fairfolio
Saved Projects

Which Evaporates Fastest?

CSEF · 2012 Chemistry

Kalati J. Tuilesu · Camino Real Elementary School, Riverside, Riverside County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine which liquid: water, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, or olive oil evaporates the fastest and why. Methods/Materials Equal amounts of water, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, and olive oil were poured into 4 separate vials of identical shape, material, and size. I used a camera to take records of the speed of evaporation of each liquid over time ending the experiment on the 15th day. The liquids were left at room temperature. I used various materials to make models of atoms and molecules. Results The rubbing alcohol evaporated the fastest followed by water and finally vinegar. Olive oil didn#t seem to evaporate at all. Conclusions/Discussion My conclusion is that molecule size and polarity of molecules affects the liquid's ability to evaporate. Since rubbing alcohol has both a small molecule as well as less polarity, the molecules are not holding on to each other so it evaporates the fastest.

Summary statement

My project is about the evaporation of four liquids which depends on molecular structure and size.

Help received

Grandmother helped with research and making of molecular models. Mother helped with board layout. Uncle gave telephone interview and confirmed polarity question.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2012 Chemistry · Entry J0626

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google