Alex Chen Emery P4 Summary: In order to investigate some properties of gases, I cooked several foods for several minutes,

exciting up the water molecules that were within the food molecules to form water vapor. Food is composed mostly of water because it is biological and most biological organisms are quite dependent on water. The escaping water vapor then causes changes in the food, usually physical changes. 1: Rice: I first scooped up a few spoonfuls of uncooked rice, placed them in a bowl, and put the rice in the microwave oven for around four minutes. As the rice was heated up, steam started rising out of the rice, indicating that the water molecules inside the rice were boiling. Some of the rice kernels also stated to pop, indicating that the rising water vapor inside the rice started to exert so much pressure on the outside shell of the rice that the outside kernel was forced out, such that the water vapor within could rise out of the rice. After five minutes, I took the rice bowl outside of the microwave, greeted with the sight of a black chunk of burnt rice at the center-top of the pile of rice, surrounded by rice particles that did not seem to be affected by the microwave oven. Why?

Figure 1.1: Rice after 5 min. microwave

It is important to understand how a microwave oven works. The microwaves from the oven heat up the water molecules within the food, eventually causing these water molecules to vaporize. Because water vapor is less dense than the food that it came from, it tends to rise. While all rice kernels were heated up, the rice kernels at the bottom of the pile released water vapor that went through the rice kernels at the center-top, heating these rice kernels even more with the boiling temperatures, eventually causing the rice kernels at the center-top to blacken out.

Figure 1.2: The Burnt Rice

When water vapor rises, it escapes the food particles that originally contained the water vapor. Thus, the rice kernels that were left over had different physical properties than they already had. I used a simple experiment to demonstrate one physical property difference that is caused by the boiling of water. After removing the burnt rice, I rinsed the remaining rice with water. What resulted was a heterogeneous mixture of rice the rice that was more thoroughly cooked and the rice that was apparently left untouched by the microwave.. The untouched rice tended to sink, whereas the rice that was almost cooked tended to rise due to its lower density. As water escapes from rice kernels, these same rice kernels also lose density, as their primary source of weight is lost. This example is very similar to ship buoyancy ships can float on water provided that they are not filled with water, in which case they will sink.

Figure 1.3: Some kernels float, Some dont.

2: Banana: Bananas are fruits, which tend to hold more water than other types of food. When heated, the water inside the banana should heat up to form water vapor, which expands to the point in which it breaks through the bananas peel in a pop, relieving the resistance provided by the bananas peel. It was also interesting to note that the banana browned out as it was heated heat triggers the release of ethylene, which promotes ripening of the fruit.

Figure 2.1: The banana peel pops.

3: Orange: Much like a banana, an orange is a fruit with rich water content and with a thick skin that attempts to counteract any force that pushes out from the inside. As an orange is heated, excited water molecules attempt to expand and push outside, ultimately, popping the thick orange skin, allowing expanding water vapor to escape. After pulling the orange out from the microwave, I could tell that water vapor escaped as the plastic wrap the orange was surrounded in had drops of

condensation, where water vapor that had escaped the orange only settled on the plastic wrap surrounding it.

Figure 3.1: Orange pops

4: Wine Interested in if I could separate the components of wine in heating it up; I heated a diluted sample of wine for a few minutes. After the water boiled off, a pungent sticky brownish-red residue remained, with many holes in its texture. These holes provided space for the evenly distributed water molecules to boil off; much like pumice has holes as it solidifies quickly to allow gases to flow out of the rock. The boiling of wine helped separate wine into the substance that makes wine, which had a different boiling point than water, a demonstration that boiling is frequently used in chemistry to separate a mixture into its individual components.

4.1: The leftover residue from wine

5: Vinegar: I also boiled vinegar for a few minutes, which separated the acetic acid within the vinegar from the water that dissolved the acetic acid. The water boiled off, leaving concentrated acetic acid with a very strong odor and an obvious yellowish hue. 6: Granola Bar: After heating a granola bar for a minute, the tightly packed granola bar expanded as the water expanded to form a gas. This expansion caused the wrapper of the granola bar to open, allowing the bar to further expand.

Figure 6.1: Granola Bars expand too

Summary of Findings: As liquids vaporize to form gases, the gases tend to rise, having lower densities than the liquids that form them. As gases rise, they also tend to expand the material which theyre contained in and warmer gases take up more volume than cooler gases. I also discovered that different materials boil at different temperatures a fact that may be acknowledged when scientists separate a mixture into its respective components by boiling the mixture. It is also important to not that explosions may occur if expanding water molecules are met with resistance when the force of the water molecules pushing outside exceeds the force of the coverings resistance pushing the water molecules inside, the water molecules will push the covering aside, in a pop. This pop does not occur when there is no substantial covering that resists the outside flow of boiling water molecules thus, when pure water is heated, there is no distinguishable pop. Pressure Cookers: What exactly is a pressure cooker? Pressure cookers are special typoes of cookers that take advantage of the fact that liquids have higher boiling points under high pressures. Pressure cookers put pressure on the food being cooked, increasing the boiling point of the water inside. Thus, the water can be heated to a much higher temperature before boiling, which can hasten the cooking time as superheated water only coats the food instead of escaping like water vapor does.