Sciencemadness Discussion Board - The Slime craze!!

The Slime craze!!

barbs09 - 5-10-2017 at 04:15

Hello, couldn’t see any earlier relevant posts. Many of you dads (or mums) out there may have noticed a latest craze among their kids: slime….. I am totally over it and the waste of polyvinyl acetate (PVA glue) and other crap they leave lying around . But more recently I have discovered that my kids may have made an error in their interpretation of “PVA”, which some sites e.g.

https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/slimes-... state it should be polyvinyl alcohol and not PV acetate.

PVA powder seems freely available on Ebay, but before I order a 100g or so, does anyone else have any recipes that kids can make, other than that on Steve Spanglers site? Does the alcohol make a better material than the acetate?? Any other interesting recipes to keep the kids interest in nascent chemistry up? (we have played with cornflour many times).

p.s. my kids reckon Cold Power, which contains heaps of crap but includes sodium borate, acts better than borax alone as a cross-linking activator..

Cheers

[Edited on 5-10-2017 by barbs09]

Rhodanide - 5-10-2017 at 08:46

Quote: Originally posted by barbs09

Hello, couldn’t see any earlier relevant posts. Many of you dads (or mums) out there may have noticed a latest craze among their kids: slime….. I am totally over it and the waste of polyvinyl acetate (PVA glue) and other crap they leave lying around . But more recently I have discovered that my kids may have made an error in their interpretation of “PVA”, which some sites e.g.

https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/slimes-... state it should be polyvinyl alcohol and not PV acetate.

PVA powder seems freely available on Ebay, but before I order a 100g or so, does anyone else have any recipes that kids can make, other than that on Steve Spanglers site? Does the alcohol make a better material than the acetate?? Any other interesting recipes to keep the kids interest in nascent chemistry up? (we have played with cornflour many times).

p.s. my kids reckon Cold Power, which contains heaps of crap but includes sodium borate, acts better than borax alone as a cross-linking activator..

Cheers

[Edited on 5-10-2017 by barbs09]

I'm not sure if PVAc makes a better "slime" than PVOH, but I DO know that PVAc tends to smell over time (Acetic acid). I'd probably go with PVOH/Polyvinyl Alcohol, but that's just me. As for the Borate substitute, that's a good question. I'm not too familiar with "Slime" or how it exactly works, I just get exhausted from seeing people calling Borax 'Boric Acid', when it's not... (Na₂B₄O₇ · 10H₂O) It's one of those circumstances where I don't know whether I find people throwing around chemical names hither and thither, to be annoying or just funny.

Morgan - 5-10-2017 at 11:10

Steve Spangler loses his mind over Borax!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpSJdLyqibs

I made some guar gum and boric acid slime that became a "solid gel" but shaking/slapping it back and forth in a jar it transitions back to a flowing slime. Upon resting it will again become a single slug of jello that doesn't flow.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/app.45037/abstrac...

[Edited on 5-10-2017 by Morgan]

j_sum1 - 5-10-2017 at 11:42

I have used both polyvinyl acetate glue and polyvinyl alcohol before. The two end up beig quite different textures. Both are cool but it deeds on what you are after.

VSEPR_VOID - 5-10-2017 at 13:10

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

Steve Spangler loses his mind over Borax!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpSJdLyqibs

[Edited on 5-10-2017 by Morgan]

Its a shame that our society is not scientifically literate. Borax is just the visible tip on the iceberg.

barbs09 - 6-10-2017 at 04:33

Cheers guys, few ideas there. Steve certainly loses his mind, but as you say VV, tip of the iceberg.

NEMO-Chemistry - 7-10-2017 at 14:39

I got no where using PVA glue sold in the Uk for making slime, it just went lumpy then hard when mixed with Borax.

Foeskes - 7-10-2017 at 15:59

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

I got no where using PVA glue sold in the Uk for making slime, it just went lumpy then hard when mixed with Borax.

I think you need to mix the glue with water 1:1

Morgan - 7-10-2017 at 18:17

I wonder if boric acid would work better than borax with the glue?

barbs09 - 8-10-2017 at 04:11

NEMO, I watched my daughter put a ca. 1/2 cup of PVA glue into a bowel and maybe a teaspoon of saturated borax solution to it and stirred. She added a "dash" or so more if required. Turned into reasonable gloop.

NEMO-Chemistry - 8-10-2017 at 06:21

Quote: Originally posted by barbs09

NEMO, I watched my daughter put a ca. 1/2 cup of PVA glue into a bowel and maybe a teaspoon of saturated borax solution to it and stirred. She added a "dash" or so more if required. Turned into reasonable gloop.

BINGO, I spotted my mistake. Thx

i used youtude as a reference, they added powdered Borax, as did I.

Thinking about it, that was really dumb!! Just tried with solution and while its not perfect (pretty sure its the Glue I am using), it is much much better than previously.

Thanks for mentioning SOLUTION, no idea why the hell I blindly followed a you tube without switching my brain on. Soon as I read your post a light went on lol, now I feel pretty stupid

barbs09 - 8-10-2017 at 07:04

Well, I guess helping someone make better slime is something...

Glad to be doing my bit for the scientific community!!

unionised - 9-10-2017 at 03:09

Quote: Originally posted by Morgan

Steve Spangler loses his mind over Borax!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpSJdLyqibs

[Edited on 5-10-2017 by Morgan]

Now that's funny- but for the wrong reason. He rants about people who didn't do the research and don't know anything.
Firstly it is simply wrong about the reason why borax (along with other borates) is restricted (in the EU at least).
It was nothing to do with that girl who managed to burn her hands.

This is the reason- there is a fair chance it rots your balls.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1566649/

http://dissemination.echa.europa.eu/Biocides/ActiveSubstance...

And then he goes on about the fact hat it's sold as contact lens solution.
Well, if he's a scientist, he really ought to be vaguely aware of the doctrine of Paracelsus.
It seems he's forgotten that what makes something a poison isn't the material, but the dose.
So, a very dilute borate solution isn't likely to do any harm, but a box full of the neat compound might do.

Yep, it looks like he lost his mind.

Incidentally, I recently offered to use my credentials as a scientist to get hold of the stuff so that I could provide it to a friend who is a guide/scout leader so they could use it to make slime.
The risk is real, but small- too small, in my opinion- to be worth worrying about, compared to the benefits of entertainment and education.

[Edited on 9-10-17 by unionised]

NEMO-Chemistry - 9-10-2017 at 10:02

So the lesson is dont dip your balls in Borax if your a rat!

Lets be honest, living is dangerous, 100% guaranteed to be fatal at some point. And this is in a human model not a rat. Although rats also have a 100% death rate

[Edited on 9-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]

unionised - 9-10-2017 at 12:29

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

So the lesson is dont dip your balls in Borax if your a rat!

[Edited on 9-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]

... or a beagle.

Rhodanide - 10-10-2017 at 05:46

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

So the lesson is dont dip your balls in Borax if your a rat!

[Edited on 9-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]

... or a beagle.

I've got a Beagle. Should I keep my Borax away from him?
Why even? hahaha

NEMO-Chemistry - 10-10-2017 at 05:55

Quote: Originally posted by Tetra

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

So the lesson is dont dip your balls in Borax if your a rat!

[Edited on 9-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]

... or a beagle.

I've got a Beagle. Should I keep my Borax away from him?
Why even? hahaha

Well the reason for the rat is, I found a paper where they discovered Borax 'could' give testicular cancer to rats exposed to borax.

I assume they have therefore also used a beagle as a model. i wondered about the Beagle myself, a bit of google foo disclosed that apparently beagles were often used as animal models in days gone by.

No idea why the beagle was used as a breed, but seems a huge amount of work on smoking was done in the 70's and 80's using beagles forced to smoke cigs non stop for hours.

Pretty horrible really, i am not anti animal uses in science, as long as the research is significant. I dont consider beauty products to fit significant or justified.

Thats just my opinion and others may have a differing opinion.

Found this....

Got to be honest and say surely at this level, the only people in any kind of risk group. would surely be those working with it without protection?

[Edited on 10-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]

Attachment: weir1972.pdf (944kB)
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Rhodanide - 10-10-2017 at 09:10

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

Quote: Originally posted by Tetra

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

So the lesson is dont dip your balls in Borax if your a rat!

[Edited on 9-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]

... or a beagle.

I've got a Beagle. Should I keep my Borax away from him?
Why even? hahaha

Wow, that's messed up.
Gotta wonder why them.

Morgan - 10-11-2017 at 06:06

Posted on Reddit today ...
"How to increase glue sales by twelve thousand percent."
https://i.imgur.com/OuJPdDr.jpg

For review - the people who hate borax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpSJdLyqibs
https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/glue-bo...

mayko - 28-11-2017 at 17:09

Quote:

ABSTRACT: Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) precipitates in many kinds of
aqueous salt solutions. While sodium sulfate, a coagulant for PVA fiber,
precipitates PVA to yield a white rigid gel, coagulation of PVA with aluminum
sulfate, a coagulant for water treatment, yields a slime-like viscoelastic fluid.
One type of homemade slime is prepared under basic conditions with borate.
The method reported in this paper is carried out under acidic conditions with
materials that are used for water treatment. Through this demonstration,
students can learn about chemical interactions through the coagulation and
diffusion of slime. This demonstration can be carried out in 30 min.

Also some general results on PVA coagulation under various salts:

Code:


No. Salta Precipitant Properties
1 NaCl low viscosity fluid
2 CaCl2·2H2O low viscosity fluid
3 Na2SO4·10H2O rigid
4 MgSO4·7H2O low viscosity fluid
5 Al2(SO4)3·14−18H2O slime-like viscoelastic fluid
6 Na2B4O7·10H2O slime

Isokawa, N., Fueda, K., Miyagawa, K., & Kanno, K. (2015). Demonstration of the Coagulation and Diffusion of Homemade Slime Prepared Under Acidic Conditions without Borate. Journal of Chemical Education, 92, 1886–1888. http://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00272

Attachment: Demonstration of the Coagulation and Diffusion of Homemade Slime Prepared Under Acidic Conditions without Borate.pdf (2.5MB)
This file has been downloaded 478 times