my+experiment

For my project, I decided to see if coke and other sodas can dissolve a nail over a time period of two weeks. I took seven different beverages and left them in room temperature and took seven of the same beverages and left them in the fridge. I put nails in them to see if it would work. To take the nails out, I poured the experiments into coffee filters and let the beverage drain out before checking the nail. When I poured them in the filters, all of the drinks smelled... The beverages I used are Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, A&W Root Beer, lemonade, and water.

__**Root Beer (room temp):**__ In the beginning, the Root Beer foamed when we poured it into the cup. When it died down, it fizzed. After two weeks, the nail stayed the same and there was a little bit of mold on the top of the cup. This was one of the drinks that I thought would desolve the nail because the syrup is similar to Coke's syrup. __**Water (room temp):**__ The reason I included water into this experiment is because I needed something to compare the sodas to. When we put the nail into the water, the water had tiny bubbles in it like someone had just shook it. Over two weeks, the area in the water where the nail was got rusty. There was brown-orange rust around the nail. When I poured the water into the coffee filter, the nail also had rust on it. The nail was whole and in one piece. The water was not able to grow mold because the water has no sugar in it what-so-ever.
 * __Coke (room temp):__** In the beginning, the Coke foamed when we poured it in the plastic cup. When it died down, it fizzed for while. Over time, the nail stayed the same. After two weeks, the Coke did not have any mold on it, and the nail was still in one piece. Since most of the other beverages had at least a little bit of mold on it, it tells me that there is some chemical or acid in the Coke that allowed it to "fight off" the mold. Maybe if I had left it in there for awhile longer, it would have desolved the nail.
 * __Diet Coke (room temp):__** In the beginning, the Diet Coke foamed when we poured it into the plastic cup. The foam died down and it started to fizz. Over the two week period, the nail stayed the same. The Diet Coke did not grow any mold... I think this is because it does not have any sugar in it. I think that some of the other sodas grew mold because they had sugar in it, and the Diet wasn't able to because it doesn't.
 * __Pepsi (room temp):__** The Pepsi foamed more than any of the beverages. When it died down, it fizzed. Over two weeks, there was a little bit of mold on the top of the drink. The nail stayed the same... I thought that it would desolve the nail because the syrup is similar to Coke syrup... I also thought that the Coke would desolve the nail, at least that's what I heard...
 * __Sprite (room temp):__** In the beginning, the Sprite was fizzy and clear... When I poured it into the coffee filter, it was a very weird looking yellow color. There was no mold in the cup... the nail also stayed the same.
 * __Lemonade (room temp):__** In the beginning, the Lemonade fizzed the most out of all of the drinks... this surprised me because lemonade is not originally fizzy, so it must have been some kind of chemical reaction between the nail and the lemonade. After two weeks, the nail stayed the same, yet there was a layer of mold on top of the lemonade. It had the most mold out of all of the beverages also. I think it had the most mold because lemonade has so much sugar in it, so it was easier for the mold to grow.


 * __Beverages in the Fridge:__** For all of the beverages that were in the fridge, they all had the same results: there was condensation on the outside of each plastic cup. The nails were all in one piece and hadn't changed. There was not any mold on any of the liquid because it was preserved in the fridge for the same amount of time as the room temp drinks.

My hypothesis before I did this experiment was that the Coke, Pepsi, and Root Beer would dissolve the nails... sometimes in experiments what you are trying to do works... In this case, my experiment helped me collect data, but did not do what I expected it to do.

Home