Hello, dear friend!

We are glad that you continue to study chemistry even outside of our programs. Today we have prepared for you a real chemical garden. You have to plant and grow algae from chemicals.

Copper garden

CHEMICAL LABORATORY

GIFT INSTRUCTION

Safety precautions:

Read this text with an adult from your home.

Your kit does not include hazardous chemicals, but this does not mean that you can taste them - they are tasteless, and your stomach can get sick. Avoid contact with eyes, mouth, and nose, and if it does, rinse thoroughly with cold water.

Copper garden

In your set:

Test tube (or 50 ml beaker)
Test tube with copper (II) chloride
Copper (II) sulfate tube
Liquid glass vial (sodium metasilicate solution)
Wooden spatula
Pipette

Instruction:

1

Pour all liquid glass from the vial into a test tube (glass). Use a dropper to collect liquid glass from the vial.
2

Share an equal volume of water to a liquid glass solution. Shuffle everything with a pipette. The solution should become homogeneous.
3

Using a spatula, carefully add a small amount of salts (literally a few crystals) from small test tubes with chloride and copper (II) sulfate to a large bottle with liquid glass.
4

Now you need to wait for the "algae" to grow.

What happened?

1

As a result of the interaction of copper salts and liquid glass, an insoluble precipitate is formed - copper silicate (CuSiO3), which forms a thin film.
2

This film is able to pass water through itself, as a result a small capsule is formed, which begins to increase in volume due to the fact that water enters.
3

At some point, the wall of the capsule bursts, a thin film forms again, and the process begins anew. Because of this, the impression is that the "algae" is growing.

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