Slush Powder

Slush Powder

Students will learn how to make water "disappear". This is a magic trick and is meant to engage students. It works best with lots of enthusiasm!

Introduction

Slush powder is very absorbent and can absorb up to hundreds of times its weight in water. It gets its name from its ability to convert water into slush, and is used in diapers. The powder, called sodium polyacrylate, is a polymer whose long chains of atoms are attached to each other by sodium atoms.

On the "inside" of the molecule there is a high concentration of sodium compared to the low concentration of sodium on the "outside" of the molecule. As a result, water moves into the molecule in order to reduce the concentration imbalance. More and more water is pulled into the molecule until the ratio of sodium atoms to water molecules is so small that the amount of sodium on the "inside" of the molecule is negligible. It takes a lot of water to do this — that is why sodium polyacrylate is advertised to absorb up to 800 times its own weight.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Name some practical uses for absorbent polymers.
• Investigate the properties of common polymers.
• Describe in general terms what occurs during a polymerization reaction.

Entire Activity

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Other Resources

Full Lesson & other activities - Goo
Science World School Programs: Chemistry
Make a Virtual Polymer: http://pslc.ws/macrog/kidsmac/makepoly.htm