copper into silver and gold

Turning copper into silver and gold 🥈🥇

Aim:  To make a coin turn into silver and gold.

Equipment: Bunsen burner, Tripod, Heat mat, Beaker, Gauze mat, Copper Coin, Scissor Tongs, wire wool, tweezers, 100mls of sodium hydroxide solution, 5grams powdered zinc, Beaker with water, paper towels

Method:

1. Place a copper coin on the table and use some wire wool to clean the copper coin off.
2. Next, get the sodium hydroxide and powdered Zinc to create sodium zincate. Pour the zinc powder into sodium hydroxide and stir.
3. place the beaker onto of tripod and gauze mat then turn on your Bunsen burner.
4. Heat the solution till it at boiling point.
5. Take the Bunsen out from under while there's still some zinc left in the bottom of the beaker.
6. Pop the coin into the solution so its in contact with the zinc at the bottom.
7. take the coin out after a few minutes.
8. Rinse the coin off into some cold water.
9. Dab the coin dry, take off any lumps of zinc (By now it should be silver)
10. Put the coin in the top part of Bunsen burner flame and very gently heat it. (Now it will be gold)

Try 1

Notes: Need to take all the zinc sulfate off.

(Last time I didn't take it all off)
Try 2

Notes: I did it and I finished it.
Observation:

Dissociation:
While doing this I found it fun and interesting because you were turning a 10c copper coin into silver and then gold if you wanted to. When I was setting the experiment up I found that you had to be very specific with what chemicals you had to use (with all experiment you have to be specific but with this one I found you had to be extra careful), in the equipment I wrote down Sodium hydroxide solution but I didn't say how strong the concentration had to be. When I went and showed the teacher he said I had to do some more research into the chemical and find out what concentration it was. I couldn't find it so the teacher just gave me a medium concentration and it worked out fine for the experiment. During the experiment, I found it fun to watch the coin turn from copper to silver, even though you can't really see it happening because the solution you mix is all black/grey and you can't see through it. Once you take it out you can see the silver. When washing it and drying it off the first time doing the experiment I didn't take all the sodium zincate off and it burnt and rusted over top of the flame when turning it to the gold. The next day I did the whole experiment again to get it right so I had a good looking coin. This time I made sure to wash all the sodium zincate off and didn't keep it over top of the flame too long.


Evaluation:
If you are wanting to do this experiment then I would really recommend doing more than 1 coin so you can get at least one good looking on and you don't have to the experiment more than once, I would say to do at least 6-8 coins and maybe keep some silver as well so you have some silver and some gold. You also want to make sure you get all the sodium zincate off so you don't burn and rust your coin. I think this is defiantly an experiment I would want to do again and if I did do it I would make sure the sodium zincate is off and it is cleaned properly.

Alloys
Alloys are a mixture of two or more elements one or more of which is a metal. Alloys are usually harder than the metal they contain. 
Some common alloys                                                                                        

Alloys	Metals	Properties	Uses
Tungsten steel	Tungsten, iron, chromium	Very hard, resists	High-speed drill bits
Stainless steel	Iron, nickel, chromium	hard, very shiny lustre, does not corrode	Cutlery
Bronze	Copper, tin	Hard, resists corrosion even in salt water	Ship propellers
Brass	copper, zinc	good  acoustic properties	Musical instruments
Duralminium	Aluminium, copper, magnesium	Lightweight, strong, malleable	Aircraft bodies