Week 28: Balancing Equations and Burning Butane!

Maddie,

Happy Saturday! I hope you're enjoying your weekend!

I feel this week we really comprehended different types of chemical equations as well as how to balance them.The three worksheets we got last week were quite helpful in undetstanding chemical equations as a whole.

A Single repalcement is when a ionic compound is broken up by a cation or an anion to form another ionic compound with a different byproduct. A double replacement is where two ionic compounds come togethr and basically flip flop so that the cations are  paired with new anions, and there is no byproduct in this  type of chemicla equation.

Another  part of chemical equations are synthesis and decompsition. Synthesis is where two ( or possibly more)  Ions are put together to for an ionic compound.  An Ionic compoung that returns to it's individual ions is called a decomposition,while thse processes are two sides of the same coin, they are both very different and easy to mix up, i almost putsynthesis when it was actually decomposition on the assesment on friday, Margo noticed the slip up and saved me!

Combustion is my favorite chemical reaction! This is when  the product of the reaction is  Water and Carbon dioxide,  and that's all! I think that it's so cool that there is a seperate category for this reacttion.

Finally Balancing the equations is always about having the same ammount of molecules that you started with  on the left side to end up on the right side,  so i usually draw a diagram with little  dots, some colored  in and osme left blank, to sort out how many of each molecule i need, and to correctly balanace the equation,  during our group assesment, the liuttle tiny dots were how we showed " particle diagrams for each reaction!

   The best part of ChemTeam this week was lighting the  t-shirt strip doused in Butane and becuase of the string, we could "hold the fireball" The fact that  it was burning the butane and NOT our fingers was  the coolest thing  to me! Look at the picture i took, it looks like Mr. Abud can shoot fire from his hands! ( don't make him mad, jk!)

W33k 27: Chemical Reactions, Colecting Hydrogen Gas, and why air bags deploy so quickly!

Week 27

Now that i know Madison is going to start reading this i will adress it to her!


Hi, Madison! Happy sunday! All the chemical reactions we experimented with this week were quite facinating!  Now that we all have a basic grasp on the elemts and ionic bonding, we now an delve into chemical reactions, another important ( and inevitable, things DO blow up!) part of Chemisty.

When we all mixed Clacium with Hydrochloric acid ( as only half of the groups had finished on friday) wek  saw   gas comming from the bottle, as  gas is a common byproduct of a chemical reaction. After testing the gas's combustability, we determined taht the gas was hydrogen and the chloride and calcium bonded to one another forming calcium chloride. The  calcium and  hydrogen didn't form anythign together because they are both positive elements, and because Hydrogen is diatomic and it can bond with itself, the equation balanced itself in the end.

What was happening was the pull between the clacium and the chloride was stronger tha th e pull between the hydrogen and the chloride, so  the chloride bonded ( ionically) with the calcium and the hydrogen to bond with itself asnd become pure hydrogen gas. After becoming both calcium chloride and hydrogen, the byproducts of this chemical reaction were not as harmful as the orginal hydrochloric acid ( whic is a positive  Hydrogen bonded with a negative Chloride) whic can bnurn though skin.

 Later in the week we began to  draw out what  happens in a chemical reaction, with the help of worksheets and skill practives.  there are several types of rections, single reactionsthat only one element replaces one part of the ionic bond and a double replacement reaction  where two ionic bonds swap which element they are bonded two, in the simpliest sense. Combustion reaction ALWAYS produces Water and carbon dioxide, becuase a hydrocarbon  reacts with aon oxygen. Synthesis and decomposion  reactions are oposites of one aother. Sysnthesis is where two elements form to create a  ionic bond. Decomposition is where an ionic bond is broken up into it's elements.


Another important  part fo writing Chemistry formulas is balancing the equation which makes sure that the number of  atoms doesnt vary from one side of the equation to the other. I had some diffuculty with this nadi asked Harris but ifeel he was quite confused with  it himself. Maybe you understand it, Madison, and you can teach me how to  do it correcctly.


Lasttly because we are talking about reactions and such, and because i was geeking out about this, i thoughti should share how airbags deploy so quicky. It's actually thanks to a chemical reaction. Inside the airbag chamber ther is noth Nitrogen gas and a gas called Sodium Azide, which  is one Sodium Atom and three Nitorgen atoms. Because this is an unstable compound, and Nitrogen is diatomic the littlest ammount of pressure ( say a person flying into the steering wheel, not little but there would be pressure on the air bag then) causes the Nirtogen to bond with itself, causing the airbag to inflate  rapidly with nitrogen gas, along with Sodium nitiride ( Na3N). I  saw this on a TV show where a guy got blown into the air by sitting on  an airbag, and scientists expalined how it was possible and such. I thought it waso ne of the coolest things i have seen on TV in a while!!!

Here is the  video of the  man sitting on the airbag  that  Scientists were trying to explain the science behind :http://www.youtube.com/watchv=uUZJkti1A3M

 

 

 

Week 26 : noman clature for naming substances

In the past week we have finally started discussing how to.name substances besides ionic bonds,  we actually introduced a new type of ionic bond called the Polyatomic ionic bond where more than two elements bond together to make a compound that can with mix with other elements to become neutral substances . We also learned that to make an acid you must add a positive hydrogen bond to certain ionic and polyionic bonds to make acid.

Other than the rules above, the process is the same as we learned when we were dealing with simple ionic bonds, including the transition metals and their different levels of positivity ( they are always positive because they conduct electricity ) making the work this week very do able I hope we can further our knowledge upon this topic, as I feel  I.have finally begun to make my own breakthough of sorts on this topic

Week 26 ChemTeam beach party!!!

In honor of spring break at GPN, we paused our progress learning about charges and ions to have a Beach Party! We traveled down to Mr. Amore's room and we actually did two seperate yet equally cool experiments!

First we learned why sunsets are red, yellow and orange versus blue green or purple. As the light from the sub travels through more and more atmosphere , the shorter wavelengths ( blue, green, purple) cannot pass through the atmosphere to our eyes because they are short. The red, orange and yellow wavelengths are long enough though to travel through the atmosphere to our eyes. I found that so fascinating and I explained to my family his they work the next morning as we were getting up at the crack of dawn to go travel.

The other "experiment" we completeted is we "made" a fire pit to roast marshmallows on by adding 5 ml of Calciaum Acitate ( if I remember correctly) and 20 ml of alcohol to create this little blob that looked similar to wax and we then lot on fore to roast the mashmellows with. The marshmellows were good but lacked the smoky flavor wood burning fires do. Overall I think it was a very sucessful beach party! Happy spring break!!