This experiment is the tin hedgehog experiment from the Mel chemistry Tin set. Before I start ranting about the experiment I would like to put on a disclaimer saying that no I am not being sponsored or paid to do this website. I just thought it would be cool to do it. But check out Mel chemistry if you are interested. It's pretty cool and I had a lot of fun playing around with it. That being said let's get on with the actual experimenting part. What do you need for the experiment?1 Zinc Pellet Sodium hydrogen sulfate solution Tin (II) Chloride A test tube How do you do the experiment?
How does it work?This experiment is basically displacement,replacement and crystallization. The zinc pellet reacts with the tin chloride solution it's in. The tin chloride's tin get's replaces with zinc in the pellet which makes the tin chloride into zinc chloride and the displaced tin becomes crystallized and become the cute little needles on the pellet. Zn+SnCl2 ------> Sn + ZnCl2 If you look at the reactivity series you would see that zinc is more reactive than the tin in the tin chloride. Seeing that the zinc in the pellet is more reactive than the tin in the tin chloride the zinc displaces the tin producing zinc chloride. The tin is then displaced forming a needle like structure around the pellet. Notes: The needles are really weak so usually end up breaking and becoming destroyed in a couple of days but if you are really careful you can keep it by taking the tin chloride solution after you finish and letting it dry. Mine lasted a week before the needles collapsed :(. Also thanks to my good friend Megan for helping me with the experiment!
1 Comment
ADVoscience
5/12/2018 21:28:47
Wow, awesome experiment! There's a similar but more complicated experiment that uses a displacement reaction to form silver mirrors on the inside walls of conical flasks etc, you should check it out!
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