The Diamonds of Winter
Tom Kuntzleman | Thu, 01/09/2025 - 09:44
Take a walk and explore the chemical winter wonderland of snowflakes...and diamonds!
General Chemistry
The WEIRDEST Chemical Reaction I've Ever Seen!
Tom Kuntzleman | Sat, 09/07/2024 - 11:17
This chemical reaction is just plain weird...but also beautiful!
The Floating Soap Bubble
Tom Kuntzleman | Mon, 08/21/2023 - 09:03
The floating soap bubble is an impressive experiment that is surprisingly easy to carry out.
The Chemistry of Lightning
Tom Kuntzleman | Tue, 09/20/2022 - 09:42
Learn a bit about the chemical reactions that occur during a lightning strike, and how you can demonstrate these reactions in your classroom.
Expanding on Self-Inflating Balloons: Activities Involving Moles, Gas Laws, and Thermochemistry
Dean Campbell | Thu, 02/10/2022 - 08:42
Balloons that inflate using carbon dioxide produced from the reaction of citric acid and sodium hydrogen carbonate can be used to demonstrate a number of aspects of chemistry. Gas laws were used with the balloons to illustrate limiting reactants, molar mass of gases, and rockets. The endothermic reaction in the balloon was visualized with an infrared camera, and the Green Chemistry aspects of these balloons were considered.
A Demo A Day: Demonstrations and Props Used in My General Chemistry Class
Dean Campbell | Mon, 01/17/2022 - 17:43
This blog post includes short descriptions of demonstrations and props that Dean Campbell has used while teaching his collegiate General Chemistry I course.
Food Dyes as Acid-Base Indicators
Tom Kuntzleman | Sun, 11/28/2021 - 10:51
Natural food dyes are being sold online and in stores that can be used as acid-base indicators. These dyes open up a host of possibilities for at-home and in-class. For example, these food dyes can be used as indicators in the quantitative titration of the Mg(OH)2 in milk of magnesia.
Lithium Battery Flame
Tom Kuntzleman | Mon, 09/27/2021 - 16:42
Inspired by a recent article in the Journal of Chemical Education, Tom Kuntzleman attempted to extract lithium from a coin battery, and to use the extracted lithium to produce a pink flame.
Simple formation of metal mirrors
Tom Kuntzleman | Mon, 05/10/2021 - 09:57
Beautiful, metallic mirrors of copper or silver can easily be formed in test tubes. Simply add the appropriate metal salt to a test tube, and heat! These reactions should be performed in a fume hood.
Effect of Temperature on Chemical Equilibrium using Copper Complexes
Tom Kuntzleman | Wed, 04/07/2021 - 11:00
This post describes a simple way to generate blue, green, orange, and yellow copper complexes, and to use these complexes to introduce students to the effect of temperature on chemical equilibria. The protcol avoids the use of caustic agents, allowing the experiments to be conducted by students as a laboratory-based investigation.