Melissa: 00:09

Hey. I'm Melissa.

Jam: 00:10

I'm Jam.

Melissa: 00:11

And I'm a chemist.

Jam: 00:12

And I'm not. And welcome

Melissa: 00:14

to chemistry for your life.

Jam: 00:15

The podcast helps you understand and do chemistry At home in your everyday life.

Melissa: 00:21

Okay. Jam, I'm very excited about this experiment. Can you tell me about what you did?

Jam: 00:27

Yes. I can. This one was simple, which was cool because the past couple of hours was so afraid of messing up in some way and Maybe having, like, not the ability to redo it or something and being like, ah, man. So I like this one was simple, and I felt, like, pretty confident going into it. I took a penny.

Jam: 00:47

I actually had to get most of his help because I did not have any pennies. I had found, like, 1 penny. But it was really new, which apparently is not quite ideal in this.

Melissa: 00:59

We can talk about that too, why it does that.

Jam: 01:01

Okay. I had yeah. So most helped me get some pennies. Missus Moneybags over here was able to help. Poor Jam Didn't even have a penny over here.

Jam: 01:14

And so got a penny, some vinegar, and some salt and put some vinegar in a bowl, added some salt to it, Stirred it all up, which she took a little bit for it to dissolve in there, and put the penny in there for 5 minutes, Just let it kind of mingle around with the salt and vinegar. And

Melissa: 01:43

Did you see any changes at that point?

Jam: 01:45

Yes. It there, to me, it started looking shinier. Like, the specific one I put in was pretty dull looking.

Melissa: 01:51

Mhmm.

Jam: 01:51

And so it started looking shinier to me once I put it in the vinegar and salt. And I I did video that whole thing, so I I think maybe it'll be obvious if I speed that part up to see if it

Melissa: 02:03

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jam: 02:04

Became shinier or if it was just immediately shinier or if it was an effect of just being submerged in liquid or something. I couldn't totally tell. And then I took it out and put it on a paper towel and left it overnight. And I did a time lapse to show any changes that might occur to the penny overnight.

Melissa: 02:30

And what happened when

Jam: 02:31

you came back in the morning? So this morning then, I came back out to check on the penny, And it was looked the same. And

Melissa: 02:42

I was I

Jam: 02:43

was like, damn. What did I do wrong? And then just as a Extra. Try to examine everything. I flipped it over, and the underside had turned green.

Melissa: 02:54

Nice. Okay.

Jam: 02:56

Wasn't, like, necessarily a uniform green. It's kinda splotchy, but definitely definitely green. Do you

Melissa: 03:01

wanna talk about the chemistry behind that or what? Okay.

Jam: 03:05

Absolutely.

Melissa: 03:06

So the best representation of this is rust. What we're basically doing is oxidizing the penny, And that is the same thing that happens in rust. And if you wanna know more about the chemistry of what happens in rust, Essentially, you can go back and listen to our episode about rest. But, essentially, there's an electron highway That takes place between the vinegar and the salt and the copper on the penny and then the oxygen in the air. And because of that electron highway, electrons are allowed to move back and forth between the copper and the oxygen.

Melissa: 03:43

It's called being oxidized or reduced. And then a new compound is formed with the ionized oxygen and the ionized copper. Ionized means gained or lost in electron. So what you're seeing, actually, even that initial dark color is a type of oxidized copper.

Jam: 04:02

Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:03

And then you are using the vinegar to literally dissolve it just like we talked about how you can dissolve rust with vinegar.

Jam: 04:11

And that

Melissa: 04:11

is why your penny seemed shinier.

Jam: 04:14

Oh, gotcha. Okay.

Melissa: 04:16

And then that fresh surface of copper is exposed with the electron highway to very quickly be able to form a different oxidized form of copper that reacts with to make the green copper oxide. So they're both copper oxides, but they're different types of copper oxide.

Jam: 04:34

Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:35

And so you get rid of 1 and then facilitate the occurrence of the other is what you're doing in this experiment.

Jam: 04:42

Got it. Got it.

Melissa: 04:44

So it's a really fun one, and it's really easy. I didn't love any of the ones that already existed online, so I wanted to change it

Jam: 04:51

Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:51

And make it easier and simpler for jam. And I did it myself on Friday night at home while I was watching an episode of Psych, And I got so excited. I did it with a bunch of different bunnies to see the different things that would happen. I was into it. So

Jam: 05:09

Friday night. Doing some chemistry.

Melissa: 05:12

I know. That was truly my Friday night. So that is what I did for that. But this because it's such a simple experiment, it lends itself to a lot of modifications, and you can do a lot with your kids. So if I was doing this with jam or with a kid or with even an adult, I was excited about it.

Melissa: 05:33

I would maybe do a vinegar and a water bath, both of them, or maybe plain water, saltwater, vinegar, salt, something like that. Mhmm. And put a penny in each of them and see if they all change. And make your Children or ask your children to make some guesses about what they think is gonna happen. If you put these in there, what do you think is gonna happen?

Melissa: 05:55

Do you think it'll be different between the other ones? Maybe you can start with them in the water and then If you think the same thing will happen in salt water, do you think the same thing will happen in vinegar? It's also good to do before and because it can be hard to see it. Kind of what you talked about, you thought, is that just a product of it being in vinegar? But if you do a before and after, you can see the dull penny and the shiny penny, and it is different.

Melissa: 06:20

And it's the same penny. So doing before and after pictures helps a lot. And even taking a video because the acid works pretty quickly in terms of dissolving that dull. You can take a a video and then Speed it up or scroll over it with your finger quickly and see the change. And that is, I think, exciting to be able to see with your own eyes.

Melissa: 06:41

Yeah. And then same thing for the time lapse. It is really cool for kids to be able to see experiments happen over time that they did.

Jam: 06:50

Mhmm.

Melissa: 06:51

So then the next thing I would do when you when you take it out and you leave it on the towel So Jam had the experience of only the underside of his turning green because it's in contact with the towel. So I think that held the vinegar there, allowing that electron highway to go longer.

Jam: 07:07

Uh-huh.

Melissa: 07:08

I had the opposite experience. I had a little bit of vinegar, I think, left sitting on top of mine. Mhmm. And I put it on a solid surface that I think is concrete, so I think it might have evaporated, absorbed in the vinegar quickly. Uh-huh.

Melissa: 07:22

So only the top of mine turned green.

Jam: 07:25

Got it.

Melissa: 07:26

So you can set some pennies out with your kiddos, put them on different surfaces, put a different amount of maybe sprinkle your vinegar salt water on top of it and see what changes there. You can also try with newer pennies and older pennies and ask you think the same thing will happen and, actually, before 1982, pennies were solid copper. And after 1982, they became zinc coated. There is zinc in the core, and there are copper on the outside. Mhmm.

Melissa: 07:53

And it's actually a copper alloy on the outside, so it's not pure copper. So those will probably be slower. Mhmm. So then you can also, you know, try different kinds of pennies and see if they react differently and ask your kids questions about that. And it's just a really fun one.

Melissa: 08:09

Mhmm. So I think this is a great experiment. I think it's easy. It's fun. It's cool.

Melissa: 08:14

If you have change around, you usually have change and vinegar, so Something will for sure happen. And if you wait long enough, something happens. So even if you don't have the green right away, add a little bit more salty vinegar and see if that changes it. Soak the paper towel or the cloth towel in vinegar

Jam: 08:30

Mhmm.

Melissa: 08:31

And see if that changes, you know, and you'll be able to see changes. And I really love the idea of a time lapse because then the kids don't feel like it's just magic happened while they're sleeping. You know? And If actually, what we're gonna try to do is have Jam drizzle a little bit of the salty vinegar on top and soak the towel and do another time lapse and see if we can catch the formation of the copper oxide on that surface. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Jam: 08:58

Yes. Yeah. I definitely wanna try it again. So I'm gonna do that after we record and then leave it for the rest of the day and see if we get a better result on the top part.

Melissa: 09:07

It's pretty exciting. Did you have fun doing this one?

Jam: 09:10

Yes. I did. And it Em was actually kind of surprised because, my wife, she was like, you're already done? I was like, yeah. Actually, most of it's just gonna be waiting overnight.

Jam: 09:18

But sometimes I'll be in the kitchen for, like, a while working on these experiments or trying to make sure I don't mess it up. In this one, the actual act of experimenting part was so fast. And then I was like, okay. Interesting. Now it's just waiting.

Jam: 09:32

We'll see what happens. So it was pretty fun.

Melissa: 09:35

So now it's not Great if you're trying to fill up your kids' time, but it is a fun, quick, easy one.

Jam: 09:41

And it's nice because I feel like redoing it doesn't feel like A huge chore in the sense that, like, oh, I have to get these ingredients back out and make this and get all these dishes dirty or whatever. It's like, oh, I could just get a few pennies and do it again if I want to. It feels kind of Right. Fun to try it a few different ways and not feel like, yeah, not feel like that's a lot of of work. I feel like kids could could do it again if they want to, and and it'd be pretty easy to to hop right back into science mode.

Melissa: 10:08

And it happened so fast. I mean, so fast. I dropped that penny in and did a 32nd video or so and saw a change in the Texture of the dill to shininess or whatever in about 30 seconds. It was a stark change. You know, the longer you leave it in there, the shinier it'll be, But it was really cool to see that.

Jam: 10:28

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.

Melissa: 10:30

So that's pretty much it for this experiment. I would encourage you to let your kids wonder. Like, does this work with anything else? Should we try lemon juice? Should we try baking powder?

Melissa: 10:39

Should we try Windex? You know? Mhmm. What's the harm? You're just basically gonna throw a penny in Some kinda household product, and it's very unlikely.

Melissa: 10:47

Maybe do a quick Google to make sure, but it's very unlikely anything dangerous will happen. It's mostly just gonna be fun, And your kids will get to wonder and try things out. And I had a lot of fun doing this and was surprised at how fast it was and enjoyed it as an adult chemist. So I feel like if that's true for me who does lots of experiments that are way more complicated, then your kids are definitely gonna be excited about or they they can definitely get excited Got it.

Jam: 11:13

Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. Very cool.

Melissa: 11:16

Oh, that's the other thing your kids can try with different coins. I don't think, the other metals would react with Vinegar in the same way might clean it still because it should be some kind of oxidation, but I don't know for a fact about those. I didn't look at other ones. And, also, a fun fact is this I think a lot of people know, but this is the same thing that happens to the Statue of Liberty. So the Statue of Liberty is green because she is made of copper, And then it was oxidized over time.

Melissa: 11:41

It didn't happen just the overnight. It took a long time. It's pretty cool.

Jam: 11:45

It's kinda funny too because it's like, did they know that was gonna happen and they were cool with it? Were there a surprise? Then it's like, man, our beautiful copper statue is not Copper anymore. It doesn't look copper.

Melissa: 11:58

I know. I don't know. That's very interesting. I wonder about that too. And if it would even look as good as The green, if it was copper colored.

Jam: 12:06

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah.

Melissa: 12:10

Well, that's it. That's what I have for you. I hope you and your family enjoyed doing this Penny experiment? I know I certainly did.

Jam: 12:17

And we'll see if I can get my penny to be even more green.

Melissa: 12:20

That would definitely be fun.

Jam: 12:23

This episode of chemistry for your life was created by Melissa Helini and Jame Robinson. And we'd like to give a special thanks to Robinson who reviewed this episode.