SS+SF

EVAPORATION'S ON SPONGES

Evaporation of soapy water from a sponge in hot and cold environments.

Problem: which of the environments will evaporate the soap or liquids the slowest so people can go back and reuse the sponge again?

Hypothesis: If i use soapy water to wash my dishes then it will evaporate slower in the warm environment around my sink.

Procedure:
 * Place each dry sponge on a plastic plate.
 * Measure 1/2 cup distilled water and pour over all 3 sponges. Each sponge should only get 1/2 cup distilled water. then for the other sponges take a table spoon of dish detergent and 1/2 cup of distilled water to pour over sponges.
 * Place one sponge aside. You will not use the heater or fan on this sponge – it will be your control.
 * Place the second and fourth sponge in front of the portable electric heater. Make sure that it is not close enough to the heater to cause a fire hazard and is in a safe place where no children or pets can come into contact with the heater and get hurt. Make sure no other objects are close enough to the heater to cause a fire hazard.
 * Place the third and fifth sponge in front of the fan.
 * Time how long it takes for each sponge to completely dry. It may take overnight for the control sponge to dry. Record results in your journal and graph.

Abstract: When ever the ordinary person does the dishes they use a sponge and soap. They then come back to wash their dishes and the soap is all dried up on the sponge, making that person use more soap. This project is set out to see how long somebody can let an ordinary sponge sit with soap on with out having to put more soap back on the sponge therefore wasting less soap and using less containers that are thrown into the ocean daily. So the problem is which environments will evaporate the soaps or water faster. Going about solving this problem is to keep sponges in controlled environments with soap and water on them, then calculate the amount of time it takes for them to dry. When this is all complete it will show how to minimize soap usage and maximize soap that the average consumer is getting for their buck.

Materials List: Experimental Results:
 * 5 sponges
 * Measuring cup
 * 5 plastic plates (not paper)
 * 2 gallons distilled water
 * Portable electric heater
 * Portable electric fan
 * Journal
 * Clock or timer
 * Only 1/4 cup of water
 * Table spoon of dial soap
 * time || 5 hrs and 2 mins || 4 hrs and 26 mins || 5 hrs and10 mins || 5 hrs and 20 mins || 13 hrs and 20 mins ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge in heat || soapy sponge with fan || water sponge in heat || water sponge in fan || control ||


 * time || 5 hrs and 5 mins || 4 hrs and 40 mins || 5 hrs || 5 hrs and 30 mins || 13 hrs and 30 mins ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge in heat || soapy sponge with fan || water sponge in heat || water sponge in fan || control ||


 * time || 4 hrs and 55 mins || 4 hrs and 25 mins || 5 hrs and 15 mins || 5 hrs and 35 mins || 13 hrs ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge in heat || soapy sponge with fan || water sponge in heat || water sponge in fan || control ||


 * time || 5 hrs || 4 hrs and 35 mins || 5 hrs and 20 mins || 5 hrs and 20 mins || 14 hrs ||
 * Type of sponge/environment || soapy sponge/heat || soapy sponge/fan || water sponge/heat || water sponge/fan || control ||


 * Time || 4 hrs and 55 mins || 4 hrs and 30 mins || 5 hrs and 15 mins || 5 hrs and 15 mins || 13 hrs and 45 mins ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge/heat || soapy sponge/fan || water sponge/heat || water sponge/fan || control ||


 * Time || 4 hrs and 40 mins || 4 hrs and 20 mins || 5 hrs || 5 hrs and 25 mins || 13 hrs and 10 mins ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge/heat || soapy sponge/fan || water sponge/heat || water sponge/fan || control ||


 * Time || 4 hrs and 45 mins || 4 hrs and 25 mins || 5 hrs and 10 mins || 5 hrs 30 mins || 14 hrs and 10 mins ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge/heat || soapy sponge/fan || water sponge/heat || water sponge/fan || control ||


 * Time || 5 hrs || 4 hrs and 20 mins || 5 hrs and 5 mins || 5 hrs and 25 mins || 13 hrs and 30 mins ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge/heat || soapy sponge/fan || water sponge/heat || water sponge/fan || control ||


 * Time || 4 hrs and 40 mins || 4 hrs and 40 mins || 5 hrs || 5 hrs and 40 mins || 14 hrs ||
 * Type of sponge/environment. || soapy sponge/heat || soapy sponge/fan || water sponge/heat || water sponge/fan || control ||

Experimental Background: The science behind this experiment is evaporation. What is trying to evaporate is the water from the sponges with different variables. The variables are the type of environment which are an enclosed area with a heater and another enclosed area with a cooling fan to represent the changing temperatures in the world. Also there is soapy water and regular water which are the independent variables. The dependent is what is being measured so therefor it is the time it takes for the sponges to evaporate.

Discussion: When analyzing the data you have to be very careful and make sure the times are recorded correclty. Also, make sure the right times are written down when ever you start the controlled tests. The soap with the heat controlled environment wasnt the best but it lasted up 293 minutes. The best one was the water with the fan controlled environment it lasted over 300 minutes as you can see in graph 1. If you're counting the control then that lasted the longest with over 800 average minutes. If any person was to wash dishes and want to rewash them later the best way to go is use just water and have a cooled environment. Some sources of error is the heater over heating and shutting off. In picture 1 as you can tell the hole where the air goes in and out you have to leave completely open so it doesnt over heat unlike picture 2 where a big piece of construction paper was used to block off the environment. Another error is knowing the sponges are completely dry like in picture 3 it shows how the sponges started to curl and loose coloring, on one of the tests done not all of the sponges were completely dried therefore the test had to be restarted. Some ideas for improvement are trying many types of soap instead of just one so you get better results. Also another idea of improvement is get a bigger controlled environment.

Conclusion: The hypothesis stated above was wrong the best environment to use and variable was just plain water no soap at all in a cool environment. Also the to answer the problem the best one was to use just plain and keep the sponge in a cool controlled environment no soap at all.

Application: The relative of this experiment to our life is to maximize dish doing with using less soap or water. If the consumer washed his/her dishes every 3-4 hours they would be using less soap then if they washed their dishes once a day because the soap or water evaporates in under 6 hours. For further application more tests could be done on the different types of soaps or water used in this experiment the soap used was dial there is hundreds of types on the market today.