Oscillating Chemical Reaction



In this video clip at Centripetal Notion blog, you’ll see a neat example of an oscillating chemical reaction:

The Briggs-Rauscher oscillating reaction is one of a small number of known oscillating chemical reactions. It is especially well suited for demonstration purposes because of its visually striking color changes: the freshly prepared colorless solution slowly turns an amber color, suddenly changing to a very dark blue. This slowly fades to colorless and the process repeats, about ten times in the most popular formulation, before ending as a dark blue liquid smelling strongly of iodine.

Link [embedded YouTube]


Previous Post
Get Neatorama by RSS or email
 Next Post
this post? Please email a friend  +reddit  +SU 
Posted on March 2, 2008 at 3:22 pm by Alex
Category: Science & Tech

From our new online store:
» More fun T-shirt designs at Neatorama Online Store

3 comments to "Oscillating Chemical Reaction"

  • tballou
    March 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm

    This is so cool! I actually saw this when I was in high school around 1977 during a field trip to the Chemistry Dept at the Univ. of South Carolina. The Youtube link says this reaction was discovered by a couple of high school chem teachers during the ’70s. Figures a bunch of science geeks would use it to show of to a bunch of high school kids!

  • meghan
    March 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 pm

    We did that in inorganic chem. Was fun until the entire lab stank of iodine.

  • Paul
    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    I hated Chem in college except for the lab.

Want your own avatar? Get one for free at Gravatar!


Neatorama Comment Policy
You don't have to register or login to comment, but it's easier if you do so. We don't censor comment based on your point of view but comments that are abusive, use excessive profanity, or contain off-topic links may get edited or deleted. On some posts, it may take up several minutes for you comment to show up.


Stay updated on the comments in this post with Comment RSS