot. We also talked about sticking your fingers into chemicals when you know what to expect and when not to.
It was great. A Christmas break well spent.
