Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

my experiment is which diaper holds the most liquid i am having trouble finding a scale that will weigh the wet diaper the one i tried only went up to 610 grams,but the diaper weighed more than that what type of a scale should i be using

Hi,

http://www.rightonscales.com/web/home/

I found this website. They sell various types of scales (kitchen, bathroom, shipping, etc). Some of them have pretty good accuracy (1grams) and can go up to a couple of thousands of grams. However their prices are not cheap. Go take a look.

Try searching for other websites that sell them.

Good luck.

Dear Nattie,

You might want to try performing your experiment a little bit differently to acheive your result.

Perhaps you could pre-measure an amount of liquid before you put it in the diaper. You can probably determine the weight of the liquid based on the volume and it's density.

Then add it to the diaper which is in another container large enough to hold the diaper. Use enough liquid so that it is a bit more than the diaper can actually contain.

When the diaper is competely saturated, just remove it and measure the amount of liquid that wasn't absorbed and calculate it's weight.

Now you can subtract the weight of the liquid left over from the total weight of liquid you used to add to the diaper and you should have the weight of the liquid being held in the diaper.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Janelle