Yeah, we tried this one so many times at practice (the 6th graders...they never get used to it).Cheese_Muffin_Man wrote:thanks!Skink wrote:17 protons.Cheese_Muffin_Man wrote:can someone tell me the difference between zinc and aluminum?
The flow chart and tables say that one will react quickly with HCl while the other is delayed. I can't tell you wha that looks like in practice because I don't have these samples, but I'd try it at least once if you can.
For aluminum, there is definitely a delay between contact and reaction. You have to wait like a whole minute to about 2 minutes before something happens. When it does start to react, there will be a slight fizz followed up by a pretty violent bubbling that lasts for about 10-20 seconds.
Zinc, on the other hand, will react upon contact with HCl by fizzing at a realtively constant magnitude. It won't be anything very violent, just some moderate fizzing.
Also, there may be some confusion between magnesium and zinc. While zinc has a moderate fizz on contact, magnesium will practically evaporate on contact and bubble violently if a piece is dropped into a fair amount of HCl. You'll see what I mean if you ever get to try it.
Hope that helps.
