Elliott Adamson’s Groovy Lava Lamp

How can I build a simple lava lamp at home with common

objects?

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introLava lamps have been around for years. They look very

complicated and difficult to make, right? Wrong. You can make your own Alka-Seltzer powered lava lamp at home with a few simple ingredients including… A plastic water bottle Some water A few Alka-Seltzer tablets Food coloring (I chose blue) Vegetable oil Funnel

procedure

preparation

Step 1) Chop up Alka-Seltzer into 5 or 6 pieces.

Step 2) Put funnel into plastic water bottle

Step 3) Put your water into a

container( preferably a measuring cup)

steps

STEP 1Fill the plastic water bottle 0.25 (or ¼) of the way to the top.

STEP 2Fill the plastic water bottle the rest of the way with vegetable oil.

STEP 3Wait for the water and oil to separate.

STEP 4Put in a dozen or so drops of food coloring. The food coloring should fall through the oil and go straight to the water and mix with it.

STEP 5Put one of the cut up Alka-Seltzer pieces in the bottle and enjoy the amazing lava lamp show!

Improving my lava lampIt isn’t a real lava lamp without any light. So, what I did was I took one of my parent’s finger lights from the super bowl and taped it to the back of my plastic bottle. What you could use instead of a finger light is a flashlight. Although, I think the finger light is more practical because it weighs very little and takes up very little room.

Improved version

The light is right here

explanationWhat’s happening is the water and oil don’t mix because the oil has lower density than the water. Since the food coloring has a density similar to the water, it goes down to the water because the oil has a lower density than the food coloring as well. When you put the fizzing tablet in, it releases carbon dioxide bubbles that float to the top of the bottle and take some of the food coloring along with it. Why the tablets produce bubbles is that they have citric acid and baking soda. These two and water mix and create a chemical reaction creating carbon dioxide and sodium citrate.

By Elliott Q Adamson

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