Science Fair Ideas - Impart your Wisdom...

CalTech2010 · 2002-12-07 23:21:01

It's Science Fair time again...

I was wondering if any of you have some ideas about science fair projects. Just to give you a rough run-down of my situation:

1.) I live in the Rockies, with a summer high of around 75 F, and a winter low of about 10 F

2.) I live inside of a forest fire burn area

3.) I live around several nice-sized bodies of water

4.) I recieve about 6' of snow yearly, with most sticking around until late March or early April

5.) I can come up with a reasonable budget, so don't restrain yourselves (too much ).

I would like to hear about ANY project ideas you have, whether it pertains to Mars, or something else. I hope this information gives you a better base about what I can experiment with. Thanks!

AltToWar · 2002-12-08 04:17:02

You could make your own fuel cell:

http://www.homepower.com/magazine/downl … drogen.cfm

CalTech2010 · 2002-12-08 22:25:03

Thanks for the tip. That would be a fun project, especially if I could get a practical generator going. I remember in 7th grade, I went to the Colorado State Science Fair, and the kid that won built a Sabotier (?) thing, just like Bob Zubrin. As a matter of fact, I think he knocked off the whole idea from Zubrin. It's been buggin me ever since. Excuse me, I digress.

I'll look into the hydrogen fuel cell. Anybody have some fluid mechanics or atmospheric ideas? I'd like to get a broad base of ideas.

THANKS ALTTOWAR!

CalTech2010 · 2002-12-24 17:11:23

Do you guys know how I could test the feasibility of building a Martian-clay structure like the kind Bob Zubrin suggested in The Case For Mars? I think utilizing the elements already on Mars for building is a great idea, and I'd like to test it. (I wish that one of the research stations would try this idea).

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

soph · 2002-12-24 18:36:27

i had wanted to do something on martian soil, but i couldnt get my hands on anything like it...

i've wanted to make a fuel cell, i might get the materials together in the remainder of my vacation. ive also wanted to build a reactor...if i could id have a much greater understanding of how it works

RobertDyck · 2002-12-25 02:25:46

So money is not an issue? For $15 million we could send a UNEX class probe to Mars and... Ok, something for a grade 9 science fair.

Making bricks requires a reasonable Mars soil simulant. The only soil simulant available is JPL-MARS-1, which does have the look and feel like Mars soil, but the minerals are way off. Its colour, particle size and texture are correct, and they advertise the elemental concentration to be accurate as well, but it isn't. I have a copy of the analysis as well as the analysis of real Mars soil from Sojourner, the rover on Mars Pathfinder. One of the problems with producing a reasonable soil simulant is figuring out what you are simulating; the data from Mars is so different from Earth that the geologists are not confident they know the minerals yet. One of the projects I'm working on is an attempt to integrate the results from Viking, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, and Mars Odyssey to produce a more accurate estimation of the minerals of Mars soil. I then hope to produce an accurate soil simulant for guys like you. Don't expect it to be ready for this year's school season.

I made a quick list of plastics we can make on Mars on the http://chapters.marssociety.org/winnipe … l]plastics page of the Winnipeg chapter web site. If you really want to blow your chemistry teacher's socks off, you could make a small plant that converts carbon dioxide gas and water into polyethylene plastic. High Density PolyEthylene (HDPE) is the white plastic used for milk jugs and plastic grocery bags. The device would have 4 steps:
1) electrolysize water to produce hydrogen
2) Reverse Water Gas Shift (RWGS) to convert hydrogen and carbon dioxide into water and carbon monoxide
3) reactor that uses an iron based catalyst to convert carbon monoxide and hydrogen into ethylene and water
4) polymerization of ethylene into polyethylene

The advantage of HDPE is that it can be produced by addition polymerization which only requires 1 atmosphere pressure and 300?C (572?F) temperature. Some kitchen ovens go that high. The solvent is paraffin, and the catalyst is an aluminum oxide based metal called metallocene. There is a lower temperature process called coordination polymerization but it requires pressure, some industrial solvents that could be toxic, and separating the plastic from the solvents requires filtration or a centrifuge. The plastic from addition polymerization can be separated by cooling to solidify it, but keep it warm so the paraffin remains liquid, then pour off the paraffin wax.

A description can be found at the http://www.ausetute.com.au/polythen.html]Ausetute web site. That web site uses both the name ethylene and its alias ethene, as well as the name polyethylene and the British alias polythene.

Echus_Chasma · 2002-12-25 19:37:13

I made a quick list of plastics we can make on Mars on the plastics page of the Winnipeg chapter web site. If you really want to blow your chemistry teacher's socks off, you could make a small plant that converts carbon dioxide gas and water into polyethylene plastic. High Density PolyEthylene (HDPE) is the white plastic used for milk jugs and plastic grocery bags. The device would have 4 steps:
1) electrolysize water to produce hydrogen
2) Reverse Water Gas Shift (RWGS) to convert hydrogen and carbon dioxide into water and carbon monoxide
3) reactor that uses an iron based catalyst to convert carbon monoxide and hydrogen into ethylene and water
4) polymerization of ethylene into polyethylene

That sounds quite good, I might something like try that for the New Zealand science-fair next year.
Would you be able to give a few more details please.

RobertDyck · 2002-12-26 02:54:42

I started to write a good description with more details, but while I was typing the web page blinked to "page expired".

Echus_Chasma · 2002-12-26 13:38:55

Hmm, got to hate that.

CalTech2010 · 2002-12-26 17:37:11

Cool idea... I'll check it out. I haven't checked you profile, but do you do this for a living?

RobertDyck · 2002-12-27 04:13:18

I haven't checked you profile, but do you do this for a living?

I'm trying.

I'll make another attempt at details. This time I'm typing the message in MS-Word and will cut-and-paste into posting.

The idea of making plastic on Mars is from Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars". The first three steps I mentioned are from his book. He left polymerization of ethylene into plastics as an exercise for chemists. You should get a copy of Dr. Zubrin's book; it really does have a lot in it. Another useful reference is Derrick Davis's web page http://www.angelfire.com/md/dmdventures … ]Bootstrap Mission Chemistry - 101.

Electrolysis can produce hydrogen from water. The process is to run electricity through the water. It must be direct current (DC) because the negative charged plate (cathode) will produce hydrogen gas, the positive charge plate (anode) will produce oxygen. You don't want to mix hydrogen with oxygen, that would be dangerously flammable. Place a funnel in the water above each electrode to collect the gas, and a hose from the end of the funnel to an empty plastic bag to collect the gas. The bag will inflate as gas is produced. Be careful to ensure the bag to collect hydrogen has no air. Put a little water in the bag and squeeze all the air out, and pre-fill the hose and funnel with water. The water will be displaced by hydrogen. If you want to get fancy you could use a pump to feed the hydrogen into a steel pressure tank. You can do some research to determine the best materials for the electrodes, and a catalyst that can be dissolved in water to reduce the amount of electricity required. One web site with a description of electrolysis is http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculum/7_12/el … s.htm]here. One catalyst is sulphuric acid; it is a strong electrolyte so it breaks up into positive hydrogen ions and negative sulphate ions. As hydrogen gas is released, the sulphate ions promote breaking water to steal its hydrogen. Sulphate is not released by the anode, only oxygen is released. A detailed description is available http://www.ucc.ie/ucc/depts/chem/dolche … .html]here. Scroll down to "Electrolysis of a Solution of dilute Sulphuric Acid".

The Reverse Water-Gas Shift (RWGS) is an old technique, but it requires some heat. The detailed chemical formula is 6 H2 + 2 CO2 -> 2 H2O + 2 CO + 4 H2. The net reaction is H2 + CO2 -> H2O + CO. This requires an iron-chrome catalyst and 400?C temperature. It is endothermic, which means it consumes heat. It requires addition of heat to keep the temperature at 400?C. One description of RWGS is http://spot.colorado.edu/~meyertr/rwgs/rwgs.html]here.

Production of ethylene is exothermic. Which means it produces heat. An efficient reactor would use the heat of ethylene production to warm the RWGS reaction. The simplest and safest design is to simply put both catalysts in a single reaction vessel. As the iron-chrome catalyst produces carbon monoxide, the iron-based catalyst converts it into ethylene. The RWGS reaction alone will not convert all hydrogen and carbon dioxide into water and carbon monoxide, but with the second reaction consuming carbon monoxide the RWGS reaction will convert much more.

Carbon monoxide is the toxic gas in car exhaust. Be careful not to release any inside your laboratory. While experimenting, make sure you have very good ventilation. I called the combined reaction vessel the safest design because it consumes carbon monoxide as it is produced; there is no storage of carbon monoxide.

The details for one specific iron-based catalyst to produce ethylene can be found http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_ … s.htm]here. This one uses a temperature of 320-350?C. This one has the problem that the operating temperature is lower than the RWGS. A single reaction vessel design cannot provide different temperatures for the different reactions. However, limitation of the temperature is to keep the size of olefin molecules small. Olefin is a generic term to any molecule that is a chain of carbon atoms with a pair of hydrogen atoms off each carbon. The smallest olefin is ethylene with just 2 carbon atoms. At 320-350?C it only produces ethylene and propylene (C3H6). Since the intention is to make the chain very long anyway, production of longer olefins is not a problem. You could increase the operating temperature to 400?C. A paper about detailed experiments with various iron-based catalysts to produce olefins is http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/pr … d.pdf]here. They ran the reaction at 723?K = 450?C. You don't want to produce propane (C3H8) because that will not polymerize to form polyethylene, so don't make the temperature too high, keep it to precisely 400?C.

Once the reaction is complete, you can cool the produced gasses to less than 100?C. Water will condense at that temperature, but ethylene will remain gas to -103.8?C. Be careful with ethylene/propylene, they are hydrocarbons so they're flammable. Once the ethylene/propylene is separated from water, bubble it through melted paraffin to dissolve it into the paraffin.

The last reaction operates with liquids, not gasses. Since polyethylene is a liquid at the temperature of the reaction that produces it, ethylene must be fed to the catalyst as a liquid as well. If it was just a gas the first little bit of polyethylene would cover the catalyst and prevent any more ethylene from reaching it. Dissolving ethylene in liquid paraffin makes it all liquids. The reaction can occur in gas phase, but it is simpler to put liquid paraffin with some metal beads in an unpressurized vessel in an oven. Those who want to read about gas phase reaction can go http://www.univation.com/pdfs/metallocene.pdf]here.

The best description of the polymerization of ethylene into polyethylene really is the http://www.ausetute.com.au/polythen.html]Aus-e-tute. Click the link for addition polymerization to see an animation. It operates at 300?C and pressure of 101.3kPa. The pressure today in Denver, Colorado, is 101.9kPa so ambient pressure is enough even for the mile-high city. You could try to produce some sort of continuous process that bubbles gas through the liquid paraffin. Since the liquid reactor operates at a different temperature than the gas reactor, you might as well run them in batches. That permits condensing out water; and I don't know if hydrogen, carbon dioxide, or carbon monoxide would interfere with polymerization. Keep the liquid reaction chamber sealed air-tight because paraffin will spontaneously ignite (burn) at 245?C; after all, paraffin is candle wax. Since polymerization occurs at 300?C you will be operating above ignition temperature.

Separating High-Density PolyEthylene (HDPE) from paraffin is simple cooling. HDPE will solidify at 135?C but paraffin remains liquid until 52-71?C (depending on variety of paraffin). Once the reaction vessel has cooled enough for the liquid to become cloudy, put the entire vessel in a large pot of water. Make sure water does not get into the vessel. The vessel will boil the water, and boiling water will remain precisely 100?C. That will solidify all the plastic while keeping the paraffin melted. Strain the result through cloth. The cloth will get coated in wax, so use something you can throw away.

CalTech2010 · 2002-12-27 20:57:54

I have Dr. Zubrin's book, and it was really great. Thanks for going into more detail about how to make the plastics. I'll get all of these sources together and start looking at aproaches to take on this project.

Thanks Robert!

Echus_Chasma · 2002-12-27 21:38:27

Cheers Robert, your a legend!

RobertDyck · 2002-12-31 02:22:39

I mentioned this chemistry project to my friend who is a chemist and electronics technician. He mentioned the electrolysis tank would benefit if the electricity was rectified AC power rather than a battery. You must ensure the polarity of the plates do not reverse to ensure you don't mix oxygen with hydrogen, but rectified power would alternate between charge and no charge. The absence of charge would permit ions to drift away from the plates, preventing accumulation of non-active molecules. To put it another way, the vibration ensure circulation in the tank.

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#1 2002-12-07 23:21:01

Re: Science Fair Ideas - Impart your Wisdom...

#2 2002-12-08 04:17:02

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#3 2002-12-08 22:25:03

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#4 2002-12-24 17:11:23

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#5 2002-12-24 18:36:27

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#6 2002-12-25 02:25:46

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#7 2002-12-25 19:37:13

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#8 2002-12-26 02:54:42

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#9 2002-12-26 13:38:55

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#10 2002-12-26 17:37:11

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#11 2002-12-27 04:13:18

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#12 2002-12-27 20:57:54

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