Day 3: Thursday

Today was a day of great change and progress as well as some spanking new and hopeful data. Because, after waiting for 48 hours, the graduated cylinders containing the solutions of Isopropanol and water and Vitamin C showed minuscule change in volume. The Vitamin C, itself, actually decomposed because of its antioxidant properties and it turned yellow. Dr. Seyler suggested that we use Isopropanol as a base instead of water and instead of graduated cylinders use beakers. Today I ran trials for the isopropanol control solution and the water with Isoprop. Tough the results from the Iso and water were similiar to the results from the control solution, the results showed a 50% decrease in volume on average after one hour twenty-two minutes. This change in volume is drastic in comparison to the about .1mL change over 48hrs.

The third revision of the chemical list is as follows:

1. Isopropanol
2. Isopropanol & water
3. Isopropanol & ethanol
4. Isopropanol & Vitamin E
5. Isopropanol & KHP

Day 2

Today I made up solutions for Isopropanol, Ethanol and Vitamin C. I started to make up a solution for Calcium sulfate only to find out that in order to reach the desired molarity (.5) I would have to add around 6g. but there was on problem the solubility was only .28g/mL. I ended up making a 2.8 molar solution. i also changed the method again after figuring out that after 30min virtually nothing had evaporated. Now we are going by mass. For example before i was measuring to see how long it took for the solution to lose 5mL now it's how long will it take for the solution to lose half of its mass. The experiment is expected to go on for a week or two because of the amount of chemicals that need to be tested.

Monday: Day 1

Today Dr. Seyler and I went through the plan of action and set up the apparatus for tomorrow. We also decided the list of chemicals that I would use:

1. Calcium carbonate
2. vitamin E
3. Isopropanol
4. ethanol
5. Vitamin C
6. Sodium Chloride
7. Calcium sulfate
8. Carbon Tetrachloride

The vitamins are not pure they contain other additives such as glycerin and gelatin. I have decided to make 100mL of .5M solutions. Each trial will use 15mL.

Introduction

My name is Clayton Brown. I am a student at signature high school in Evansville, IN currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program. All entries are responses to my independent research for each day.