Chemistry at Home: Diapers
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to Chemistry For Your Life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand and do chemistry At home for fun.
Melissa:In your everyday life.
Jam:In your everyday life.
Melissa:Maybe. That's right. Maybe. Hopefully, you do it regularly. Yeah.
Jam:You don't have to do it every day, but you could do it at least once a month with us.
Melissa:That's true. So I promised a diaper episode in November. And my gift to you this holiday season is your diaper experiment delivered at your front door.
Jam:Yes. Yep. I was pretty surprised last month whenever the term you sent me was not diapers or whatever. And I was like, oh, man. But it was cool.
Jam:It was worth the wait.
Melissa:It was I think it was worth the wait because we had to get those fall leaves when we could. You know?
Jam:Totally. Yeah. Totally.
Melissa:Before we get started, I want to say that I pulled this diaper experiment almost a 100 percent from the American Chemical Society website, and we'll link to that page. You can just type in a c s diapers, and it will be a video that comes up. And it's really a great resource, and always go check out the American Chemical Society website if you have if you want to do more chemistry at home or if you have any questions. It's great. We already talked about the chemistry of this in our diapers episode.
Melissa:So if you're not sure, definitely go back and check that episode out. But this is a chance where you can apply the chemistry of diapers to an experiment with your kiddos, with the household objects, or just by yourself if you want. Mhmm. But the household object that a lot of us already have. So, Jam, tell me, what did you do for this experiment?
Jam:So what I did well, first, I'll say, if you are somebody who does not have kids, this is one that you could definitely do it on your own and definitely have fun doing. So I'll just say that.
Melissa:Okay. That's good to know.
Jam:All these are fun experiments. But if you're wondering like, oh, well, mhmm, put this one at top of the list because I think it was very fun. And even though I did it kinda late at night And I wanted to make sure I got it done when I had a chance to do it. Ended up having a lot more fun than I expected. I was kinda thinking of it like, oh, I'll check this off tonight, and Then it'll be done.
Jam:I don't have to worry about trying to find another window of time to do it. Ended up having a lot of fun. So
Melissa:Oh, that's great. I love that.
Jam:What I did Per Melissa's instructions, per ACS's experiment instructions handed through Melissa to me was take Take 2 diapers unused, from my son. He did not mind.
Melissa:Are you sure? Did you ask him?
Jam:I did not ask him because he He doesn't really respond to questions in the way that you and I might respond to them. It's just interesting
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Kind of thing he does. But I took 2 diapers, and one of them, I just left as is, opened it up, took a glass of water, Put some food coloring in it. I did blue because it was pretty safe, not super gross color, and mixed it all up. I had a pretty large glass of water and filled it all the way up. I didn't really think that much about how much water I was doing.
Jam:And I poured, Slowly poured the entire glass of blue water onto the diaper and was amazed at how much it soaked up. I have not tried to push a diaper to those limits for my own safety and my wife's and my sons. So this was interesting, a safe way to really test how much a dapper could absorb. And let me tell you. It got very full, very heavy.
Jam:I gave it a second to soak all the water up, and then I cut it open and saw tons of this blue gel Stuff all in the diaper. So much blue gel. Like, these little bubbles of gel, kind of.
Melissa:Did you play with it and touch it with your hands and see how it felt?
Jam:Yes. I did. And I described in the video a lot how it felt in a moment, but some of the things I remember is just thinking it looked a lot like shaved ice in a lot of ways. Yeah. I think the blue color probably added to that effect, but It's weird because it obviously, it's not as cold.
Jam:So when you grab it, if you're thinking it looks like shaved ice, it it's not nearly as cold, And it feels really wet, but you could put it back down, and there's no visible water residue left on your hands. It's just weird to handle something wet like that and not to make your hands actually wet.
Melissa:How interesting.
Jam:Yeah. Very weird.
Melissa:One thing that we talk about a lot is to get your kids involved with these experiments. That's the big thing. And one way you can get them involved is to Ask questions. You can also let them pick the color of food coloring and let them do the pouring, but you need to ask them questions. So what do you think is gonna happen when I pour this water on the diaper?
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:What do
Melissa:you think it's going to look like when I cut the diaper open?
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:When they see it, ask them what they think it's gonna feel like. And then when they touch it, ask them to describe it because that is what being A chemist is, in a lot of ways, is using your observation skills to observe things, think critically, and make conclusions based on that. So You're getting them to practice observing and discussing what they're seeing, so improve their observation skills, and to Make educated guesses and to think critically about what they're saying. Even if they're wrong or even if this you know, it's kinda vague. They're they're getting this in, and you're helping them develop a scientific mindset.
Melissa:And you're helping them see it's okay if their prediction isn't right. That's cool. That's science. That's what we're figuring out. My predictions are wrong a lot of the time.
Melissa:So
Jam:so
Melissa:that was the first step. And then what was the second thing you did?
Jam:That's same thing I did is I took a 2nd diaper, and I put it in at first, I cut off all the trim, the Velcro kind of parts. It's not really Velcro, but, you know, the parts that help to attach the diaper to a baby. And, I trimmed off all of that without cutting into the actual absorbent part of the diaper, And then I put it into a ziplock bag gallon ziplock bag to, as most instructed, try to prevent the dust from The dust within the diaper, whatever you call it, the particles that absorb stuff from getting into the air. So I was cut I cut the diaper open then inside the bag. And I did notice immediately how fine that dust is.
Jam:It is, like, so fine, so easy for it to go into the air before it's had any, water absorbed in it. And so I cut it open and had some difficulty there just trying to make sure I Could open it without getting the stuff everywhere and ended up getting that figured out and then shook the diaper a lot to get as much of that dust out of the diaper as possible. And then I sealed the gallon baggy closed, And then just cut the tiniest corner of the baggy open and let the dust drain into a different Glass cup.
Melissa:Mhmm. That's a very smart method.
Jam:I I thought of that last at the kinda toward the end, because I was like, okay. All the dust is collecting this corner. If I try to, like, get it out a different way, I might lose a lot of it. I was just noticing that it seemed kinda hard to get Some of the dust out that was pretty ingrained in the papery parts of the diaper?
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:And so what I did get out was, like, just not a ton, and I Let it cut that corner. Let it drain into an empty glass. And it was a very thin layer of dust, white dust at the bottom of this glass. And I was like, okay. We'll see.
Jam:And I thought I kinda thought maybe I'd failed to get enough out. I just thought Mhmm. We'll see what happens. I took a full another full glass of water. This time I put green, food coloring in it.
Jam:Just got thought it might help to have something to clear the desk was white. So I thought, let's make the water green. Just why not? And so
Melissa:Yeah. That's a good idea.
Jam:And so I poured this glass. I did it in stages. I just pour a little bit at first into the cup. Mhmm. It started absorbing the water in a really interesting way where You see the dust at the bottom start to grow, but it's hard to really see what's happening because The top of the water stays the same for a little while.
Jam:So you just kinda see this stuff at the bottom growing growing, and then slowly, it's all the water that's in the glass. And You know it happens once it reaches the surface, and then there's actually no loose water anymore. And so The top of where what was just, like, the flat surface of the water now is this, like, slightly bumpy surface because of all the little tiny, you know, balls of molecule stuff that polymer that has absorbed water. Wow. And so I did that.
Jam:Let it let it catch up. And then I was like, okay. That didn't take very long. It caught up pretty fast. And so my thought was, let me add All the water now that I haven't added yet.
Jam:So, basically, I added about a fourth of the glass full. So it's like, let's add all of it, All Mhmm. To where it fills up the glass entirely and see how long it takes it to catch up. And
Melissa:A little bit more why not?
Jam:Yeah. A little more why not. So I just poured it all at once, and it did take actually a little while for it to catch up. And I thought maybe I added too much. I maybe I shouldn't have done that, but it did end up catching up and the whole the same thing happened where It slowly grew.
Jam:You can kinda see if you look at the glass closely that you can tell. There's part that's still green, but it's bumpy, Kind of a little bubbly. Mhmm.
Melissa:Different texture. Mhmm.
Jam:Slowly getting closer to the surface. And then it finally did And then looked just like it did before where the surface is like a bumpy, bubbly surface, and there's no loose water in there at all.
Melissa:Wow. That is so cool. I haven't done this experiment on my own, so I don't have diapers laying around. So I'm kind of Jealous that you got to do this.
Jam:That's interesting. I didn't think about how it'd be so annoying to just go buy 1 diaper or something.
Melissa:Yeah. You can't. I could borrow 1 from my nephew, but I'd just never think about it.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:So you and your friends all get together and split a pack of diapers in case there's someone who doesn't have kids.
Jam:There we go. Perfect.
Melissa:That is so, so cool. Okay. So I will say, I think you can ask more questions again with your kids on this part. You can say, what do you think it's gonna look like when we cut it open? What do you think this stuff looks like that turns into that gel?
Melissa:What do you think will happen when we add water to this powder? How much water do you think we could add? If they get excited, maybe you can try to put a little bit of that in a really large container
Jam:and
Melissa:just slowly add more and more and see how much it can take. That would be really fun. And ask them again to Describe what they see and how it feels and what do they think happened and all of that. So what do do you have any takeaways from this jam? You don't have to.
Melissa:I just kinda felt like this was a fun one that you might be like, how are diapers So crazy.
Jam:Yeah. I do feel that way. I was very fascinated, kind of thought, how many diapers would it be reasonable for me to Mess with and waste by continually doing this. I I kept thinking how fun would it be to have a you have to have a safe way of doing this and have maybe, like, a a small, like, tablespoon or something like that to scoop the powder with so you're not trying to handle it with your hands, before it has absorbed anything. But I thought it'd be cool to have a full glass of water and then slowly add just little bits of that polymer.
Jam:Mhmm. And see how much it takes to be able to absorb that full glass of water. Try to find the minimum. So add a little bit. Give it some time to see if it how far it gets, how much it can absorb a little bit more.
Jam:It'd be kinda cool to see, like, oh, it was only, You know, 2 tiny little scoops that work required for a full glass of water or something like that.
Melissa:Yeah. And I I will say the not Touching with your hands, that's important. This is a relatively safe material that you're touching, but it will absorb water. So it can cause your any water content in your they're called mucous membranes on your eyes or in your nose. It'll absorb that water really quickly, and that's not good.
Melissa:So Definitely try not to handle these with your bare hands. Try not to. Try not to let that dust get in the air. Wash your hands thoroughly after you use them. If you have safety goggles, that's even better.
Melissa:I know a lot of people don't. I don't think it's a 100% required, But be as careful as you can. Use any personal protection equipment that you have, and make sure to avoid getting that Dust in the air or in your eyes, especially with kiddos around. And make sure that they do wash their hands after they touch and play with any of that gel, and don't let them eat it. Make sure that you're supervising them.
Melissa:It could look like something that you might wanna put in your mouth, so just make sure you're supervising them and make sure that they wash their hands afterwards and that they're not ingesting any of this material. Because Getting that in your body and absorbing water in your digestive tract is not gonna probably be great. So
Jam:And I repeated Melissa's warnings that she gave me in the video while I was doing the experiment as well. So as a reminder there and one thing I just thought of that I did It might be good just to make sure we say is, not to try to get any of this down the drain if possible. It seems like Yeah. That could easily cause you or, you know, the city you live in a potential plumbing problem. Maybe, like, 1 or 2 wouldn't 1 or 2 little tiny bubbles wouldn't be a huge deal.
Jam:It might be, unavoidable, but I put everything I had done into trash bags afterward.
Melissa:That's smart.
Jam:Which kinda feels weird because you're basically dumping what seems like a full glass of weird gel liquidy stuff Into the trash instead of into the down the drain, which where liquid normally go. But
Melissa:Yeah. That's what diapers normally do is go in the trash.
Jam:Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah.
Melissa:That's a good point. I didn't think about putting it in the drain. That probably would not be good, so definitely throw it away. And, also, if you are using any food containers, I would wash them very thoroughly after you use them. You never wanna use something for an experiment like this and then eat off of it.
Melissa:Should be safe, but wash it very thoroughly before you use it.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:And if you can use disposable things or things that aren't Food containers, that's probably even better.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:Well, I'm glad that you had such fun, Jim. I feel like you maybe had a little bit more fun than you normally do.
Jam:Dude, yeah. It was very, very fun. I had a lot of fun. I'm glad you made me do that. I mean, I was excited about this when we talked about diapers in that episode.
Jam:It had been a while since we talked about that now, and so it was yeah. I was very surprised at how much fun this experiment was. Definitely try this one Yay. If you can, guys.
Melissa:I'm so glad. Alright. Great. Alright. Great.
Melissa:Well, thank you so much for coming and doing that experiment and being so excited, Jam. That's always a lot Fun. And thanks to you listeners. I hope you have a lot of fun doing this experiment safely at home with your kiddos.
Jam:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa and Jam Robinson. And we'd like to give a special thanks to e Robinson who reviewed this episode.
