Properties of Metals0506
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Properties of Metals Lab

First four on one page and the next four on the next page

1.  Soldering Iron – Push hard to get metal to start melting –heat connection.  Don’t go for a big clump, but instead small pieces.  Smaller piece takes less heat.  As melted, they stuck to the soldering iron (when metal melts and sticks to something it is “wetting”).  Metal went back to solid quickly if heat was removed (soldering iron was just barely above the melting point of the solder).  Metal melted and was shiney but soon became foggy or gray (chemical reaction – why only on the outside?)  Soldering iron about 700F but no glow.  Thermistor – soldering iron and torch!  Solder when solid can still be 545 degrees.  The nail is made of Fe and it would not melt (Fe has  a melting point that is at least 3 times that of Pb).  The PATRIOT made bullets – just with a campfire.  Wiping off the soldering iron with the towel or another piece of metal like Fe.

2.  Oxidation – Oxidizing copper or making copper oxides.  Three colors means three different chemicals which means chemical reactions triggered by heat.  Dunked copper in water – boiled water – physical reaction – pop.  Flakes of copper oxide fell off.  Lighting propane torch – fuel, spark and oxygen.  Green – inside of the copper pipe – room temperature – HCl – made it go green – statue of liberty.  Heat it up hot enough it does glow orange.  It’ll mold to the shape of the pliers.  The copper became softer when hot – I saw people flattening the pipe easily.  Hottest part of the torch was at the tip of the inside triangle because it had enough time to mix with Oxygen.  Sparkler made out of flint and steel.

3.  Pb History – 1984 lead 12-15 lbs in the paint of your house.  Think – covered up paint is no big deal – removal would be the problem.  Lead used in ancient Rome – soft malleable. Low melting point - may have poisoned Romans as they got older.  Lead used in gasoline – unleaded gasoline now.  Transfusion won’t work.  Average amount of lead per person has decreased.

4.  Tool marks – scratch on the wood made by the tool mark.  Do not tamper with the evidence.  Chain of evidence.  Used the digital microscope.  Focus, Brightness, snapshots and movies.  Evidence should have been able to put under microscope.  Corner missing vs. scratches. 

5 Freeing H and H test.  Replacement reaction.  Digital probe (start/stop and autoscale).  Oxidized the Hydrogen.  More magnesium means more heat.  Waste water had left over Mg – we were running out of HCl.  H goes whoop is when the H is reacting with O in the air – you were making water.  Stirring the mixture made it hotter.  If you blow in more, it makes more of a sound.  After the first time, it wouldn’t work without blowing into the test tube first.  Bottom was hot where the reaction was occurring but glass is not a good conducter.  Insulation in a house is fiber glass.  More HCl means that the temp doesn’t go up as much.  More magnesium heats quicker.

6 Malleability – turn the blade all the way into the copper pipe and broke the blade.  Scratch the copper pipe you just turn the blade until its snug.  Turn and tighten just a little.  We made some copper rings.  The wire heated.  Iron or Cu.  If you didn’t put the wrenches right next to each other it didn’t work.

7 Space Torch – because less gravity, the torch could be more massive.  Fuel – common or easy to make.  Burn hydrogen.  Dust burns????  Robotic is safer.  Propane (methane is similar).  Platform – 0 gravity vs moon having some gravity.  Cant be too big – torch would be the same as a rocket then.  Pressure in the tank to blow out fuel.  Mobile.  Lens??? NOZZLE.  Tethered.  Regulator for temp.  Source of oxygen.  Pilot light???? What if fuel runs out….???  Renewable.  Energy source???  Flint to spark…..? 

8  Specific Heat – C – Copper, N – nickel, S – Steel (Fe and small amount of C), B – brass (alloy (another – mixture of two or metals to make metal with new properties) of Cu and Zn), Al.  Cu heated up the quickest – all metals received the same amount of heat, but went up in temperature differently.  Cu raised its temp the most.  Closer to the middle was higher temp – heat needed time to conduct down the rod.  Ni never seemed to react to the heat.  15 seconds, Al and Brass about the same.  Steel didn’t heat up much.  They came unscrewed easily (heating them and cooling them back down).