More Lemonade Science {Incr-Edible Science}

In our Incr-Edible Science last week, we made some rather revolting lemonade. If I’m honest, calling it lemonade is a stretch. It was fizzy and it has lemon in it. ‘Nuff said! This week, our goal was to explore some more lemonade science to see if we could create a more palatable lemonade.

Read More! Learn how we investigated the science of bicarb before attempting to make our own lemonade.

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I set the children two Incr-Edible Science tasks.

More Lemonade Science: Tasty Lemonade!

The first task was to design a method which would use the chemistry we had learnt to produce more palatable lemonade. Thomas chose this one. My boy knew it was the salt (Sodium Citrate) which gave the horrid taste to the lemonade. He deduced that if he could make apparatus which allowed the CO2 into the lemonade but kept everything else away from the lemonade, it would result in fizz and no bitterness. He decided to play around with some ideas small-scale before he tried for a whole glass, stating he didn’t want to waste too much lemon juice.

First Attempt

First, Thomas separated the lemon syrup from the bicarb by using a reaction between vinegar and bicarb in the first test tube and bubbling the gas into the lemon syrup. The idea was a good one. However, the bicarb and vinegar fizz mixture was stronger than the lemon juice and bicarb reaction Thomas had already experienced. It fizzed straight through the tubing into the lemon syrup. Some also escaped out of the tubing as you can see below. The lemonade was even worse than before as it now had vinegar added to it. Yuck!

Here is his first attempt in pictures:

Second Attempt

Thomas was utterly undeterred, and enthusiastically made some changes to his design. First, he decided to tape around the edges of the test tube to stop any gas escaping. Surmising the vinegar had caused the vigorous reaction, he also decided that he would use less vinegar. He felt the smaller volume would probably still produce enough gas to make the lemon fizzy.

Next, Thomas added the bicarb and then quickly placed the lid in the test tube. You can see the gas fizzing into the lemon, but vinegar staying in its test tube. Result! And the taste test….again the face says it all! Success!

Can Thomas Make Lemonade on a Larger Scale?

Yesterday evening I had him do it large-scale with the hopes of achieving a whole glass of fizzy lemonade. Unbeknown to me, he had been playing about with his design in order to improve on it. His new design consisted of funnels, with plasticine to ensure no escape of air. This time he used a larger tube to allow more CO2 through and two larger bottles, one with the lemon juice and one with vinegar. He added the Bicarb and with Daddy’s help capped off the bottles with the tubed funnels. You can see the CO2 bubbling through the tube into the lemon juice below.

We all had a taste. It was very good with no taste of salt or vinegar in it at all. We did decide it wasn’t quite as fizzy as his tests. Accept for Abigail, who thought it was perfect.

The Reaction Between Acid and Alkaline

The second quest was to blow up a balloon using what they had learnt about the reaction between acid and alkaline.

Firstly, Lillie added bicarb to the vinegar. Unfortunately, she was so excited by the reaction that she forgot to put on the balloon! So she tried again with me helping to put the balloon on as soon as she had put in the bicarb. She obtained a great result!

I asked if she could figure a way to do it which did not require my help. She thought and came up with putting the Bicarb in the balloon before attaching it to a bottle with vinegar in. Can I tell you how proud I am of her? Here is a girl who really struggles with maths, and who seems a complete natural at chemistry. It is wonderful to see!