Corrosion Experiment

Investigating Rusting

Aim: To investigate the factors that cause rusting in iron.

Equipment: four test tubes, test tube rack, a bung, four iron nails, boiled water, tap water, salty water, cooking oil, calcium chloride.

Method: 

1. Label four test tubes A - D and place in a test tube rack.
2. Test tube contents: A = Iron nail and tap water. B = Iron nail and salty water. C = Iron nail boiled water, oil. D = Iron nail and calcium chloride. Sealed with  bung.
3. Leave the test tubes undisturbed for at least three days.

Observation:

Test Tube	Condition present or absent	Observation
A	Nail	In test tube A, the nail didn't show any corrosion reaction since we didn't put anything.
B	Tap water + nail	Among all the test tubes that we have for this experiment. The test tube b that had salt water and the nail showed the most big corrosion.
C	Salt water + nail	This test tube shows a little bit of corrosion reaction and some rust can be seen covering the nail.
D	Boiled water +oil + nail	The oil that we put in the test, stay on the top of the water. It didn't corrode that much since the nail is covered by oil.
E	Ca Cl + bung + nail	Out of all the nail that is mixed with different things, this is the only nail that didn't show any corrosion reaction.
F	water + Vaseline + nail	The nail corrode a little but it didn't mixed with the water since it's covered by Vaseline.
G	water + painted nail	The nail corrode a little bit, I wasn't expecting it since it was covered by paint but I'm wrong.
H	Zn + water + Nail	For the last tube there are some rust that you can see mixing with the water.