Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I'm am doing the experiment "How you get heat from a supercooled solution in reusable hand warmers". Everything is going fine, except one thing... My tutor asked me how I was going to maintain the outside temperature during the testing of the hand warmers. The experiment only states to put it in a water bath of the desired temperature, then take it out after a few minutes and begin measure temperature and crystal growth. Is there a way to maintain the 0 degrees C and 40 degrees C throughout the testing, can you help me?

Hi greenfamily,

I’m assuming that you are working on the project described here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p085.shtml

The aim of this experiment is to study the effects of the starting temperature on behaviors of the hand warmer. The water bath is used to get the hand warmer to the desired starting temperature. The hand warmer is removed from the water bath for the timed observations described in the project procedure.

One of the observations is the hand warmer temperature as a function of time. You could not make this observation if you kept the hand warmer temperature constant. Thus you do not want to attempt to maintain the hand warmer temperature during the testing phase.

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman

Thanks for the information, I would like to use you as a reference for my project, what are your qualifications? I may have some more questions. I'm still doing research and I will begin testing the hand warmers next week.

Hi greenfamily,

You’re welcome.

I’m not sure that it is necessary to cite responses to your questions on this forum as references in your project report. My qualifications are that I have a master of science degree in chemistry and I was employed for 35 years as an applied research chemist by a consumer products manufacturer.

Good luck with your project. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman