Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Help! My project is basically the cool blue light luminol project on this website but I just didn't use the kit, and I compared these results with BLUESTAR FORENSIC trials I did also.
I photographed all of the results. The cold trials for luminol were dimmer and lasted longer while my hottest trials were dim once I took the pictures because the reaction was very short. The room temperature luminol trials were the brightest. all of the blue star trials outperformed the luminol trials. the blue star trials luminosity increased as the temperature increased.

A. Why does temperature affect how long the blue light is produced?
B. Why does the light reaction stop after a certain amount of time?
C. How can my results help forensic investigators and scientists?

Thank you!

Hi katlyn86,

It sounds like your experiments worked out nicely. Congrats!

Your can find the answers to your questions by reading up on some chemistry topics. For example, take a look at the following links, which describe why and how temperature affects reaction rate. The first link is more basic than the second one. I'm not sure whether you've taken chemistry yet, so definitely start with the first link.

http://www.chem4kids.com/files/react_rates.html
http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/bas ... ature.html

You could also check out these Khan Academy videos:

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/bio ... o-kinetics
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/che ... f-reaction

With regards to your second question, read up on "limiting reactants". Here is a link to get you started:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limiting_reagent

Post back as you have other questions, after reading these articles.