Things Required:
A spoon
Warm tap water
3 jars or glasses of equal size
1 tablespoonful of Epsom salts (found in supermarket or pharmacy)
1 tablespoonful of washing soda
3 teaspoonfuls of dishwashing liquid
Directions:
Fill all three containers with warm water. Pour the Epsom salts in one container. Stir the solution thoroughly. Do the same with the washing soda in the second container. Add a teaspoonful of dishwashing liquid to each container, including the one with plain tap water. Stir each of the solutions and try to make suds.
This Is What Happens:
Suds form in the water with the washing soda, but few form in the water with the Epsom salts.
Science Behind It:
Washing soda “softens” water, while Epsom salts is a mineral that makes water “hard”.
Tap water often contains calcium salts, which stops soap from making suds. If water has a lot of salts, it is called “hard”. Washing soda “softens” or neutralizes the calcium salts in the water and forms a solid substance, called a precipitate, that falls to the bottom of a solution when a chemical reaction takes place. (This is where that ring or scum comes from in the bathtub.)
Epsom salts is a mineral that makes water hard. That is why you couldn’t get soapsuds to form.
