Your lava lamp is ready.
Vegetable oil lava lamp instructions.
I like using these gel food colors for vibrant coloring.
Vegetable oil on the other hand is a nonpolar molecule made of long chains of hydrocarbons strings of carbon atoms bonded to hydrogen atoms.
Fill 1 4 of your glass container with water.
The oil and water should separate into two layers water at the bottom and oil on the top.
Top up to the near top with the vegetable oil.
Vegetable oil or you could use mineral or baby oil instead fizzing tablets such as alka seltzer food coloring.
Take the alka seltzer tablets and break them into 2 or 3 pieces.
Food coloring primary colors or neon.
Even if you are using olive oil which is fairly expensive it still ends up being cheaper than most candles.
The alka seltzer reacts with the water to produce carbon dioxide gas bubbles.
Lava lamp without alka seltzer.
A traditional ceramic dish oil lamp how the vegetable oil lamp works.
To make a cool looking lava lamp you ll need a large flashlight like the one in the.
Add 3 4 drops of the food colour to the water and oil solution and mix it well.
The flame ignites it causing the oil to vaporize.
Fill the bottle about a quarter full with water.
These stick to the water droplets.
Instead of using a light in our homemade lava lamp we used alka seltzer to power the lamp.
Original alka seltzer tablets.
Unlike the water molecule there is equal sharing of electrons between the carbon and hydrogen atoms.
Even a small amount of oil can burn for a few hours.
Watch scientist joe as he makes the lava lamp experiment here.
Pour the vegetable oil in the bottle until is almost full.
The vegetable oil will be drawn up into the wick.
If you don t have all the ingredients on hand you can make a few substitutions.
Fill the bottle up about 1 4th 1 quarter with water.
Once the oil and water have separated add enough food colouring to get the colour you want.
Fill up to of t the glass mason jar with vegetable oil fill the remaining of the glass mason jar with water leaving about an inch empty at the top.
When using aspirin eno tablet.
Next if you don t have alka seltzer you can make your own mix.
Add a few drops of food.
The colour will mix with the water at.
To begin color about 1 2 cup of water with food coloring.
We found it created a lot of bubbles and the clarity of the lava lamp was not as good but it does still work.
To make a lava lamp with household ingredients start by pouring vegetable oil water and food coloring into a plastic bottle.