Clean Pennies With Vinegar - science experiment

In this science experiment we'll turn your dirty old pennies into shiny, gleaming new ones in less than a minute with a little help from science!

What you need:

• 1/2 a cup of white vinegar
  
• A couple of old, dirty pennies (Make sure they're copper)
• 2 teaspoons of salt
  
• Spoon (optional - helps with the stirring)
• Bowl (non-metal)

What to do:

1. First of all, let's pour the vinegar into a bowl.
2. Now pour in the salt and stir until all the salt is dissolved - the water will look a bit foggy because of the dilution.
3. Pop in the pennies (best results - less than 10 at a time) and leave them in for about thirty seconds. Once you've done that give them a quick rinse. Now the pennies should be new and shiny! If not make sure the pennies were made from copper.

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How does this work and make it an experiment

This experiment is jam packed full of chemistry! First off we got the vinegar and salt creating a reaction that removes the copper oxide from the penny. This is what was making the penny look dirty in the first place.

Now let's make the penny a greenish blue, redo the experiment except this time don't rinse them off. Place them on a paper towel and after a while the pennies will change into a greenish, blue colour! But wait there's more! 


Place a few screws, nuts or bolts in the bowl after a experiment has been completed. The nut or bolt may become copper in colour! WOW, How did this happen? Well if there is enough copper in the solution, the copper will become attracted to the metal. Therefore getting the copper colour!


Make it an experiment!
What we just did above was merely a demonstration, so let's go ahead and make it an experiment by answering a question.

• Would other acids work (other acids include orange and lemon juice)?
• Does the amount vinegar or salt affect the cleanliness greatly?
• Try and come up with your own question to experiment with. 

Hope you enjoyed this experiment - ScienceSquid