Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My daughter has been research the project Learn How to Disinfect Contaminated Water, and really wants to conduct this project for her final middle school project. We were looking to alter the project a bit to focus on different color PET bottles (amber, green, blue, clear) to see how the different colors affect the effectiveness of the SODIS project. Our issue right now is that we can not find 16oz PET bottles in different coloers, we have been searching online for weeks and can't seem to find them. The only size we are able to find are 8 oz. bottles. Can we just use the smaller bottles and follow the procedure the same way, or would it need to be altered?

This is an interesting extension on a very cool project!

Based on my quick read through the procedure, I do not think you need to alter the protocol in order to use the 8oz bottles. The procedure tells you to fill the bottles 3/4 full, shake them, and then fill them the rest of the way. Since it does not call for specific volumes, you should be fine.

Let us know how it goes, and please post again if you have further questions.

Heather