I enjoyed Periodic Videos latest offering on fake snow. If you have watched the above you will know that it is a chemical called sodium polyacrylate, which is highly water absorbent and takes on the texture of snow when added to water.
Acrylic acid is quite a small molecule based upon just three carbon atoms linked in a chain. It is used to make plastics, glues and other useful substances. One of its properties is the ability to polymerise. This means that it can form up with itself into long chains. A chain of carbon molecules with a double bond is said to be unsaturated; it is this bond in acrylic acid that breaks allowing chains of molecules to form.
Reacting the polyacrylic acid with the alkali sodium hydroxide results in sodium polyacrylate (a salt) and water. It can then be dried out and packaged for use in nappies, as a thickening agent, in cosmetics and even as fake snow.
Questions…
- What kind of reaction occurs between sodium hydroxide and polyacrylic acid?
- If a molecule of acrylic acid was completely burned in air, what two products would be formed?
- Name a good source of polyunsaturated fatty acids in your diet.
- Name another organic acid (other than acrylic acid) and where it is commonly found.
- From the picture above, what is the chemical formula of acrylic acid?
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