Haiden Burrichter

Mrs. Hartney

LA 7A

April 17, 2014

Flame Test Lab

This month in Science we have been doing many labs. My favorite lab that we did this month was the flame test lab. What we did was we took a paperclip and we put a certain chemical on it that got rid of the bacteria or anything that was left on it from something else. After we put the certain type of chemical on it we turned on our Bunsen burner and lit it. We stuck the paperclip in the Bunsen burner. It turned the flame a bright orange. Once the flame of the Bunsen burner was back to a normal, light blue color we went and got all of our chemicals. We kept them in test tubes. The chemicals that we used were Copper, Sodium chloride, Potassium chloride, Calcium chloride, Lithium chloride, and Strontium chloride. We stuck one of our paperclips into the test tube with the Sodium chloride first. After the paperclip was covered with this chemical we placed it towards the bottom of the flame over the Bunsen burner. The sodium chloride turned the flame bright orange. Next we had to clean the paperclip in between each chemical or else it would affect our results. Once the paperclip was clean, we did the Potassium chloride. It turned the flame purple. Once again, we cleaned our paperclip. Next we did copper. It turned the blue, normal colored flame into a bright green flame that lasted a long time. After we cleaned the paperclip again, we did Calcium chloride. Calcium chloride was the hardest one to figure out. It took my group about four tries until we actually saw the real color. This chemical turned the flame red for about half a second. After we finally figured out the color of that Calcium chloride we did the Lithium chloride. This one was personally my favorite. The flame burst into a hot pink parade. Finally, we got to the last one. It was the Strontium chloride. The flame became a peach color. This lab was hard, but it was also fun. I really enjoyed doing this lab and I think my other classmates enjoyed it too.