Science Fair 2011

The Flame Game

By Max Dresner

The Question: What I hope to Learn

Which dissolvable materials will make cloth fireproof? I want to learn this because I read that alum makes cloth fireproof, and I wanted to find out whether that was true, and whether other dissolvable materials would make cloth fireproof too.

	Materials Water Alum Salt Sugar Epsom salts Borax Baking soda Dawn dishwashing soap Cotton cloth
	Equipment Lighters: high heat and regular Permanent marker Twine for a clothesline Bowl Fire extinguisher Safety Goggles Latex Gloves

The Steps

First, we had to get all the materials. Some were common household objects, but some were harder to get. We bought the last bottle of alum at the pharmacy. The rest was easy to get at Wal-Mart.

	Next, we cut the cloth into squares with 12 squares on a side and labeled them.
	Then, we made the solutions...
	...and dipped the cloth in them. We hung them to dry for a day.
	The next day, we lit one piece of cloth dipped in each solution with a very small blowtorch. We started outside, but it was too windy, so we had to move into the garage after trying the plain cloth and the first attempt with cloth dipped in water. I hoped at least one would explode, but no such luck.
	The final day, we lighted the second batch of cloths with a regular-heat lighter in the garage, with the garage door closed.

Results

Alum makes cloth fireproof if you use a low-heat flame. The same is true of Borax, water, salt, and Epsom salts. With the hotter flame, the cloth soaked in all of these burned some, but not as much as when dipped in the other solutions or when not dipped at all. Baking soda made the cloth burn more slowly than plain cloth with both types of flame, but not as slowly as alum, salt, and Epsom salts. Dawn made the cloth burn more, with both the low and high flames. With the high flame, sugar made the cloth burn much more than plain cloth, but less than Dawn did. With a low flame, cloth dipped in sugar did not burn very much. See the chart for the details.

Conclusions

Borax and Alum were supposed to make cloth fireproof. They did, but not very well. Dawn and sugar were very flammable. The rest were somewhere in between. In the future, we could test other kinds of cloth or other solutes.

	After Treatment		High Heat		Low Heat
Name	Stiffness	Color Change	Flammability	Squares Burned	Flammability	Squares Burned	Notes
No Solute Ø	None	None	Burns a short period	4	Burns some	3	The burn looks like flowing lava
Water H2O	Almost none	None	Short	5	Almost none	1	The fire starts after the flame is lifted
Alum NH4Al (SO4)2	Stiff	Patchy	Small	5	None	2	Snow-like substance on cloth, turns black, intense smoke, doesn't burn well
Salt NaCl	Slightly stiff	None	Almost none	3	None	1/2
Sugar C12H22O11	Very stiff	None	High	30	Not deeply scorched	1	Almost impossible to bend
Epsom Salt MgSO4•7H2O	Stiffer	None	Moderate	22	None	1/2
Borax Na2B4O7 •10H2O	Slightly stiffer	Sparkly	Almost none	5	Almost none	1	Snow like substance covering cloth
Baking Soda NaHCO3	Slightly stiffer	None	Slightly flammable	4	Crawling ember	1 1/2
Soft Soap (Dawn)	None	Slightly flakey	Highly flammable	134	Tall long flame	12

  ¶ Thursday, January 20, 2011 4 comments