During this project we looked into a food of our choice and the different chemical reactions that took place while food is in the cooking process. I decided to make spaghetti for my project, when i looked into the chemistry behind noodles in general I found that Amylopectin and Amylose are the main starches which bond with water and give an elastic feeling. In the experiment i cooked different types of noodles based on weight and thickness, in doing this I found that the noodles that were 1.5mm seemed to cook the best while the ones that were 1mm had the fastest cook time but were overcooked. The noodles cooked longer but created the most elastic feeling and stuck to the pot longest. The noodles have a white appeal when dry but turn into more of a deep yellow with reddish orange hues. this shows that the Amylopectin and Amylose have hydrated and will not feel stiff because they have become malleable.
Building Materials: Iron and rust to be specific.
Final image coming soon*
As you may know the building will have a steel structure, this being said if there was any corrosion that could get to a point to where a point or the whole structure may fall down. Moving into the actual chemistry behind this iron is a metal meaning it has one free electron per atom making it highly reactive and conductive. Oxygen is what gives rust the red hue that we all know, in the forming process we have 2 iron atoms shown as Fe and one molecule of oxygen 3 shown as O3 when we put this in an equation, we get 2Fe+O3=_____ the answer to this will end up being 2Fe+O3= Fe2O3. you may think that certain elements will get left out in the equation but that's not the case everything on one side is on the other side. The term for this is called conservation of mass, meaning anything in said equations or bonds is always on the other side. Another aspect of the project was sustainability meaning will it have the least impact on the earth and can be redone infinitely. As a material yes iron is amazing because it is in the earth's crust and inner layers, as for extracting it that's where it is not sustainable. In the extraction process you need to use pit mines, these mines take up large areas of land and they need large equipment. In short, the pit mines cause a lot of air pollution and emit a large amount of carbon into our atmosphere. Then, you need to refine the iron which uses blast furnaces, these emit a lot of carbon and use a material called Coke which is a by-product from coal. To conclude rust could compromise the structure on a worst-case scenario and iron is sustainable until it comes for extracting and refining.
Reflection
In this project the biggest thing I learned was that I need to minimize distractions, through the semester I would browse amazon and other things. While I did the project my partner and I would fall out of balance, and he would do most of the work some days and I would do most on other days. At the end we both pulled it together and found the balance and got our project in on time. While I was off topic a fair amount, I did make up for it by researching for two days on how iron is extracted and what it takes it get it. I am going into the next project with a goal to make sure I don't fall into distractions and balance if partnership is needed and will reflect in the products that are produced.