Atomic Power

In science we watched a “Trinity and Beyond” video on atomic power. I learned many things about the history of atomic bombs and the science behind them.

On July 16, 1945 the first atomic bomb was exploded. This was called the Trinity test. Trinity was the code name for a nuclear weapon test. It was an atmospheric test, which means that people wanted to see what damages would be done to the atmosphere after it went off. This bomb used fission. Fission is when the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts. This releases high amounts of energy, giving you an atomic explosion.

Here is a picture of the Trinity test:

Here is a picture of what Fission looks like:

Lets back it up to see where atomic power got started. In March 1938 Hitler invades Austria and discovers fission.

On December 2, 1942, the man-made sustained nuclear chain reaction was successful and the production of plutonium starts.

A little fact to know about atomic bombs is that uranium, plutonium, and tritium are the only elements used in nuclear power.

One nuclear test performed was at Bikini Lagoon. It was called Operation Crossroads and was an atmospheric nuclear weapon test series conducted in the summer of 1946 at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The tests consisted of two detonations, a low altitude test and a shallow water test. A planned third test, a deep underwater detonation, was canceled after the second test. The series was intended to study the effects of nuclear weapons on warships, equipment, and material. These tests would provide important information on the survivability of warships in the event of nuclear war.

In January 1951 the U.S. performed 126 tests at the first test site in Nevada.

On August 29, 1949 the Soviets explode thier first atomic bomb. They constructed buildings to study the effects of the bomb.
Here is a video of the bomb:

Here is a video of the first hydrogen bomb, “Ivy Mike” test:

On 31 January 1950 President Truman publicly declared the U.S. intention to develop a hydrogen bomb. The motivation for this declaration was the Soviet Union's first fission bomb during the previous. This added to the rapidly growing Cold War tensions, created grave concern at the highest levels of Washington about the United States being overtaken in a nuclear arms race by the Soviet Union.

The hydrogen bomb uses Fusion. Fusion is when you fuse lighter elements together in conditions with high pressure and hot temperatures.

Here is a picture of what fusion looks like:

These were just a few things about atomic power learned in the video. Over all, I enjoyed it very much and look forward to researching even more about atomic energy.

ASU Chemistry Lab

Today i went on a field trip to the ASU chemistry lab. I enjoyed the trip very much and learned a lot. Everyone who instructed me during the tour of the lab did a great job. Here is a picture of the DLC8 watching Gary, (a scientist at ASU), teach us about how liquid nitrogen can deflate a balloon because the freezing cold temperature of the liquid nitrogen causes the air inside the balloon to condense and shrink the balloon.

Here is a few other pics of what this liquid nitrogen-balloon experiment looks like:

While at ASU I got to witness a glass blower at work. She was very talented and skilled at what she does. She makes all of the custom glass wear that you use when experimenting in science. She has a blow torch which she uses to shape the glass, and she has to wear special glasses so that she can see the glass as she forms it. the end product she created for us was a swan, and it was beautiful!

 We also learned about air pressure with Tim (featured below). he performed multiple tests with a tube that sucks out all of the air from an object. He crushed a can by removing the air that filled the space inside. This resulted in a crushed can because the space that the air filled had to be filled with something else, the can itself. He also used a plastic soda bottle and crushed that. 

Another one of the highlights of this field trip was when we visited a professor who worked with high voltage and electrical currents. He literally "shocked" us with 50,000 volts of electricity! This was a great experience because I felt all tingly, and watching other peoples reactions made me laugh :D

Overall, the field trip to ASU was much better than a normal day at school, because I learned a lot about chemistry.

Sodium Silicate Polymer Lab

Sodium Silicate Polymer Lab

In science today we did a lab which tested a sodium silicate polymer. The purpose of this lab was to teach us some of the differences between this polymer, and the one we mad last week with sodium borate and glue. (See previous blog posts to read about that lab) The materials we used for the lab today were:

12 mL of Sodium Silicate solution

3 mL of Ethyl Alcohol

2 Small Beakers

1 Stirring Rod

1 Graduated Cylinder

Paper Towels

My hypothesis for this lab was that silicate chains will form from the sodium silicate and ethyl alcohol, creating a solid polymer. Because sodium silicate has sodium hydroxide in it, that acts as a strong base for the polymer. The cross-linking agent will be the ethyl alcohol, which will link the monomers in chains.

The procedure for this lab was pretty basic. First, measure 12 mL of sodium silicate solution with the graduated cylinder, and then pour it into one of the small beakers. Then clean the graduated cylinder and measure 3 mL of ethyl alcohol into it. Next, pour the 3 mL of ethyl alcohol into the other small beaker, (the one that doesn’t have the sodium silicate solution in it). When ready, pour the 3 mL of ethyl alcohol into the beaker with 12 mL of sodium silicate. Stir it with a stirring rod to create the polymer. Take it out and mold it into a ball. Drop it from a height to see if it bounces. Record different characteristics of the polymer.

Here is a drawing of the beaker of alcohol being added to the beaker of sodium silicate, creating a polymer:

Here is a diagram of the sodium silicate atoms and ethyl alcohol atoms:

The Sodium silicate has 1 atom of silicon and it is bonded to 4 oxygen atoms. Ethyl alcohol has only 2 carbon dioxide atoms.

After the polymer was made into a ball, my group tested the bounciness of the polymer. The silicate polymer was very bouncy. Even bouncier then the borax polymer. Here is a venn diagram of other similarities and differences between the silicate polymer and the sodium borate polymer:

The sodium silicate polymer smelled like nail polish, was hard, heavy, crumbly, compact and dry. The borax polymer was squishy, soft, smelled like glue, was light, slimy, stretchy, and slippery. Both of these polymers were made up of other monomers and they both had a cross-linking agent.

In the end, my hypothesis was supported because if sodium silicate is added to ethyl alcohol, then it will form a solid polymer because the atoms in the monomers bonded with each other in chains. As soon as the ethyl alcohol was added, a chemical reaction occurred and the solution became a polymer. Looking at this on a molecular level you can see that when sodium silicate and ethyl alcohol are put together, the ethyl groups replace oxygen atoms in the silicate ion. Then the silicate particles begin to link up with each other to form long chains. This gives you the hard, tough, bouncy polymer in the end.

This lab taught me a lot about how there are different types of polymers. In the previous lab, the end polymer was much unlike the polymer in this lab. If you start with different bases and you use different cross-linking agents, the end polymer has many possibilities. Now I know that if I need a strong polymer, I’ll use a strong substance like alcohol, but if I want a soft polymer, I’ll use something like borax.

If I could do anything differently, I would probably have done more tests to see the characteristics of the silicate polymer. I recorded a lot, but there still was more to observe and learn from this experiment.

If I could test anything differently, I would change the cross-linking agent of the experiment or the monomers of the experiment. I would choose substances, with a strong base level, to make the strongest polymer, and I would choose substances with the weakest base level, to make the weakest polymer. From this I would learn which monomers make the best and worst polymers.