Nails rusting science project

A. Hi, Aldo. What do your results suggest to you? That's the starting point for your research. Take the results to your librarian and s/he will help you find an age appropriate book that explains those results.

Hi, Ayashi. You are not asking a science question, but for clarification of your assignment. Sorry, but nobody but a mind reader can tell you what your teacher wants. Please ask your teacher what s/he wants. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi, Tyler. The way a professional laboratory would measure the corrosion is like this:

1. Weigh the sample before exposing it to the corrosive environment.

2. After exposure, treat it with something that dissolves any rust, tarnish or other corrosion product, but does not attack the base metal.

3. Weigh what's left of the base metal and subtract it from the original weight to say how much corroded away.

If your school has an excellent scale called an analytical balance, that would provide you with a way to weigh stuff. They won't let you use the necessary chemicals to dissolve the tarnish, but hopefully you'll be able to rub off or lightly sand off the rust and tarnish.

If you don't have the tools, then you need to settle for less precision. For example, maybe you could say 10 percent of the surface of the sample was rusted after one day; 30 percent after two days, 70 percent after 3 days, and 100 percent after 4 days.

Regards,

A. Hi, kiara. I think your background research should be limited to how to conduct the test. That's here on this page and on our FAQ: What Cleans Pennies Best.

To summarize how to conduct the test:

- Use pennies from 1983 or later because they were solid copper before that and won't dissolve as easily.

- Never mix bleach with anything; it's dangerous.

- Put one penny in each bowl and cover it with the bleach or the cola. But try to do at least 3 bowls of each instead of just one, so the results aren't random.

- Don't ask which will dissolve a penny faster, because then you'll be trying to twist the experiment and pretend you didn't see some things, all to try to get the 'right' answer. That's called junk science and your teacher may flunk you if you do junk science. Tell people which actually dissolved faster in your experiment.

- After the experiment is done you may want to do research on why it worked out the way it did. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi, Celest. Your hypothesis is your educated guess about what the experiment will prove. Often, the experiment proves the hypothesis to be wrong, and that's perfectly fine because science advances as we find out that our guesses were wrong.

So you have a choice of four hypotheses:

1. vinegar [in bulk on eBay or Amazon] will evaporate into the air (that's why the smell is so sharp), and the water will evaporate.

I think the best routine is to cover the bowls with plastic wrap to try to minimize the effect of exposure to the air, and to note in your analysis of the project that you covered the bowls to tried to minimize the aging of the liquids, but recognize that it can't be prevented and is likely to have an effect when the exposure runs to 10 days.

Regards,

A. Hi, Jasmine. You didn't say what grade you are in, and this project would obviously be very different for a 2nd grade student vs. a senior in high school, as the difference is well over half of your whole education.

To make a graph, you need some sort of quantitative measure of corrosion. The best way would be to weigh the nail before the start of the test and at each interval.

If that is too advanced for your grade, then rub the rust off onto a coffee filter and pour the liquid through the filter and decide how to gauge the rusting based on the amount of rust on the filter. Good luck.

Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey