vinegar
The vinegar made its penny shiny. Pennies become dull over time as copper on the surface reacts with oxygen from the air. The two elements combine to form dark chemicals called copper oxides. The acetic acid in vinegar dissolves these chemicals and leaves the copper surface of the penny looking shiny.
What happens when you clean pennies with lemon juice?
The copper mixes with oxygen, the same gas that we breathe. This cause something called oxidation and makes the penny look dirty. Lemon juice has acid in it that removes the dirty color or oxidation and makes the penny nice and shiny again!
What kind of juice is good for pennies?
Less acidic juice, such as grape and apple, may have little or no effect on the pennies.Use a pH strip to test the levels of acid in the juices before the children drop the pennies. Record the answer and then let them drop one penny in each cup.
What’s the best thing to use to clean pennies?
This is important to note because things that are good at removing soils, like soap, detergent, and shampoo will be of no use in dissolving the copper tarnish. But some things that are poor cleaners like lemon juice plus salt (a mild acid), vinegar plus salt (a mild acid), and Coke & Pepsi (mild acids) will be good at removing the tarnish. 6.
Can you put a penny in lemon juice?
So you put one penny in cold lemon juice for 30 seconds and you drop one penny into boiling lemon juice, intending to leave it for 30 seconds. You want to retrieve your penny from the boiling juice but your mom yells “Whoa, you may burn yourself!
Why does heated juice clean up pennies faster?
Observations are things you saw, heard, smelled, or measured that are relevant to your experiment. Sometimes scientists guess wrong about what was relevant, but still we try to apply common sense. If the pennies clean up quicker when you use heated juice, that is a relevant observation.
