Thursday, January 30, 2014

Burning a Dollar Bill

Here's a cool science experiment that only takes a few minutes.  Show your kids how to "burn" a dollar bill without damaging it.  You need a dollar bill, water, salt, and rubbing alcohol.  Fill a measuring cup with a 50/50 mixture of water and rubbing alcohol.  We used a bottle of 71% rubbing alcohol.  Then add a few dashes of salt to the water.  Place the dollar bill in the water and let it soak for a couple of minutes.  Make sure you wash your hands of any rubbing alcohol so as not to burn yourself in the next step.  Use a pair of tongs to remove the dollar bill and ignite it.  Our video is below.


The rubbing alcohol is very flammable and burns away very quickly.  It burns away so quickly that the water soaked bill doesn't catch on fire.

Be very careful with this experiment and make sure you tell your kids to never do this without an adult around to supervise.

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