Dissolution and Solubility
Dissolution and solubility is how well something breaks apart and mixes into a liquid until it disappears.
When you stir sugar into warm water, the sugar breaks into tiny pieces. Those pieces spread out and mix into the water until you can't see them. Some things dissolve fast, like salt. Others, like sand, just sink and stay at the bottom.
Explaining dissolution and solubility by grade level
Drop a pill in warm water. It breaks into tiny bits. The bits mix in and seem to go away. Cold water makes this happen more slowly.
Projects that explore dissolution and solubility
How fast a pill breaks apart and mixes into a liquid depends on what the pill is made of. When lactase pills from four brands dissolve in water heated to 37 degrees Celsius (body temperature), the Lactase Enzyme brand dissolves the fastest.
Dissolution is how a solid breaks apart and mixes into a liquid until it disappears. In this project, you track dissolution by timing how tablets break apart in liquid, since you measure the time it takes for the decongestants to dissolve in water and simulated stomach acid.
Dissolution is how a solid breaks apart and mixes into a liquid until it disappears. This project measures dissolution directly, since you measure the dissolution times of three different pain relievers, comparing brand names to generic names.
What is already mixed into a liquid affects how well new substances break apart in it. When aspirin dissolves in corn flour water, the pH barely changes, meaning the starch slows how fast the aspirin mixes in.
Temperature changes how well a substance breaks apart and mixes into water. You add sugar a little at a time until no more dissolves, then heat the water and keep adding. Sugar shows the biggest jump, going from 240 grams at 20 degrees to 480 grams at 100 degrees. Hotter water lets more substance disappear into the liquid.
Dissolution is how a solid breaks apart and mixes into a liquid until it disappears. This project tests what speeds up dissolution, since you measure the time it takes for Alka-Seltzer tablets to dissolve in different solutions and temperatures.
Solubility is how well a substance mixes into a liquid. Salt dissolves in water until the water cannot hold any more. In this experiment, you add salt to one container until no more dissolves, reaching the solubility limit. That saturated salt water behaves differently when heated, showing how dissolved material changes a liquid's physical properties.