Shaker Slime
SHAKER SLIME
Experiment Procedure
- Fill a Shaker Cup with 2oz of Slime Goo.
- Drop a Color Fizzer into the Shaker Cup. Allow for the Color Fizzer to fully dissolve.
- Add a teaspoon of Cross-linker Solution.
- Seal the Shaker Cup with a lid.
- Shake it up! After a few minutes, remove your colored slime from the cup to play and sculpt it!
- Place your slime in a zipper lock bag for easy storage.
Materials List
- 5 Shaker Cups with Lids
- Color Fizzers
- Cross-linker Solution
- Slime Goo
- 5 Zipper Lock Bags
- Adult Supervision
How Does It Work?
Most liquids, such as water, are made up of small, unconnected molecules bouncing around and tumbling over and into one another. These single, unconnected molecules are called monomers. Monomer liquids flow easily and are seldom gooey or sticky to the touch. In other substances, the monomers are linked together in long chains of molecules known as polymers. These long chains don’t flow easily at all. Like a bowl of cooked spaghetti, they sort of roll over and around one another. Liquid polymers tend to be a lot gooier and flow more slowly than liquid monomers. The Slime Goo solution called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) you used to make slime is a liquid polymer.
The borax solution is called sodium tetraborate. Your parents or grandparents will recognize the name Borax as a unique brand of powdered soap used to whiten linen and to really clean your hands. The Borax or sodium tetraborate molecules act to “cross-link” the long strands of PVA molecules. Just imagine a box full of tiny, steel chains that slip and slide easily across one another. Each chain is made up of hundreds of individual links but one chain is not connected to another chain. Borax loves to connect with water and billions of Borax molecules randomly link trillions of water molecules found anywhere on the chains of PVA. Now when you pull out one PVA chain, all the rest comes with it in a blob.
Additional Information
PVA is used by the plastics industry to form surface coatings and to make surface films resistant to gasoline. It’s also used to make artificial sponges, hoses, and printing inks. If you check out the ingredients of contact lens wetting solutions, you may find PVA used as a lubricant and a cleanser. The PVA solution in this kit contains coloring and a special disinfectant to help resist pesky germs on those not-so-clean hands.
