Transcript Nail Rusting

Earth Science
Challenge to Excellence
Which nail will rust the fastest? The one in
the Sprite, the one in the Coffee, The one
in the Fresh Water, or the one in the
Vinegar?
If I put one nail in a cup of coffee ,
another in a cup of vinegar, one in a cup of
sprite, and one in a cup of fresh water,
which nail will rust the fastest??
Hypothesis
My hypothesis is that the nail in the
cup of Vinegar will rust the fastest.
The reason why I choose the Vinegar is because I
have heard that there is a lot of different acids
that don’t harm humans. I would like to see if this
is correct.
• That fresh water rusts
slower than tap
5
water.
• A lot of people have
done this for a
Science Fair Project.
• Rust is iron-oxide, a
compound of iron
from the nail and
oxygen from the air.
Interesting Facts!!!
•That when a nail
rusts, everything
rusts.
•The least time it
took to rust a
whole nail was 1½
days.
Materials
Procedures
1. Get 4 cups and fill them with the 4 liquids
shown in Materials.
2. Take a nail and put one nail in each one of
the cups.
3. Watch the nails and record the data every
couple days or so.
4. After it is all done, record the longest nail to
rust and the shortest nail to rust.
Controls/Variables
My control is a nail in open air.
Observations
1.That with in 2 hours
the water started to
show some corrosion
(rust).
2.That within 12 hours,
the water had already
rusted 30% of the nail.
Data
% of Corrosion Observed by Day
100%
90%
80%
70%
Water
60%
Vinegar
50%
Coffee
40%
Sprite
30%
Open Air
20%
10%
0%
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
Analysis of Data
Yes, because during the
time of rusting then I
found out the vinegar was
not rusting.
Conclusion
My hypothesis was not correct.
• If I could change anything in the experiment it would
be the different liquids I used.
Some of the new questions I have is:
• If I used different liquids, what would be my results?
• What would happen if I used a different brand of nails?
• And if the nails were covered in a substance, what would
happen?
I got my ideas from: