white powder forensics

What is that white powder?

Today you will be a forensic chemist. 

A bag of white powder has been confiscated by the airport customs.  You need to find out what white powder it is?

Aim: To learn about the makeup of different white powders.

There are  a number of different white powders in our everyday life. Some of these are harmful and others are not. Test the four white powders listed to see which one has been found at the airport.

Here are some examples of everyday kitchen white powders.

Flour, Cornflour, Sugar, Salt, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Icing Sugar, Tartaric Acid

Citric Acid, Gluten Free flour

You will be given a small amount of 4 white powders on your cardboard. On the black cardboard using a magnifying glass look at the powders.

Look at them under your magnifying glass and record what you see. 

These are the four powders we will be using. Upload a photo of each powder. 

1.  Cornflour
2.  Baking Soda
3.  Salt
4.  Sugar 

Before you add the iodine, vinegar or water you will need to divide each powder into 3.

Materials

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Steps

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Findings:

the sugar and the salt look different

	Sugar	Salt	Baking Soda	Cornflour
Appearance	white	white	crumble	a mountain
Texture	hard	sharp	crumble	crubmle
Smell	plain	salty	like dentist office	plain no smell
Iodine	black	spread	orange	the same
Water	black	nothing	silver	soaked in
Vinegar	darker	spread	black	nothing

Write a paragraph about your findings.

Making Sherbet

Once you have completed your blog and cleaned up all your equipment you can make sherbet.

Using the following recipe you can make sherbet.

Sherbet recipe

Recipe: 

1 tsp of powdered drink crystals (eg refresh)
1/4 tsp citric acid
1/2 tsp icing sugar
1/4 tsp -baking soda.
Put all ingredients into a zip lock bag, stir, and enjoy.

Materials:

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Steps

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Findings:

Sherbet
Taste
Colour