Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Drops on a Penny
MYP CULIMINATING REPORT
Introduction
The objective of this report is to establish what will happen to the surface
tension of a liquid that has a higher viscosity than water. In order to answer
this, an experiment will be conducted on the basis of the Drops on a Penny
experiment and then analyzed.
Background Information
The Drops on a Penny Experiment is an experiment that delves into the
properties of cohesive forces and surface tension. By squeezing water
droplets from an eye dropper onto a penny, it showcases how surface tension
works as a bubble of liquid forms over the penny with each droplet. Here is
how the experiment will be altered to answer the objective of this report.
Independent Variables:
The independent variable will be changed from water to 4 different liquids
with a higher viscosity than water. The proposed liquids are vegetable oil,
dish soap, maple syrup, and hand sanitizer. All 4 of these liquid possess a
higher viscosity than water, thus giving the upper hand in establishing the
answer to the objective of this report.
Dependent Variables:
The dependent variable in this scenario is the surface tension of the liquid on
top of the coin.
Control Variable:
1. Speed at which the liquid is dropped from the eyedropper. It was
established that the liquid will be dropped from the dropper at a rate of
1 drop every 4 seconds.
2. Height at which the liquid was dropped from. For this variable, the tip
of the dropper will be placed at a height of 4 cm above the penny using
a ruler.
3. The type of coin. This experiment will be conducted with the penny
being the only choice of a coin.
4. The temperature. All liquids and equipment were maintained at room
temperature. This was mainly done to avoid the viscous behavior that
may occur if the liquids are placed in a hot or cold temperature.
To answer the objective of this report, the original Drops on a Penny
experiment will be conducted and recorded with the control variables in
place. This will be done in order to figure out the initial surface tension of
PAGE 1
water for comparison purposes in the future. After this, the other liquids will
replace the water and the experiment will be conducted and then recorded.
Each liquid (including water) will be tested three times and then averaged.
Once the data is compiled and observed, the answer to the objective of the
report will be determined.
Hypothesis
The hypothesis of this report is that the surface tension will increase in
relation to how high the level of viscosity is for the liquid. This essentially
means that a liquid of higher viscosity will obtain a higher surface tension.
This hypothesis was keyed together on the basis of general knowledge.
According to the general knowledge regarding chemistry, both surface
tension and viscosity revolve around the principle of molecular interaction.
For viscosity, the stronger intermolecular forces between the molecules in a
liquid result in a higher liquid viscosity. The same knowledge is applied for
surface tension as the surface tension increases when the intermolecular
forces between the liquid molecules become stronger. Therefore, an educated
assumption was made that the viscosity of a liquid has a direct correlation on
its surface tension because as the viscosity increases (intermolecular force
becomes stronger), so does the surface tension.
Materials
Equipment
-
Liquids
-
PAGE 2
Experimental Procedure
1. A paper towel was placed on a flat surface for cleanliness. A penny was
then put on top of the paper towel.
2. An eyedropper was filled with water from its respective liquid container
until it reached its carrying potential.
3. A peer was asked to hold the 30 cm ruler right beside the penny at a
90-degree angle from the table.
4. The eyedropper was then hovered above the coin where the tip of the
dropper was placed at the 4 cm mark of the ruler.
5. Placing the tip of the eyedropper at the 4cm mark in midair, liquid
droplets were carefully squeezed out from the eyedropper at a rate of
1 drop every 4 seconds. This step was recorded (every drop was
counted) until the liquid bubble had burst/overflowed.
6. After the liquid bubble had burst, a paper towel was utilized to clean up
the workstation.
7. Steps 2-6 were repeated twice and recorded again.
8. The recorded data of drops from the first trial and second trial were
added/tallied up using a calculator. This number was then divided by 3
(# of trials) to find the average number of drops the penny could
hold/withstand and recorded in a notebook using a pencil and paper.
9. Steps 1-9 were repeated until all the proposed liquids had been trialed
three times and the data was entirely recorded.
Results
Here is the compiled data from the experiment conducted. This table features
the data for all the drop trials as well as an average drop number compiled
from all three of the trials.
Table 1. Compiled Data from experiment.
PAGE 3
Below is a graph that features some of the data featured above in the table.
The featured data in the graph are the proposed liquids and the average
number of drops.
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
41.33
37.66
36.66
31.33
24.66
Proposed Liquids
Figure 1. The average number of drops for each of the proposed liquids.
Observations
Below are the respective observations that were compiled from each liquid
test.
Plain Tap Water
Qualitative:
-
Quantitative:
Trial 1: 39 drops
Trial 2: 42 drops
Figure 2. Tap Water on Penny
PAGE 4
Trial 3: 43 drops
Avg. Number of drops: 41.33 drops
Vegetable Oil
Qualitative:
-
Vegetable oil droplets required more pressure to push out of the eyedropper.
Created a bubble of vegetable oil over penny.
The oil spilt off the penny in a much slower
manner than water.
Oil is thick in touch.
3rd least viscous
Quantitative:
Trial 1: 26 drops
Trial 2: 23 drops
Trial 3: 25 drops
Avg. Number of drops: 24.66 drops
Hand Sanitizer
Qualitative:
-
Quantitative:
Trial 1: 35 drops
Trial 2: 42 drops
Trial 3: 36 drops
Avg. Number of drops: 37.66 drops
Maple Syrup
Qualitative:
-
Sweet in taste
Smells like maple
Required most force to push out of eyedropper
Formed a chunky bubble over penny
Thick and sticky
PAGE 5
Most viscous
Spilt off penny slower than all the other liquids
Took most time to spread across penny
Quantitative:
Trial 1: 36 drops
Trial 2: 42 drops
Trial 3: 32 drops
Avg. Number of drops: 36.66 drops
Dish Soap
Qualitative:
-
Quantitative:
Trial 1: 34 drops
Trial 2: 32 drops
Trial 3: 28 drops
Avg. Number of drops: 31.33 drops
Shiny
From year 2007
Two different sides; heads and tails
Same color as copper
Worth 1 cent
Maple leaf on tails side of coin
Queen Elizabeth on the second on heads side of coin
Quantitative:
Value: $0.01 (not valid anymore)
Mass: 2.33 g
PAGE 6
Height/Thickness: 1.40 mm
PAGE 7
Conclusion
According to the data compiled from the altered Drops on a Penny
experiment, there appears to no evidence that supports the original
hypothesis of this report. The hypothesis originally stated that surface tension
would increase based on how high the viscosity level is for a liquid. However,
this assumption was not justified by the compiled data of this experiment.
Rather than verifying the hypothesis, the data displayed no correlation
between viscosity and surface tension whatsoever. To prove this, we will need
to analyze the viscosity of each liquid. According to the observations stated
above, the viscosity of each proposed liquid from highest to smallest would
be maple syrup, hand sanitizer, vegetable oil, dish soap, and water. Had there
been any relationship between viscosity and surface tension or the
hypothesis been right then maple syrup would have the strongest surface.
This was evidently proven otherwise in the data when it showcased that
maple syrup (36.66 Avg. drops) had a lower surface tension than the least
proposed viscous liquid, water (41.33 Avg. drops). Another way to prove this
is by classifying the viscosity of each liquid out of 5. In this scale, number 5
would classify as the most viscous while number 1 would classify as the least
viscous. Therefore, the results from the data above would display number 5
as maple syrup, number 4 as hand sanitizer, number 3 as vegetable oil,
number 2 as dish soap, and number 1 as water. Now this data can be
graphed alongside each liquids respective surface tension (Avg. number of
drops) as such below.
41.33
37.66
40
36.66
31.33
35
f(x)==0.01
R
- 0.3x + 35.23
30
25
24.66
20
15
10
5
0
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
4.5
5.5
Viscosity Level
PAGE 8
Figure 6. The average number of drops by each proposed liquid compared to their
viscosity level.
The graph displayed above showcases that there is no relation between the
viscosity level and surface tension of a liquid. This is evident as the r 2 value
(0.0054) indicates that the relationship between the viscosity level and
surface tension (Avg. number of liquid droplets) is not strong. Therefore, the
data compiled from the altered Drops on a Penny experiment disproves the
hypothesis and indicates that viscosity is not a crucial factor for surface
tension.
Evaluation
There is always room for improvement. In the case of this experiment, there
were many sources of error that may have caused the compiled data from
this experiment to lose its credibility. An example of this would be the
recording of the data. When the liquid droplets were being dropped onto the
surface of the penny, each drop was recorded in bias manner as they were
being counted in someones head rather than a sheet of paper. This caused
the data to be slightly wrong as the droplets were miscounted from time to
time. An easy and simple solution to this would be to have a partner tally the
drop of each liquid on a separate sheet of paper. This would allow for a
precise counting of the droplets, thus further making the recorded data
credible. Another example of a source of error would the droplet size. As
mentioned in the observations, sometimes it would require more force to get
a liquid to leave the eyedropper than others. This would sometimes act as an
issue for recording the data as from time to time, more force than what is
required would be exerted onto the eye dropper causing more than 1 liquid
droplet to be released. This posed a threat to the credibility of the data as it
would sometimes make the experimenter confused while counting each
droplet. A solution to this source of error would be to determine how much
force would be required for each liquid prior to conducting the experiment to
get a feel of how much force will need to be exerted to release the liquid from
the eyedropper. Although four crucial control variables were introduced to
keep the experiment data equitable, there were still a few sources of error
that posed a threat to the credibility of the data derived from this experiment.
PAGE 9