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General Science / Increasing surface tension with liquid density lower than water
« on: 28/06/2012 01:44:50 »
First of all.. Im very new to this, and second i hope you can understand my english!
As a hobby, i work with lava lamps, and mess with their liquids to change flow and other stuff.. This is to fix some lamps that looks very bad when i get them.
But okay.. The basic way a lava lamp works is that the wax (the lava) is heated up by the bulb, and therefore it liquidifies. It then changes density to something that is less dense than water and therefore rises to the top. When it cools down, the density increases, and makes it fall back down. Thats very basic but should be enough..
I then have this one lamp where the density of the wax is so light that it will allways be on top of the lamp when liquid.. And this makes it look bad.
I have therefore used 1-propanol to change the density of the water in the lamp, to become less dense than the wax when its liquidified.. This works and the flow is good now, but theres an issue.
Normally the waxes density is much higher than in this lamp, and therefore i normally have to increase the density of the water in the lamp. At first i used a simple salt solution to do this, but i experienced that the wax would become "bubbly" and found out that this was because the salt decreases the surface tension of the water.. So instead of using salt i began using Glycerin to increase the waters density, which worked for me.. no more bubbly wax.
The problem is that when i work with this particular lamp i dont know anything i can add that would increase the surface tension, and remove the bubbles, without also increasing the waters density, and therefore make all the wax go back to the top as soon as its liquidified. So my main question is this
Does there exist any kind of liquid i can add to my solution that has a density which is lower than water and yet increases the surface tension?
Im sorry if that is a very dumb question.. I have no experience in chemistry at all, so this is a shot in the dark!
Thanks !
As a hobby, i work with lava lamps, and mess with their liquids to change flow and other stuff.. This is to fix some lamps that looks very bad when i get them.
But okay.. The basic way a lava lamp works is that the wax (the lava) is heated up by the bulb, and therefore it liquidifies. It then changes density to something that is less dense than water and therefore rises to the top. When it cools down, the density increases, and makes it fall back down. Thats very basic but should be enough..
I then have this one lamp where the density of the wax is so light that it will allways be on top of the lamp when liquid.. And this makes it look bad.
I have therefore used 1-propanol to change the density of the water in the lamp, to become less dense than the wax when its liquidified.. This works and the flow is good now, but theres an issue.
Normally the waxes density is much higher than in this lamp, and therefore i normally have to increase the density of the water in the lamp. At first i used a simple salt solution to do this, but i experienced that the wax would become "bubbly" and found out that this was because the salt decreases the surface tension of the water.. So instead of using salt i began using Glycerin to increase the waters density, which worked for me.. no more bubbly wax.
The problem is that when i work with this particular lamp i dont know anything i can add that would increase the surface tension, and remove the bubbles, without also increasing the waters density, and therefore make all the wax go back to the top as soon as its liquidified. So my main question is this
Does there exist any kind of liquid i can add to my solution that has a density which is lower than water and yet increases the surface tension?
Im sorry if that is a very dumb question.. I have no experience in chemistry at all, so this is a shot in the dark!
Thanks !