Comments

My daughter is an avid reader of you magazine. She wanted to try this for an 8th grade science project. We started gathering materials. Muriatic acid from a swimming pool supply store 31% acid - not bad. I got some metals in various forms, alumimum, copper, tin, steel, stainless steel and interestingly magnesium. All the metals fizzed to some extent, however even after a few hours all just came out looking bright and clean. No effect like shown in you picture. After removing the metal items they either rusted or tarnished very quickly. My daughter was quite disappointed. The magnesium was altogether different. It reacted very violently giving off clouds of gas. Within seconds it completely dissolved - nothing was left! This experiment should be done outside and with care! Also muriatic acid is a rust agent - other metal items near to the experiment quite quickly showed signs of rust. Does anyone know of a source of pure metal samples? There are some on the web but they are expensive for a school science project. Interestingly the acid turned from a pale yellow to a dark green depending on the metal. Can anyone explain this? I think our science project is going to be reduced to the effect of muriatic acid on different metals. Thanks.