Reaction & Solution Chemistry

Social media promotes many D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) teeth whitening methods, but are they effective? Are D.I.Y. whitening methods just as good as brand toothpaste or a hoax? This project will experiment with two popular methods of teeth whitening from ordinary household items and how they compare to toothpaste. I used apple cider vinegar with baking soda for one recipe and baking soda and water for my second recipe. I compared these two teeth whitening methods to my favorite toothpaste, Crest.

I hypothesized that tried and true toothpaste whitens teeth better than D.I.Y. methods. I am planning to test the different D.I.Y. whitening recipes and toothpaste against tea/coffee stained white porcelain tiles.

For this project, I ran three different trials: method with 1 minute without brushing, method with 1 minute with brushing, and method with 2 minutes with brushing. For each trial, I used a toothbrush, applied the whitening methods onto each tile, then brushed the tiles according to the different trial specifications.

My experiment supported my hypothesis and showed that toothpaste has the lowest grey scale score but requires brushing. The apple cider vinegar was the better of the two D.I.Y. whitening recipes and showed the largest area of whitening due to its high liquid content. Rinsing included in a future experiment can also increase areas of whitening for toothpaste. In conclusion, don’t give up on toothpaste yet. It should be your go-to for at home teeth whitening.

The objective of this project is to identify eco-friendly ways of disposing styrofoam that are time-efficient. It was hypothesized that if styrofoam is dissolved into limonene, lemon extract, and lime extract, then limonene will dissolve styrofoam in the least amount of time. Limonene, along with various extracts of different acidic fruits, such as including lemons and limes, were placed into 5 gram containers. The time was recorded for each substance to dissolve one cubic centimeter of styrofoam. The lemon and lime extracts took significantly longer to dissolve the styrofoam: they took approximately 79.93 times longer than the limonene. Limonene is most effective in dissolving styrofoam, and lemon extract is a faster solvent than lime extract. The efficiency of each solute was determined by the amount of time it took for 1 cubic centimeter of styrofoam to dissolve in 5 milliliters of a substance. The results recorded reflected the original hypothesis, and the trials using limonene took an average of 8.67 seconds to completely dissolve the solute. Further investigative research in this topic may include other solutions that produce smaller amounts of waste product after dissolving styrofoam. Results of this project may include having a global impact in reducing the percentage of styrofoam in landfills and gradually allow shifting into more eco-friendly recycling methodologies.

We are testing amounts of Lead in children's toys from different countries. We are doing this project because so many children have harmful amounts of lead in their bodies because of children toys being put in the mouth. To conduct this experiment, we will use a special lead kit and determine how much lead is on the surface of each toy. From this experiment, we will see which country has the safest amounts of lead for children.