How salty does the sea have to be for an egg to float ?

[lonique]

I'm doing a project on determining what salt concentration will float an egg. I got the idea from this site actually. However, I am a bit confused about some things.

What is:
-absolute concentration or
-relative concentration ?

Wait, what is concentration ?

Help me please.

[donnahardy2]

Hi Ionique,

Floating eggs is a density project; dissolving salt in water increases its density, so eggs will float when the density of the salt water is greater than the egg.

Since this is a science fair project, you should refer to the salt as sodium chloride; since I'm sure you used table salt.

Next, you should calculate the concentration of salt in moles per liter, if you have the information to do this. NaCl has a molecular weight of 58.5 grams per mole. If you convert the volume of water you used to liters you can use the following formula to determine the molar concentration:

grams NaCl/liter x mole/58.5 grams = moles/l

This is the absolute concentration of salt in your sample. Relative concentration is when you compare results with two different concentrations of salt.

Concentration can also be calculated using percent concentration (grams/100 ml), but moles per liter is preferred by chemists.

I assume you have had chemistry, but do let me know if you need more explanation.

Donna Hardy