EXPERIMENT : Lava Lamp

Learn how to make an easy lava lamp by using simple household things such as vegetable oil, water, clear bottle and food colourign to create a chemical reaction and funky balls of colour that move around like a real lava lamp!

What you'll need :

• Clear bottle

• Food colouring

• vegetable oil

• Water

• Alka-Seltzer

Instructions :

1. Pour the water inside the bottle until it's around one quater full.

2. Pour the vegetable oil in the bottle until it's nearly full.

3. Wait until the oil and the water separated completely.

4. Add around a dozen drops of food colouring that you like inside the bottle.

5. Cut the Alka-Seltzer into small pieces and drop one of them into the bottle. Things should start a little crazy as soon as you drop them, just like a real lava lamp!

6. When the bubbling stop, add another Alka-Seltzer and enjoy the show.

What's Happening?

If you've tried our oil and water experiment you'll know that the two don't mix very well. The oil and water you added to the bottle separate from each other, with oil on top because it has a lower density than water. The food coloring falls through the oil and mixes with the water at the bottom. The piece of Alka-Seltzer tablet you drop in after releases small bubbles of carbon dioxide gas that rise to the top and take some of the colored water along for the ride. The gas escapes when it reaches the top and the colored water falls back down. The reason Alka-Seltzer fizzes in such a way is because it contains citric acid and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), the two react with water to form sodium citrate and carbon dioxide gas (those are the bubbles that carry the colored water to the top of the bottle).

Adding more Alka-Seltzer to the bottle keeps the reaction going so you can enjoy your funky lava lamp for longer. If you want to show someone later you can simply screw on a bottle cap and add more Alka-Seltzer when you need to. When you've finished all your Alka-Seltzer, you can take the experiment a step further by tightly screwing on a bottle cap and tipping the bottle back and forth, what happens then?