Our Experiment

Question: What is the effect of electricity in different fluids?

Rationale: We want to know what the best conductor is because knowing what water conducts electricity
best can also determine what liquid is most dangerous. We also want to know what liquid they use for
light switches. Knowing what fluids conduct also would help with batteries.

What we know from our research: I found pure water does not conduct electricity but if you add any
impurities like salt and put it in the water and dissolve the salt in the water it will be able to conduct
electricity because the salt breaks up into the positive NA ions and negative CI ions (NaCI).

Sites we used for research: https://www.howitworksdaily.com/how-does-water-conduct-

electricity/

Our Hypothesis We thought drinks with salt would conduct more electricity than other fluids.

Materials:

1. 2 teaspoons of salt
2. 2 teaspoons sugar
3. 100ml water for each cup
4. Batteries
5. Wires
6. Conductivity meter
7. Liquid Gallium element 31
8. Cups
Steps of our experiment:

1. Put four cups on the table

2. Fill one cup with 100ml plain distilled water of any temperature
3. Fill the others with 100ml warm/hot tap water
4. Put two teaspoons of salt in one of the cups with tap water
5. Stir until completely infused
6. Put in two teaspoons of sugar into a different cup with the warm/hot tap water
7. Stir until infused
8. Then in the last cup with the warm/hot tap water
9. Put the gallium in the last cup
10. Slowly pour the water out of the cup when the gallium is fully melted
11. Then put the wires on the LED light conductivity meter
12. Then put the wires in the first cup which has the distilled water
13. Next put the lux meter in a tunnel that has a little light but we measured the how much light it had
before the “scan” and next we would subtract the beginning LUX from the end LUX.
14. Then put the LED light conductivity meter in the tunnel with the wires in the distilled water
15. Then find the LUX on a paper
16. Then put the wires in tap water
17. Then use the same conductivity meter with the LUX meter then write it down on paper
18. Then repeat the step above for the other liquids
LUX = illumination We added gallium as a bonus.

Salt water Sugar water Tap water Distilled water Plain liquid gallium*
results results results
About 28 LUX About 20 LUX About 22 LUX About 2 LUX B About 31 LUX

Conclusion

Looking at our results, our original hypothesis was correct. One way we know it was correct is that salt
water had the best conductivity We used a conductivity meter to find the results. We think this happened
because salt helps conduct electricity. Another interesting thing that that happened was that the tap and
sugar water were almost the same. I know this was because when you look in the results that is what the
LUX meter said. In conclusion, the salt was the best conductor. If I were to do this again, two things I
would change would probably be the amount of salt and sugar in the water.

• We added the idea of gallium later because it is a liquid and a metal and we wanted to see how
conductive it was.

Phil's personal research (Press Control-Click on link for access to link (only if Phil accepts you)

This is what gallium looks like. In its solid form.