Research Question
What burns better/faster: a magnesium wire or magnesium powder?
Hypothesis
Before we started the experiment I didn’t know what magnesium looked like. When I saw it in class I thought it looked like aluminium, which doesn’t burn very well. Therefore I thought that the magnisium wouldn’t burn very well.
I thought that the magnesium wire would burn excactly the same as the powder. It’s the same material, so I didn’t think there would be any difference. Also, I didn’t think the magnesium would burn very well.
List of materials
- Burner
- Magnesium powder
- Magnesium wire
- Experiment plate
- Tongs
- Teaspoon
Actions step by step
Magnesium wire
1. Put on the burner.
2. Hold the magnesium wire with the tongs above the burner, until it catches fire.
3. When it caught fire, get it away from the burner and keep it above the experiment plate (this is because of the possible burning places on the table).
Magnesium powder
1. Put the magnesium powder on the spoon.
2. Put on the burner, hold it sideways.
3. Hold the spoon near the burner, so the magnesium gets on fire.
Observations
Magnesium wire
Do you know these small iron wires you close the little plastic bags (for around your bread) with? The magnesium wire looked just like this when we started!
It took us a little time to get the wire burning, because I thought the wire was burning and I got it out of the fire, only to dicover that it hadn’t caught fire yet. So we had a second try, and then it did work out. The magnesium was glowing a little when I got it out of the fire, but by the time I hold it above the experiment plate it was glowing really bright. The light was so bright that you almost couldn’t look at it, like fireworks.
Magnesium powder
When we put the magnesium on the spoon it looked like some dull grey spots, not really like something very special. But then… when we got it on fire it looked like a lot of small sparkes, like your own small firework!
Conclusions
The magnesium wire burns a lot brighter, but the magnesium powder burns better. That is because the magnesium powder covers a bigger surface than the wire does, and so gets more air. To burn well, fire needs as much air as possible, so the powder will burn really well.
REACTIES
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