Scientific Method

                                                       Scientific Method

Purpose: to determine whether 1 sponge or 4 cotton balls will work effectively to extract a half a glass oil from 2 and half cups of water?

Hypothesis: I predict that none of the two materials will extract oil from water. This is because in my opinion, other than sorting, dissolving and using a magnet I think that filtering would best work to extract oil from water. This is because the main purpose of a filter is to prevent thick substances (0il) from passing through. On the other hand, cotton and sponge have the same type of way of extracting substances being that both will absorb the  2 liquids at once , not having a way to separate the both substances. In my opinion, even though were using 2 different solvents to extract both solutes by using the method of absorbing, I don't think any will properly extract oil from water.

Materials:  a half a glass of Oil, 2 and half cups of water, large container, 1 dish soap sponge, 4 cotton balls, measuring cups and a timer

Procedure:
1. Fill 2 and a half cups of room temperature tap water into a large container while using a measuring cup

2. Pour a separate half a glass of oil into a different measuring cup

3. Add the previous half a glass of oil into the large container combined with the room temperature water

4. At the same time, place four cotton balls into the large container filled with water and oil. Set timer for 60 seconds while waiting for the cotton balls to absorb the oil from the water. Record observations

5. Repeat steps 1-3, but instead of using 4 cotton balls place one sponge inside the large container consisting of oil and water. Record observations

Observations chart:

Should have used more than 1 method  some ways improvement and accuracyshould haveqd did experi

Conclusion:

My hypothesis was correct because sponge and cotton balls didn’t extract oil from water. Instead, the solvents extracted both substances by using the method of absorbing. This is because absorbing is meant to soak up liquids in an efficient way. However, the both substances got soaked up at once because there both liquids. Since the sponge and cotton balls were small, both solvents had a limit to the amount of solutes it could absorb affecting the accuracy of the experiment. When the cotton balls were squeezed out more water than oil came pouring out because most of the cotton balls sunk to the bottom of the container, where there was no oil. This is due to how oil is thicker than water because there is less space between the particles leaving the oil at the surface of the container