That reddish-brown crud we call “rust” is all around us, yet we probably rarely think much about it. It turns out what we call rust is a chemical process that combines iron (Fe) and oxygen (O) to form iron oxide. Thus, by studying rust we are studying chemistry!
The chemical formula is:Â 4Fe + 3O2 = 2Fe2O3
What is happening? During this reaction the iron atoms are passing electrons to the oxygen atoms, a transfer that is called oxidation. In the process the atoms are bound together.
Rust Experiments
Because it is a slow process, doing experiments with rust takes a few days.
1. What rusts? (Preliminary free exploration)
Gather:
- paper clips, small bolts, metal washers and any other small metal objects to check for rusting – let the children brainstorm and gather samples as appropriate
- include some items that probably won’t rust such as pennies or brass brads
- container to hold water
- water
Place a sample of all the objects in a container of water and check them every day for a few days. Leave the rest of the objects nearby or in a similar dry container to compare what happens. See which objects start to show signs of rust and which do not. Let the children touch and smell the objects that have rusted. Do they feel different? Do they smell? Do they look different?
2. What environmental conditions are needed for iron to rust?
Can iron rust in dry air or is water needed? Does the presence of acids, such as acid rain, speed up rust? What about salt? Do the salty roads in winter or salt spray from the ocean really make cars rust faster? What happens when the tannins in tea meet iron/rust? Let’s find out.
Gather for each participant:
- fine steel wool (from paint stores or home supply centers- see note below)
- water
- white vinegar
- table salt
- teaspoon measure
- tea bags, hot water and container for making tea
- tape and marker for labels
- 5 beakers or similar containers
- paper and pen or pencil to record results
Note:Â Why fine steel wool? The coarser steel wool you get to clean dishes is stainless steel, which is resistant to rust. For another experiment, get samples of both and try them side by side.
Note 2: The tea isn’t central to the question, but does react quickly which may engage impatient youngsters who might otherwise lose interest. You may definitely omit it.
Prepare the tea by soaking one or two tea bags in hot water in a container such as a tea mug for about three minutes. Stir briskly and discard tea bags.
Make saltwater by adding 2 teaspoons of salt per 8 ounces of water and stirring.
Label the containers:
- water
- saltwater
- vinegar
- tea
- air
Pour 4 ounces (1/2 cup) or roughly 120 ml of water into the first container. Add 4 oz or 120 ml of saltwater to the second container. Add 4 ounces white vinegar to the third container and 4 ounces of tea to the fourth. Leave the 5th container dry.
Break off pea to marble-sized balls of steel wool and roll into 5 small balls. Try to use a consistent amount for each container. Drop the steel wool into each container. Some may float, which is okay.
Rust experiment, before set-up.
Check what is happening after 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes the tea probably has started to darken. The steel wool will have turned black. In the photograph above the steel wool that was in the tea is on the left and steel wool that had been in plain water is on the right.
What is happening? The tannins in the tea are reacting with the iron and rust in the steel wool to make iron tannate. Iron tannate is very stable and people are investigating its use to prevent metals from rusting.
Check again after 24 hours.
The tea, on the right, has turned black with a concentration of iron tannates. The water, on the left, and the saltwater (not shown) are turning brown and the steel wool is beginning to rust.
The vinegar (center) is still clear and the steel wool is not showing rust. Why not? One reason might be that the vinegar has been setting on a shelf in a closed jar and might not have much oxygen in it. How would you test this?
The dry steel wool is not rusting either. Even though the chemical equation shows that only iron and oxygen are needed, the chemical process actually needs some water or another catalyst to be present to get the reaction going.
Record your results again after 48 hours. What has changed? Use your results to plan more experiments.
Can you tell me…
why we paint metal objects like the San Francisco bridge?
_______________________________
A word of caution to educators:
During preparation for this post I came across a couple of references to experiments that promised “fast rust.” These experiment required mixing bleach and vinegar. Mixing bleach and vinegar is not a good idea! The acid reacts with the bleach releasing chlorine gas. In small amounts the chlorine gas reacts immediately with the iron to give iron chloride, which looks like rust. If you add an excess amount, however, toxic chlorine gas might possibly be released.
Boom,
It formed rust at the surface of the water? The most likely scenario is that the acidic conditions caused the iron atoms to go into solution where they reacted with oxygen to form rust. Did you use distilled water or tap water?
Thank you so much for your anwer. We used distilled water.
What are the independent, dependent, and controlled variables in this experiment? Also, what do you think would be a accurate hypothesis? Thank you!
Kelly,
The hypothesis is what you are predicting will happen. It might be called a tentative explanation or guess. For example, say you want to test the effect of water on rusting. Your hypothesis might be “iron placed in water rusts faster than dry iron.”
The independent variable is the thing the scientist changes or manipulates. In the example above, water is the independent variable because you changing the amount of water the iron is exposed to.
The dependent variable is the thing you expect to be different, or in other words, what you are measuring. In the example, this would be the amount of rust produced.
Sorry if you had trouble leaving a comment. I have comment moderation turned on so it may take a day or two for your message to appear.
Thank you so much, wonderful experiment. Your explanations and responses to comments really helped me understand the material you taught!
Hi, I am doing a science fair project involving masonry nails in different solutions with salt, vinegar, bleach, apple juice and baking soda. So far the baking soda solution has completely stopped the rust from forming and the apple juice solution was the 2nd best at slowing the rust from forming on the nail (all nails were sanded with steel wool). I can’t find any information as to why baking soda is stopping the rust from forming. Also do different pHs affect the rust formation. I chose agents with different pH levels. Can you help?
Thanks so much for this site!
Hi Roberta, I’m not sure we have signed up correctly as we have not heard anything yet. Did you get my question about my science fair project involving rust forming on nails and more specifically why the baking soda solution stopped the rust from forming? We posted it on Jan 17th at 9:54 am. I noticed the previous questions were answered pretty quickly so I’m thinking you did not receive it. We cannot find any info about baking soda and rust. I think it is a chemical thing. Thank you.
Hallie,
You signed up correctly. I just needed to do some thinking about this.
In general, iron rusts at low pH (acids) and not at high pH (bases), with some exceptions. In acidic conditions the H+ ions react with the metals, making them more susceptible to oxidation (rusting).
Technically, baking soda is a base (According to About.com, the pH of baking soda is 8.3) http://chemistry.about.com/od/acidsbases/a/phtable.htm and so has more OH- ions in solution, rather than H+.
On exception to the general rule is bleach, which although it is a base, is also an oxidizing agent. Bleach is one base that promotes rust even at high pH.
I hope this helps.
OK i get this but what happens if you leave it there for a week you get crystal but why dose the penny form 1879 is the dirtiest penny for the penny in 1789?
Hi. My daughter did a science fair project called “does the change in the concentration of salt in water affect the rate at which iron will oxidize”?
She had 5 tests:
1. No Salt
2. 25grams salt
3. 50grams of salt
4. 75 grams of salt
5. 100 grams of salt
She used 500 grams of water.
She put a pure piece of iron in each container. She hypothesized that the container with the most salt would present the most rust. However, the bolt in the container with NO SALT clearly had more rust after 10 days and the container with the least salt (25 grams) showed the second least amount of rust. The water (tap water) was clearly more red in the containers with 1) no salt and 2) the least salt.
In addition, she measured the mass of the bolts each day. The mass of the bolt in the tap water increased more than two times the mass of the other bolts. She used an accurate scale and dried each bolt before weighing the bolts.
Could the results be skewed because she used tap water or table salt? Is there some chemical in the tap water or in the table salt the was slowing the oxidation process in the salted containers or accelerating oxidation in the tap water only container?
Finally, should the increase in salt concentration increase the acceleration of oxidation?
We are stumped!
Thank you!
Thanks for the help:)
Thanks for the help:)
You saved my test scores
Glad to hear it, Alexis.
Thank you for this website. You helped with my project.
can anyone tell how can i form rust on cotton fibre with in two hour. what type of catalyst have to use.
Nazrul,
What is your source of iron? You need Fe atoms.
Thank you for the info. This was very helpful with my research 🙂
Great.
can you tell me the justification for the hypothesis or a assingment type of thing pls. It would be very helpful
Milan,
I’m not sure what you are referring to
Can you please help me with the hypothesis and the dependent,independent and conteolled variable of reactions of metals with oxygen-rust
Hi
Im doing a project on reactions of metals with oxygen-rusting carrying out a practical investigation and writing a scientific report.
-What is the hypothesis?
-What are the dependent and independent variables ?
I really need you help.Thank You♡☆♡
Boitumelo,
The hypothesis will depend on the particular experiment you perform. The hypothesis is the tentative explanation you come up with for the specific question you are asking. For example, if you ask, “Does salt makes iron rust faster?” your hypothesis might be that salt does make iron rust faster or it might be that salt does not make iron rust faster.
Science buddies has a good explanation of variables: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_variables.shtml
More about coming up with a hypothesis
When iron rusts, does it create a new odour? I need to know the chemistry behind it.
Ash,
The odour may depend a bit on whether you used a catalyst to produce it. For example, if you used acetic acid, traces left behind might give it a vinegar smell. Iron oxide particulates do have an acrid odor, and shouldn’t be inhaled. Iron bacteria also can produce a smell. As for the chemistry, anyone have suggestions?
HI Roberta, I have been experimenting with rust as an art medium. I weld steel sculptures so I have lots of steel dust which I use to create paintings on rice paper. My accelerant for the oxidation process is vinegar. In my experiments, I noticed that a piece of steel that was partially submerged in pure vinegar did not rust where it was touched by the vinegar, but did rust right above it. I am wondering whether the acid (vinegar) has to actually dry on the steel in order for the oxidation process to work. Vinegar can also be used to clean the steel so it can hasten the oxidation process as well as clean the existing rust off.
Virginia, Your oxidation pieces are fantastic!
By pure vinegar, do you mean the kind of vinegar sold in the grocery store? Acetic acid in water?
Thanks Roberta! Yes, I use ordinary white vinegar straight from the bottle. I am intrigued by the tannin idea and will give it a try on some steel to see what effects I get.
I would very curious to see what happens. Do you know about Jerry Jacobson’s Rust Farms? https://www.mesaartscenter.com/index.php/museum/art/exhibits/RustFarm He uses salt water.
So I’m doing this for a school project and i wanted to know the best way to present this project. Could you help me?
I’m not sure exactly what you mean. Like a science fair project? Has your teacher given you some guidelines?
I am doing a project on rust. I have to present a summary of the important people who researched this topic before me. I can’t find anything. Do you have any ideas?
You might want to try the book Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman. Much research was done by the food industry to protect metal cans, but as he says in the book, the companies don’t make their work widely known.
Also, I did I Google Scholar search for the keyword ferric oxides and came up with a number of papers. Hopefully this link works for you: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3&q=ferric+oxides&btnG=
Good luck.
After leaving some rusty tools soak in vinegar for a few weeks some cool rusty crystals grew on the metal sticking out of the fluid.
Thanks for letting us know (and the mention).
The first time I tried this experiment I made a mistake and used stainless steel wool instead of the regular kind and got very interesting results.
I put the stainless steel wool in a glass jar and left soaking in white vinegar for over a week. (some of the stainless steel wool was above the water line)
Instead of rust, my vinegar turned a clear pinky purple colour. I’m curious to know what reaction is taking place and what solution I have made. (I was aiming for iron acetate)
Sometimes stainless steel is coated with anti-corrosive materials, depending on the brand. Can you find out what it might have been coated with? That might help you find out what caused the color.
I used a no-name brand stainless steel wool and there is nothing helpful on the packaging 🙁
Well, my best guess is that it was treated with some sort of pink soap, like a Brillo pad is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brillo_Pad
Hypothesis for, what determines the rate of rusting
I’m not sure what you are asking? If you are looking for a hypothesis, then make a guess about what you think might determine the rate of rusting. Could it be temperature? More salt? More oxygen? Make an informed guess that is testable, for example: The rust forms more rapidly at higher temperatures. That you could test by putting together the same amounts of metal and water at different temperatures and record how much rust forms…
I have science project about rust I used
Paper clip instead of nail and my substance are water,Vinegar,Saltwater and bleach… So what would be the independent variable,dependent variable and controlled variable. If the dependent variable is the rust how can we measure the rust?
It will depend a bit on your hypothesis. Your hypothesis might be “iron placed in saltwater rusts faster than bleach.”
The independent variable is the thing the scientist changes or manipulates. In your case you are changing the substance you put the paperclip in.
The dependent variable is the thing you expect to be different, or in other words, what you are measuring. In the example, it would be the amount of rust produced. One way to measure it is look at the speed the rust appears. For example, you might record if rust appears at one hour in the saltwater and three days later in the vinegar. That would be presence versus absence, which is easier to figure out.
Are you putting water in every treatment (you should)? That would be the control.
Thank you so much Ms. Roberta, but I have one more questions because I have a little struggle on defending the result and result table , I measured the rust on what kind of solution showed the rust first. And I observed the paperclip in every 4 hours… So I decided that my dependent variable is “The time that the paperclip showed rust first” but my teacher says that the time is not the dependent variable. What should i do? Thanks
You’ve probably already figured this out, but a better way to describe it would be “rate of rusting” rather than “time.” If you were studying the rate of growth of plants given different amounts of water, the amount of water would be the independent variable and the growth rate would be dependent variable.
Thanks this would be helpful
Hi, Roberta in not sure if you have
got my post yet but I have question how would I measure rust?but as in time?not like a stopwatch but as in days or weeks?
Bella,
It depends on what you are using to cause the rust, but usually it takes hours to days for the rust to develop. I’ve gotten items to rust overnight by spraying them with vinegar.
I am wondering how do you measure rust.im doing my project and i need a way to show my results in numbers and I dont know how i am supposed to show how to measure rust?
Check out some of the other comments on the post. Most people seem to be measuring the time until the rust starts to show up.