Water Bubbles
This is the page to see all about our project. We decided to focus on enhancing the bubbles to be more than water, please look below to see everything.
The First Trial of Water Bubbles
A fundamental concept in physics and engineering is the ability to calculate force acting upon an object, and another important concept in chemistry is finding out the acidity of certain foods and drinks. To find the acidity of a substance, a simple ph strip test will tell you how acidic or nonacidic it is. However to find the force upon an object we use the equation :
F = M x A
F = force M = mass A = acceleration due to gravity 9.8m/s²
In this experiment, the force equation and acidity strips will enable us to answer our research question, "How can we change the aspects and design of our product to create a better product?" We hypothesize that the acidity will not have a detrimental effect on the bubble, but that an increased amount of calcium lactate will harden the shell.
Results :
Experiment 1 : durability Changing the proportion of chemicals did not have an effect on the water bubbles durability. No matter the proportions, every water bubble popped when dropped at a height of 13 cm and stayed in tact when dropped from any height below that. However, each bubble did have a different force that popped it. This is because of their differing masses and the governing equation "Force = mass x acceleration". However since each bubble was being dropped from a point in the air, the acceleration was acceleration due to gravity which is 9.8 m/s/s. This isolates the mass to be the sole variable in how much force it will take to pop the bubble. Through our testing, we discovered we can't make it more durable by changing the proportions as we had hoped. However, we will continue to research more about chemical reactions, and possibly another chemical we could sub out the calcium lactate or sodium alginate for that would create a thicker, more durable shell.
Experiment 2 : pH The pH of the liquid inside the water bubble does not change due to the surrounding chemicals in its shell. In both tests, water and propel, we found that the pH was not affected and stayed the same. The water stayed at a healthy pH of 6 and the propel remained at a pH of 4. We found that the acidity was within a healthy range and that modifying this was not necessary. Having evidence that the pH does not change once inside the water bubble ensures that the liquid, water or propel, our customers will be drinking is safe. We also found that the pH did not affect the bubbles durability over time, so when we left the bubbles in water for a week they lasted just like the regular water bubbles. It was also a successful experiment in the fact that we learned changing the ingredient of the bubble from water to propel had no detrimental effects to the overall bubble, but did, however, change the taste and look of it. The acidity of the bubble, even though it was more acidic than just pure water, had no negative effect, which leads us to conclude that propel would be the best option for our product because the taste would be better and would include vitamins and electrolytes.
(a link to our full lab report on our experiments)