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fas
in Applied Chemistry

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I have a problem that i can't solve myself, so i am thrusting it on all others----

 

There are a mixed a number of kerosene and water barrels left outside a workshed. You cannot see inside the barrels, nor can you move them...

 

Is there any way of telling which barrels contain kereosene and which contain water?

  • Author

good thinking,

 

but will it satisfy my chem teacher?.........

I have no idea, if he/she will be happy?

 

but that`s what I`de do :) and the teacher never said you couldn`t touch or open them :)

 

alternatives would be:

1) wait until winter and freezes, the barrels that split had water in.

 

2) flood the area, the ones that float have the kerosene in :)

 

3) tap the barrels, the higher pitched sounding one will be the water, it`s more dense :)

 

there`s plenty other ways to tell also :)

I woulda asked Spock to point his tri-corder and tell me but I have to agree, YT got an A cus off the top of my head I only scored one out of his three answers.

Just aman

yeah, or you could just pick them up (or if they are large, weigh them).

 

If the barrels are see-through, you could find how much the difract light.

 

i really like the freeze experiment that yt had, that one is cool.

sadly, part of the question was that you`re not allowed to pick them up though :(

weighing them (if all the same barrels would be the easiest of all other than knocking them and listening to the sound)

more fun would be to dip a shoe lace into each and see which one burns :)

OR..... set fire to the lot, the ones that keep trying to burn are the Kerosene, the ones that keep trying to put the fire out is the water :)

but that`s just sick :)

I believe YT's third answer should satisfy your teacher

 

the other two are just not school material :P

 

you could also find the owner of the barrels, and offer him/her a drink from each

  • 1 month later...

Or if your loaded take a SPPC infa-red Spectrometer fire it at the chosen barrel and it will give you a digital reading of anionic/cationic ect surfactents... or just say the barrels were labelled LMAO

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