The Methanol Canon is one of those fairly basic high school chemistry experiments designed not so much to help you learn chemistry, but rather have a chance to blow stuff up. I suppose you could go into the structural makeup of methyl alcohol and some electrical background stuff, but it's a reach, especially because the reaction itself doesn't really help explain anything. You can use either Ethanol or Methanol, but the latter produces a larger explosion.
The Gummi Bear Reaction is mostly sugar, which is easily oxidized by something like molten potassium chlorate. Ideally, a balanced equation would show sucrose (C12H22O11) being converted to carbon dioxide and water while the KClO3 becomes KCl. The actual reaction does not seem to go to total completion since there is usually a little gunky residue left behind.
methanol cannon materials:
ReplyDeleteTwo-Liter Bottle
Two Nails
Hot Glue
Methanol/Ethanol
Multiple Corks
Either a high powered Tesla-Coil or Transformer
candy corn reaction:
gummi bear candy
potassium chlorate
large test tube
ring stand
bunsen burner or other heat source
tongs
We won't be using the tesla coil one. We will simplify it to a few drops of methanol evaporated in a 5 gallon water jug. We will need to figure out how to light it from a long stick as we don't want to be standing close to it.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the Kandy Corn reaction, we will need to practice how long it will take an alcohol burner (which isn't as hot as a bunsen burner in the lab) to get the potassium chlorate hot enough to react with Kandy Corn.
ReplyDelete