Blue bottle Experiment

Hi there. In this post, I'm bring you a really cool experiment. The blue bottle experiment. This is actually not about a blue colored bottle. This is about a color changing solution. There is a bottle contain a liquid like water. When it shake, that liquid turns blue color.

You will need....

1. 1 gram of Sodium hydroxide
2. 5 grams of Glucose
3. Methylene blue

Methylene blue is used to treat fungal infections of fish. So you can find it from pet shops. Sodium hydroxide (also called caustic soda) can be found in hardware stores.

Let's start. first mix sodium hydroxide with 20ml of water. Now keep is aside. Then get the glucose and add 40ml of water. Now add few drops from Methylene blue and mix the solution. And now pour the those two solutions to a volumetric flask. If you don't have a flask, just get a bottle. After few seconds the solution turns colorless. Now shake the flask. It turns blue and again after few seconds, it turns colorless. Just enjoy.

The reason for this color change is the oxidization-reduction reaction of methylene blue. When we put glucose into the sodium hydroxide, glucose oxidize to gluconic acid. It reduce methylene blue and turns colorless. When we shaking the flask, oxygen dissolves in the solution and oxidize methylene blue and turns blue.

http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/demos/demosheets/19.1.html

Watch the video...