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Education

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: Bottle chemistry

by Craig Bettenhausen
January 10, 2020

 

A soda bottle with many colors in the liquid inside.
Credit: Submitted by Martin Kostov

The colors of inorganic compounds have lured many students into chemistry. Martin Kostov didn’t have any proper chemistry glassware when he started experimenting in 10th grade, so he used an upcycled glass juice bottle. The colors in the bottle are from the reaction of potassium permanganate, KMnO4, with hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid. “I didn’t understand much, but I was so excited, discovering these colors,” Kostov says. Now, he is a chemical engineering undergraduate student in Razgrad, Bulgaria.

Submitted by Martin Kostov

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Correction

We updated this post on Jan. 17, 2020, to correct the chemical action of KMnO4. Our original post said it was being oxidized; it is being reduced. Thanks, Arun Sridharan, for catching our mistake!

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