Amazing Chemistry

Envisioning Chemistry is an ultimate education resource of chemical reactions developed by Beauty of Science. Coming in Fall 2017. Click the image to learn more

A new music video featuring our popular chemical reaction footages. The music, titled Positive Reactions, was composed by Lani Elisabeth.

We are making a new short movie of chemical reactions captured under a microscope. The trailer above is a taste of what a simple chemical reaction might look like under a microscope.

Previous Videos

Eight types of beautiful chemical reactions are presented in this short video, which won the "Experts' Choice" award in the video category of 2015 VIZZIES Visualization Challenge held by NSF and Popular Science magazine.

Precipitation 

This video features 5 precipitation reactions, each with its own “personality”. In a typical demonstration of precipitation reactions, we see a transparent solution in a test tube at the beginning and a cloudy liquid at the end after adding a few droplets of another solution. However, when we used cubic glass cells to replace test tubes and took a much closer look, their unique beauty was revealed.

Chemical Garden 

This is our take of a popular chemical experiment showing the wonder of chemistry. The reaction occurred when a piece of metal salt was dropped in water glass (water solution of sodium silicate, Na2SiO3). The salt began to grow and generate many interesting forms due to the formation of water-permeable metal silicate membranes and osmotic effects.

Metal Displacement 

We dropped zinc metal in silver nitrate (AgNO3), copper sulfate (CuSO4), and lead nitrate (Pb(NO3)2) solutions, and recorded the emergence of silver, copper, and lead metals with beautiful structure. To preserve the fragile structure of lead metal, we also added sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) and acetic acid (CH3COOH) to the solution to make it gelatinize.

Bubbling 

Many chemical reactions generate gases. In solution, gases escape as bubbles. Here we show 4 bubbling reactions. The last one is the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) aqueous solution. It is obvious that the reaction generated more hydrogen (H2) at the cathode than oxygen (O2) at the anode. In fact, the ideal volume ratio is H2 : O2 = 2 : 1.

Color Change 

The molecules inside some plants giving them vibrant colors can change to other colors under acid and base conditions. What we show here is color change of purple cabbage and a flower named Teornia fournieri in sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) solutions.

Crystallization 

Crystals are beautiful, both externally at the macroscopic level and internally at the atomic level. The same is true for the process of crystallization, which is the formation and growth of crystals. This video shows the crystallization of copper sulfate (CuSO4), sodium thiosulfate (Na2S2O3), potassium ferrioxalate (K3[Fe(C2O4)3]), and sodium acetate (CH3COONa). More accurately, these crystals all have water molecules inside them. Their chemical formulas are CuSO4·5H2O, Na2S2O3·5H2O, K3[Fe(C2O4)3]·3H2O, and CH3COONa·3H2O.

Dancing Fluorescent Droplets 

We mixed the oily chemicals inside fluorescent sticks, then added sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution to the mixture, which was inspired by Mr. Theodore Gray's Mad Science 2. What we got was something interesting: colorful fluorescent droplets with dynamic movements.

Smoke 

We showed 3 different kinds of smoke in this video: the black smoke of candle soot darkening a sheet of transparent glass, the smoke from incense burning (the smell was nice), and the ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) smoke formed when hydrogen chloride (HCl) gas and ammonia (NH3) gas came together (the smell was terrible).