Yesterday in our SciMathics class we did a lab with a compound called copper dichloride. With the copper dichloride and some aluminum foil, we had a task to turn the compound into another by the name of Aluminum trichloride. My partner Adam and I were super successful and got an awesome green flame as our result. 

To start, we had to gather our materials. Two 500ml beakers, a graduated cylinder, safety goggles, copper chloride, a Bunsen Burner, some paper towel and aluminum foil. 

Once we had our materials, we added the copper chloride to one of the beakers. We then added the aluminum foil and let it settle for a couple minutes. After being patient, we were glad to see that the aluminum had turned a rusty red colour. There was a clear chemical change going on, bubbles were arising to the surface, there was a subtle smell and a new substance was created (the rust).

The elements slowly started to separate, and once this happened we poured the top contents out (the copper) and then did a wash twice with water. To wash it, we added water, let it settle and then poured it out. This would assure the copper was as pure and clean as possible. Once that was done, we added chloride and did another wash with that. We then scraped the aluminium from the bottom of the beaker and picked it up with tongs. Using the tongs to pick up a little bit of the material, we hovered it over the Bunsen Burner which resulted in this green flame: 

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Overall, I think this was a super fun experiment and the results were super cool. It was so cool to actually experiment with compounds. 

Until next time, 

Tatum.