Help With Kid's Chemistry Assignment

[Max Power]

As this forum is a wealth of knowledge, I thought Id try my luck with my kids assignment which I havent an idea when asked to help. Hopefully someone out there can.

It's an automotive scenario so hopefully we will all benefit from this

Here goes;

YOUR TASK:

You have woken up on a Saturday morning in Perisher, Snowy Mountains, NSW. There has been a blizzard overnight and you realise that you had not put any antifreeze in the car radiator.

There isn't any antifreeze in your Chalet and you need to find something that you have in the kitchen to use instead of antifreeze.

POINTS TO CONSIDER:

- Consider the properties of water and antifreeze and the possible replacement substances.

- The test conducted must be a fair test for the replacement substances

- A report must be considered showing a planned procedure, predictions, variables, results, discussion, explanation and conclusion.

- All resources must be referenced and annotated.

that's it so good luck. This should be interesting.

[aniken]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze_(coolant)

Anything that lowers the freezing point of the water in the car's radiator should work. Alcohol would be particularly effective - eg, a vodka bottle in your freezer never freezes (or so I'm told )

[Lumpen]

Salt when added to water will both raise the boiling point and also lower the freezing point. Also, when added to ice it will melt the ice, not by raising the temperature but by lowering it's temperature.

You would, of course, have to discuss effectiveness vs electrolysis, especially with highly reactive block and head materials (including aluminium and magnesium)

I may still have my chemistry textbook around here somewhere, we covered the 'Ice to Salted Ice Water' conversion and the subsequent drop in temperature.

Cheers,

Lumpy

[jEtONiT]

what they said.. im only in year 11 and aren't doing Chemistry (more of a physics person), but yeah anything which has a lower freezing point than water should work.

[ZAP]

Metholated spirits would do the job fine. It can be mixed with water and is almost effective as coolant

[coach3062]

It's too late, the damage has already been done.

Your radiator has already split and the bottom hose has a massive ballon in it.

You will be closing the gate after the horse has bolted.

[mickey_gee]

I think sugar is good aswell.

[geea]

Your all wrong and thinking the wrong way.

There is an easier and obvious answer.

Call the NRMA and head back to the bar. they can come find you when they have your car running.

Geea.

[Blonk]

FPV have a call out even if you run outta fuel....

Me and Geaa will wait at the bar........

[gogo]

I would suggest a google search for most common kitchen substances to identify properties, and also establish what the composition of glycol and other anti-freezes are to look for similarities...

The previous posts are correct, anti-freeze lowers the freezing point of water (obviously) - you will need to do the same.

The key issue will be also considering the ramifications in the application. These will include:

- ability to mix and stay in solution with water, at all temperatures

- ability to operate at 100+ degree C temperatures (alcohol I suspect might boil at well below this)

- impact of corrosion and material compatability - ie salt and other chlorine based products will attack metal, some others might not like the rubgber hoses etc...

It is probably worth adding in the point about the fact that if there was a blizzard, everything would already be frozen, so too late!

If you have identified a suitable product, an experiment might be to stick it in the freezer in a number of different dilution ratios, and try and take temperature readings regularly, and see at what temps it starts to freeze for each mix... just be careful not to contaminate any food!

I would be VERY careful about heating anything to prove that it can operate at higher temps... I would not recommend doing anything like this.

best of luck!!

Cheers,

Ben.