Lots of alliteration in that title…
This video shows the famous ‘Chameleon chemical reaction’, where the various oxidation states of Manganese – in Potassium Manganate(VII) – culminate in sequence to produce several vivid colours: Purple Blue Green Yellow Orange Red.
This demonstrates some of the many oxidation states of Manganese, starting with [VII] for purple, and gradually progressing down to [III] (Red). Interestingly, the red phase is uncommon in this reaction.
For this video I used:
10mg KMnO4 (Potassium Permanganate) dissolved in 25ml of water (which was way too much to show up clearly on video, hence I only used some of the resulting solution)
-which was added to:
2g C12H22O11 (Sucrose – a type of sugar – any sugar will usually work)
3.3g NaOH (Sodium Hydroxide)
Both dissolved into 250ml of water.
I used a magnetic stir plate (with a magnetic stir bar – one without the other is pretty much useless and a waste of money and effort) to mix the solutions quickly and evenly. You can use a stirring rod, or even mix it by swirling the liquid by hand, however this will not mix as evenly and the effect will not be so magnificent.
This experiment can be scaled! – you can replicate it using more or less water+chemicals, provided the ratios remain roughly the same.
Adding more KMnO4 will make the yellow-red phase more prominent while the purple-green phase will be very dark and difficult to discern. Adding less KMnO4 will make the purple-green phase much more visible, but the yellow-red phase will become very pale and may not turn red at all.
There is no colour correction in this video, only the default white balance on the camera, which does make the KMnO4 appear quite pink and the green appear less vibrant, but otherwise everything seen in this video is exactly as observed in reality.
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Post time: Jun-19-2017