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It’s Fizzy, It's Fast

Its the Alka-Seltzer Blast!

Catelyn K.

Kidest B.

Katherine M.

Lauren F.

Question

Which solution will cause the Alka-seltzer to fizz the longest?

Hypothesis

If Alka-seltzer is put into three different liquids with different pH’s, it will fizz longest with the ammonia, then the soda. The third longest time would be tap water. The Alka-seltzer will fizz least with the distilled-water.

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Materials

• soda
• ammonia solution
• distilled-water
• tap water
• beakers
• stopwatch
• pipettes
• alka-seltzer

Procedures

• Collect the materials needed.
• Pour in 100 mL of ammonia solution into a beaker.
• Pour in 100 mL of soda(Sprite) into another beaker
• Pour in 100 mL of distilled-water into a third beaker.
• Pour in 100 mL of tap-water into a fourth beaker.
• Break 2 Alka-seltzer pieces in half.
• Get stopwatch ready
• Place half-piece of Alka-seltzer on the rim of the ammonia solution beaker and drop by letting go gently of the two pieces.
• As soon as the pieces are dropped, have the time-keeper start the stopwatch.
• Stop the stopwatch as soon as the bubbles from the liquid disappear. If there were no bubbles present, then record the time as No Reaction for the Alka-seltzer did not react.
• Record results
• Repeat steps 7-11 for all four beakers/solutions

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Data/Results

Graphs

Discussion

Our hypothesis was if Alka-seltzer is put into three different liquids with different pH’s, it will fizz longest with the ammonia, then the soda. The third longest time would be tap water. The Alka-seltzer will fizz least with the distilled-water. However, we were wrong. The soda fizzed longer than the ammonia. Based on the data, the soda fizzed for 61 seconds while the ammonia only 41 seconds. The distilled water fizzed for 37 seconds which is one second more than our control, tap water. However, Our hypothesis was wrong, our data did not support what we predicted. First of all, we predicted the alka-seltzer would have fizzed the longest in the ammonia solution and then the soda, but it ended up doing the opposite- fizzing with soda the most amount of time and the ammonia second. The second part of hypothesis was that alka seltzer would fizz the next longest in the tap water then the distilled water, but our results were opposite, it fizzed the longest in the distilled water then the tap water. The alka-seltzer did not fizz the longest and had the least amount of fizziness in ammonia because ammonia has less carbon than soda. The distilled water and tap water were only one second apart for amount of time it fizzed and that is probably because it is both water.

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A problem we had was that the sprite almost overfilled the beaker after we put the Alka seltzer in. If it had overflown, we would not have an accurate amount of time for how long it fizzed because we would no longer see it fizzing. Another error we had was that the Alka seltzer tablets were not evenly cut in half. This could cause problems in our data as they weren't all tested evenly. If we did this experiment next time, we would make sure to use bigger beakers so that our solutions dont accidentally overflow and to bring more alka seltzer so that each solution could get exactly one tablet, or to cut the alka seltzer tablet more precisely if we use half.

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Conclusion

We have concluded that alka seltzer reacted most strongly with the sprite, as it caused the most amount of fizz and fizzed the longest. Ammonia does not react very well with the alka seltzer as there was barely any fizz, but it did fizz the second longest amount of time before it eventually dissolved the tablet; or more precisely, broke-down the tablet. We can also assume that alka seltzer does not react as strongly to a base then it does to an acid.

However, after doing some research, we learned that the fizz was caused by carbon. Thus, Sprite being a carbonated drink, would have the longest time to fizz.

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The Alka-Seltzer Experiment

Thank you for your time!