Polyurethane Foam

Question: Does it have to be exactly 20 mL of liquid A and Liquid B to work?

Hypothesis: No, in my opinion, I don't think it has to be 20 mL of liquid A and liquid B for this experiment to work. Maybe changing one of the to 15 mL could still work, but I also believe that if I were to put 5-10 mL, or 30-40 mL of one of the substances, something could go horribly wrong. For example, they could over flow, not stopping, and overflow, or the could just barely react to where the reaction isn't even growing that much.

Safety Precautions:

You may want to avoid skin contact when the Foam is rising and or not dried also both Part A and Part B contain skin and tissue irritants, wear chemical splash goggles, chemical resistant gloves, and a chemical-resistant apron.

Materials: Materials for this experiment are:

Polyurethane Foam system (part A and Part B)

Acetone (optional)

Disposable cups (clear plastic if available)

Disposable gloves (optional, but highly recommended)

Food coloring (optional)

Paper towels or newspaper

Disposable stirring rod

Procedure: The procedure is fairly simple.

Step 1: Pour about 20 mL of part A in a cup. You shouldn't use glass wear, because once the substance hardens, it's nearly impossible to get it out.

Step 2: Pour about 20 mL of Part B into another cup. Note: the two liquids should be about the same amount. Also, this is only the recommended way to do this, in my experiment I will also be doing 15 mL of each compared to 20 mL of the opposite liquid.

Step 3 (optional): Add the food coloring of your choice to one of the liquids and stir thoroughly.

Step 4: Spread your paper towel or newspaper around the area you will be mixing, this could get messy.

Step 5: pour Part B into Part A's cup. Make sure the Cups are on the paper towel. then stir till you see the liquid starting to expand.

Step 6: Watch as the magic happens! The foam will start to expand 30 times it's original volume (may vary), The cup will begin to get warm, indicating an exothermic reaction. DO NOT touch the foam till completely hardened. may take a couple of minutes.

Data:

20 mL of A + 20 mL of B=

Works, takes a while, warm temperature

15 mL of A + 20 mL of B=

Works, bigger, normal time, cooler temperature

20mL of A + 15 mL of B=

Works, shortest time, hotter temperature

Conclusion: The conclusion to this little experiment is that in fact, all of the ways we tried it worked. though they were a little different than each other, they all made it to our goal. After we were done with this experiment, my group and I, plus some other excess people, decided to make some to take home. This was a very dumb idea, because we lacked the ability to measure before we mixed. This ended horribly. ALWAYS MEASURE BEFORE YOU MIX. If not, then your experiment may end up like every single one of ours did. They exploded. They over flowed and made a huge mess. So warning: Always measure before you mix, Always wear gloves when doing this, thing could get messy, aprons would be a very nice addition, and don't forget to put the paper towels or newspaper under the cups, It's hard to clean off of tables, and skin.

As in the title, this is a video of just mixing the two substances in a cup.

This video below show how the foam expands, it's slow, but it grows at such a grater volume than the video above which is what it looked like before we mixed thoroughly.

This is my STEM video! I hope you enjoy it!