Using easy chemical reactions, you can make a gas to impress all your friends this Halloween! Let’s bring a pumpkin to life with this simple science.
Materials
- A carved pumpkin
- 2 small dishes
- Dry ice (also known as solid carbon dioxide, available at Meijer)
- Warm Water
- Bubble Solution
- Food Coloring
- Citric Acid
- Baking Soda
What to Do
- In the small dish, place 50.0 grams of baking soda, and saturate it with 100 mL of bubble solution. For even cooler effects, add food coloring.
- In a separate dish, combine 50.0 grams of citric acid and another 100 mL of bubble solution.
- Let the fun begin! Combine both dishes into a single dish inside the pumpkin and watch for the ooze!
More With Pumpkins
- Place a small dish containing bubble solution in the inside of the pumpkin.
- Add a few pieces of dry ice to the dish
- Place the top back on the pumpkin, and observe the ooze!
- For cool effects, add food coloring.
Why does this work?
Dry ice is such a cool substance that when put into a liquid, it presents a fog or steam-like gas. This occurrence can be explained by exploring the properties of matter. Typically, a solid turns to a liquid by melting, and to a gas by evaporation. Some gases however, skip a stage and go from a solid to a gas. This phenomenon is known as sublimation. When placed into the bubble solution, the dry ice initiates bubbles from the solution along with giving it a fogged effect because sublimation is occurring.