Purpose:
Group Members:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Beforehand Research: Bismuth: A chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a pentavalent post-transition metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. It's appearance is a brittle redish-gray material Bismuth is a metallic chemical element that is classified among the group of elements colloquially known as “poor elements” in the periodic table. This element has a number of uses, making it common in industrial applications. Many consumers own products which contain bismuth, although they may not necessarily interact with the element directly. Melting Process
Important things to keep in mind:
Coloring Process:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Safety Precautions: Safety:
Before Lab Thoughts: I saw other people doing this bismuth lab and I was very curious to see what the outcome would be. I saw people getting different colors of their bismuth every time. Our group decided on a specific color we wanted. We wanted the color blue. This time we worked with a new person, Natalie. She had background knowledge on bismuth and showed a lot of eagerness to do the lab. It was cool working with a new person and it was useful that she already knew how to do it. I was looking forward to seeing how it would turn out. I was a bit afraid of being burnt. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Materials:
Directions:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ What Happened? A bismuth Story Our group finally got the heat plate! Sadly there are no other heat plates besides one. We had reserved the hot plate for the period. We used the leftover bismuth from the group before us. It took some time because the bismuth was stuck to the sides of the first small measuring cup we used and the hot plate heated up the bottom. We first began by heating up the hot plate at 530 degrees like we were told to do. It took awhile before it heated up all the way. We were then given our piece of bismuth. We were required to cut it up into smaller pieces so they could fit into our small pots that we were to heat on the plate. We placed the chunks of bismuth into the pots. It took awhile before the bismuth actually melted. It was difficult to stop people from knocking the table. We were supposed to keep the surface as still as possible. But since people always crossed our path to go to talk to Andrew, they'd bump into the table a lot and our bismuth would move a lot. That was probably because of our choice of area. Maybe we should've sat somewhere that was a less frequent path for people. After a few minutes our bismuth was actually melted. We had to shake the container and watch for ripples in the liquid bismuth to check and see that it has all melted. The gray and yellow stuff that was described in our research, or the slag was there starting to appear. We quickly got a scraper to scrape and scoop it out into a mug. One of my group members was the one that attended to the bismuth now and continuously. They continuously scraped off the slag and kept the melted bismuth clean. Wearing mitts we poured our bismuth into the second larger container at this point. We were at the point where we could use the coloring process. Since the majority of my group members wanted blue, we did neutral to little oxygen exposure. To get oxygen exposure, we tapped the table and shook the bismuth. We then took it off the hotplate to let it cool. We scraped off the slag again, and later we found out that we didn't scrape it off enough. At this point, we poured the excess liquid into the 1st smaller cup again. We then saw that there were bluish crystals left behind. We were left with these crystals. We were all very excited and amazed by our work. We then hit the top of the cup onto the table. Getting our bismuth pieces out. I noticed that the bottom area and sides that touched the cup stayed gray like its original form. It had not been exposed to oxygen so that's why it stayed like that. We each took our own individual bismuth pieces! (____________________________________________________________________________________________________
What I learned/noticed?
Questions I had/researched?
Bismuth has a rhombohedral crystal structure, so it will form angular crystals. It forms those elaborate hopper crystals because the edges of the crystal structure are more energetically favorable positions than the interior and faces. That makes the molecules continue to form crystal edges but never fill in the centers when crystallizing out of solution.
Since these waves are in very close proximity they will interfere with one another; creating a new wavelength (or even cancelling one another out). This depends on how much the two waves are offset from one another, which depends on the thickness of the film. As the thickness increases so does the distance of the reflected waves, until the colours fade off into grey noise. (Interesting note; thin-film interference is also responsible for the dazzling colors in a bubble and the rainbows in an oil-spill) What could've been better? Differently? I overall think we did a good job, its just that we left over slag on our bismuth as it was being crystallized. It most likely affected the appearance and quality of our crystals, maybe it could've been a bolder shade of blue all through out with a consistency, and maybe we would have more "Staircase" pieces, rather than areas of the end product that we couldn't use. We could've done this lab with a smaller amount of people. There were 4 of us and I believe that the lab didn't require more than two people to do it together. I feel that if we were in smaller groups we would've has more to contribute and would all be more engaged, rather than one or two people doing most of the things. If I were to do this again, I would plan on making actual jewelry that we can sell to the public. I feel that bismuth necklaces would be a very unique type of necklace and surely people would think and consider investing in them. I would want to do more research on what kind of chains or jewel holders could we have used to attach our rocks to. What I enjoyed? I enjoyed working with more people even if it wasn't necessary. It was my first time working with Natalie and I can say that she was very knowledgeable about bismuth and she really took the initiative to teach us and helps us learn how to make it. I am thankful for the extra help she gave us. I was happy with outcome. For the most part we followed the rules and I feel like our bismuth turned out just fine. We did our best and the pieces we had received from this experiment are definitely jewelry worthy! Group Work: I helped document things and helped melt the bismuth. I honestly think that our group should have been two groups since bismuth isn't really required to have 4 people. I feel that we learned a lot and that we finished the assignment successfully. We could have been more careful and patient, but overall our outcome was good.
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