your results
Sent in by: Adriana of AZ
Make your pennies sparkle!
- lemon juice
- old, dull pennies
- paper cups
- paper towels
- Check with a grown-up before you begin.
- Put a penny in a paper cup.
- Pour some lemon juice into the cup. Make sure the penny is completely covered.
- After about 5 minutes, take the penny out of the lemon juice, rub it off with a paper towel. What does the penny look like now? It should be much brighter.
- A new penny is partly made from bright, shiny copper. But after a while, it loses its shine. Why? Because the copper mixes with the oxygen in the air and makes a coating called an oxide. When you put the penny in lemon juice, the acid in the lemon chemically removes the oxide, and you're left with a bright copper penny.
Now's your chance to experiment. Try out different kinds of liquids, make some predictions, compare your results and send them to ZOOM. Which liquids shined your pennies the most? The least? Do acids work better than bases? To find out which liquids are acids and which are bases, check out the grOOvy online gizmo, Kitchen Chemistry, for more scientific kitchen kOOkineSS!

ZOOM Fan, age 11 of IN wrote:
I used lemon jiuce and apple jiuce and the lemon was the best
Aaleyah, age 11 of Virgin Islands wrote:
It wored I even tryed coke and it work that was so cool
Brittany, age 12 of Cantonment, FL wrote:
the liquids I used were tea, mountain dew milk, lemon juice, and water my hypothesis was that lemo juice and mountain dew would clean the pennies my results were that tea stayed the same mountain dew made it cleaner milk mayed it rusty lemon juice made it cleaner and water stayed the same this project was so much fun and very shocking I would have never thought that milk would make it rusty I will absolutely do this project again with different liquids it was so much fun!!!
Jaydee, age 9 of Pocatello, ID wrote:
we had to set the tiiimer for 10 minutes but it worked.
Laura, age 11 of FL wrote:
I use lemon juice with hot sause in it when i took the penny out and rub if with a paper towel the penny went really shiny.
Danielle, age 8 of Bronx, NY wrote:
i put 5 pennies in lemon jucie and only 3 pennies were clean but it came out sparklyand clean.
Aspen, age 10 of Matamores, PA wrote:
When I did it some penny where clean and some were not.
Brendan, age 9 of Aurora, ON wrote:
I put the penny in the lemen juice and it looked really shiny! Not like that brown colour.
Morgan, age 11 of Victoria, TX wrote:
when I did this experiment I used lime juice, vinegar and sprite!!! I found out that the lime juice worked the best then the vinegar and last but not least sprite. alos I thought that this experiment was sooo cool that I am doing it for my science fair project!!!
Renee of Ellenton, FL wrote:
i used different kinds of liquid you drink and so far orange juice was the one to acually clean the whole penny that I used.
Devon, age 7 of Newark, NJ wrote:
thees are the only one that are shinny lomon juice and cola.
Key'Ziah, age 10 of New Jersey wrote:
the lemon juice was made the penny shinny and the cola made the penny shinny the milk made the penny rusty and the water made the penny rusty and the apple juice made the penny look the same and it made it look rusty and dirty.
Jesse, age 11 of Talent, OR wrote:
when I did it. it got cleanest wen I usd the limon juice
Giselle, age 14 of Hathorne, CA wrote:
when we put the penny in the cup with the vinegar it didnt look like it was making a difference. but when we took it out it was so clean. so the vinegar worked the best for me..
Cynthia, age 12 of New York, NY wrote:
Well I try this it was fun. It turn Brighter with the lemon juice.
Henry, age 10 of Sugar Land, TX wrote:
i did it with lemon juice with my sister and even the splothches of juice made the penny lose a lot of gunk in that spot
Stacey, age 10 of New York City, NY wrote:
when I did it it worked well. The lemon juice worked the best. the pennies were as shiny as ever. We tried to do it to other copper things and it worked.
Parker, age 16 of Huntingdon, TN wrote:
it did work but I know another way oliveoil lemon juice and baking soda sir it up put your penny in there wait 4min. and it will be like a new penny
Lydia, age 13 of Portland, OR wrote:
Hay zoom I did this with water, jucie, milk, and water w/ baking soda and vinager and I found out that the milk won
Carolyn, age 10 of New Berlin, WI wrote:
The lemon juice got the penny the cleanest
Brooke, age 9 of Loxahatchee, FL wrote:
I did this for a science fair project, with lime juice, lemon juice, sprite, and coke, and the lime juice did the best, but then, the lemon juicestarted to catch up, leaving the lime juice the best, and the lemon juice the second best.
Jhon, age 12 of Ventura, CA wrote:
i used some hot sauce and pickle juice and my results were the best thing ever! they looked brand new!
Brooke, age 9 of Newfoundland wrote:
we had coke lemon juice sunny D and water and the lemon juice cleaned the pennies the most
Jade, age 11 of Rocanville wrote:
I left the pennies in there for the 5 min. and I brought them out and the were nice and clean. it did this because the lemon juice has mild acid in it so it polished them.
Jalissa, age 10 of Chicago, IL wrote:
one pennie came out shine the other ones just dull but it was cool I like it
Joseph, age 9 of Miami Lakes, FL wrote:
the lemon juice cleaned it the most. the water cleaned it the least. the coke cleaned part of it. the milk cleaned a little of it but more then coke.
Austin, age 8 of Miami Lakes, FL wrote:
the lemonjuice clend it the most and the water clend it the less
Tionna, age 10 of East Chicago wrote:
What happened when I did it they got really, really clean thanks for puting this project on here this was really fun.
Emily, age 15 of Savannah, GA wrote:
I learned the reason that the salt AND the vinegar works best together, is because salt + weak acid = weak hydrochloric solution.
|