Welcome to the Sci Guys. On this episode, spectroscopy. Hi, I'm Adam. And I'm Ryan. Welcome to Sci Guys.
Today, we're going to be investigating spectroscopy by burning things in a controlled and scientific manner. Yeah. Spectroscopy is the process of identifying a substance through the color of its flame. During combustion, electrons are being promoted to higher energy levels than they would be at rest.
When the electrons return to the resting state they release that excess energy as light. The wavelength of that light is specific to the substance being burned. The equipment you can need for this experiment is nice and long barbecue lighter. Stack of tart tins.
A sheet of aluminum foil folded up several times to let you snuff the flames if you have to, although we recommend you let them burn out. Also, just in case the fire gets out of control, you should always have a fire extinguisher on hand at all times. Now, we are recommending that you do not use the fire extinguisher on the tart tins. The tart tins are so light that if you use the extinguisher on it, the pressure will blow the tart tins away and could cause a bigger fire.
Use the fire extinguisher only if the the fire gets outside of the tart tins. The ingredients we need for this experiment are engine antifreeze, also known as methanol, root killer, borax laundry booster, moisture absorber, and the powder from inside a road flare. We will also need a couple of ingredients from inside our cupboard.
The two ingredients we're going to need out of the cupboard today. Kosher salt, because it's got sodium and that'll burn a pretty color. And we're going to need some potassium.
And you can get potassium out of a no-salt substitute found in your local grocery store. The safety equipment we're going to be using this time are the standard heavy work gloves, goggles, and lab coat, but also dust masks. Make sure you have these.
Some of the chemicals we'll be using are poisonous or corrosive and you don't want to breathe them in. So let's go to the garage. We're going to set up our experiment and have some fun. Alright, so we're out in the garage now and we were running a couple test experiments out here before we filmed this and found out that we really needed to create a heat barrier from the table because...
when we ignited some of the stuff it melted our table a little bit so we went out and bought a couple of these They're just aluminum sheets you can get from any grocery store, and we put a couple of Tart tins down which we should already have When you place this over like this it creates an air barrier between what you're burning and the table to hopefully let off all the heat To set up for this experiment We're going to have to distribute our ingredients into the tart tins in the first tin measure out four tablespoons of Methanol In the rest of the tins, except tin 7, add 2 tablespoons of methanol and 2 tablespoons of the ingredient we will be burning. In tin 7, we will only be adding 2 tablespoons of road flare powder because the ingredients in a road flare will burn without the addition of methanol. First, we're going to ignite tin 1 containing the methanol.
This tin represents a control in our experiment. A control is used as a starting result that you will compare all other results against. As you can see, tin 1 is burning.
methanol burns with a dull blue color. This color comes from the combustion of alcohol. Next, we're going to ignite the second tin containing the no-salt substitute.
No-salt substitutes contain potassium chloride. When burned, potassium lets off a light purple or violet color. Now we're going to light the contents of the third tin.
This tin contains borax. Borax consists of sodium and boron. Boron burns with a green color and sodium burns with yellow color. The resulting color is a light green or teal. Next we're going to ignite the contents of the fourth tin.
This tin has been filled with root killer. Root killer is made up of copper 2 sulfate, and when it's burned, it lets off a dark green color. The fifth tin is next. It contains kosher salt, and as we know from our previous experiment with electrolysis, kosher salt consists of sodium chloride.
Sodium by itself burns with a bright yellow color. Now we will ignite the contents of the sixth tin. This tin is filled with a moisture absorber.
Moisture absorbers are made up of calcium chloride. When calcium is burned, it lets off a dark orange color. Finally, we will be lighting the contents of the seventh tin, which contains the road flare powder. This powder consists of strontium chloride. Strontium burns with an exceptionally bright red color.
This flame should not be looked at directly, because it is bright enough to cause potential damage to your eyes. Let's look at this experiment a little closer. During combustion, enough heat energy is transferred to the material that is being burned to energize and excite its electrons, overcoming the natural attraction that would keep these electrons in place. The amount of energy required to get electrons to an excited state is unique for each element, which means each element burns at a different temperature. The excitement of the electrons is short-lived, and as the electrons fall from an excited state back to a stable state, The excess energy is cast off in the form of light.
The color of this light depends on the amount of energy being released. The release of excess energy is referred to as an energy level transition, and the amount of energy in a released photon of light determines its color. Scientists compare the flame colors from their reactions to previously recorded data to identify the materials that were burnt. This process is called emission spectroscopy.
When we compare the colors of all these flames side by side, you can see how the light that different elements emit when burned can range across the entire spectrum of color. That was our demonstration on spectroscopy. I hope you enjoyed it.
Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already and to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. And remember, if you have any comments or questions, throw them in the bit below. And as well, if you have any problems, if you're having problems in school with science, feel free to ask us those questions as well. We may even make a video about it. Our new videos will show up on the side over there.
And thanks for watching. Thank you. Bye. Here at Sci Guys, we're always curious how experiments turn out.
So if you do these experiments at home, record them and submit them to us as a video reply to this video. But remember, always get your parents'permission before you submit any videos to YouTube.