bbartlog
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K2SO4: catalyst for elephant toothpaste?
It's claimed in several places on the web that K2SO4 can be used as a catalyst for the 'elephant's toothpaste' chemistry demo. I did this earlier
today with my kids and K2SO4 doesn't seem to work - at least, what I think is K2SO4 obtained from wood ashes doesn't do anything. I got the demo to
work using CuSO4+NaOH as a catalyst, but I'm wondering whether there is any basis to the notion that K2SO4 would catalyze the decomposition of H2O2.
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#maverick#
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yeast can be used as a catalyst and with yeast you can add a fluorescent dye to make glow in the dark, this wont work with KI i dont remember why
though
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barley81
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Apparently iodide ions quench fluorescence, check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjhLaMrHiLQ
I have no idea how this works, but it's pretty cool and may be suitable for a demonstration.
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LanthanumK
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When I did my science project on catalytic decomposition of H2O2 by various metal salts, I do not remember Na2SO4 as decomposing it very fast. K2SO4
should be slightly faster but still relatively slow.
hibernating...
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