Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,
I'm doing a project on temperature and it's affect on the viscosity of crude oil. I'm doing good so far: I have the question, hypothesis, purpose, bibliography, procedure, research paper, and materials completed and the data notebook is keeping up daily.
But I need help on some other things:
2.) What title can I use for my project?
3.) How can I decorate my tri-fold board and papers?
4.) How do I clean the crude oil from the plastic containers?
Any suggestions are welcomed!
Thanks!
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Dianne Mercado

The cleanup is probably the easy part; I would suggest paint thinner and if that left any residue then go to lacquer thinner. Both are readily available at any paint store. You are also going to be generating hazardous waste that will need to be properly and legally disposed of. In my city the trash collection company has a hazardous materials drop-off facility.

As for crude oil, that is a different and more difficult matter. A search using the terms "buy crude oil samples" produced a few interesting sources, but they are expensive. Remember that crude oil varies from Arabian grade which is almost ready for some uses as fuel to heavy and contaminated stuff that is almost like tar. If you are near a refinery AND you can get the attention of the public relations department AND they are not afraid of their lawyers, you MAY be able to get a sample of the real stuff.

Hi Divine_Dreamer,

There are lots of tips for communicating your results in our project guide here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

While you're doing background research, "rheology" and "fluid mechanics" might be useful search terms, if you haven't run across them already.

Amanda

Dianne, if you can't get your hands on crude oil, a reasonable substitute would be used oil from your parent's car. It won't have the same chemical makeup, but crude oil and used oil can share some physical properties.
Please be careful working with either crude or used oil, wear plastic gloves and safety glasses and keep it off your skin. When you are cleaning your containers be sure to do it in a well ventilated area.

Dave