How to make a "silver" egg

Making a silver eggshell

An ex­cit­ing ex­per­i­ment that will amaze chil­dren and even adults. Try this one out for East­er!

Safe­ty mea­sures

Ob­serve safe­ty rules when work­ing with fire.

Reagents and equip­ment

  • boiled egg;
  • can­dle;
  • lighter;
  • for­ceps.

Step-by-step in­struc­tion

Singe the boiled egg with a can­dle. Use the for­ceps for your con­ve­nience. Dip the egg in a glass of wa­ter. Note that the egg be­comes “sil­ver”.

Process de­scrip­tion

Paraf­fin is a wax­like sub­stance. It is used to make can­dles.The com­plete com­bus­tion of paraf­fin forms car­bon diox­ide and wa­ter. But the tem­per­a­ture in­side the flame is low­er than the tem­per­a­ture di­rect­ly above the flame, and the paraf­fin there doesn’t com­bust com­plete­ly. If an ob­ject like our eggshell is in­tro­duced to the flame, the prod­ucts of paraf­fin’s ‘in­com­plete com­bus­tion’ set­tle on the rel­a­tive­ly cold sur­face of the ob­ject. Ul­ti­mate­ly, the eggshell is cov­ered with a black lay­er of soot con­sist­ing of coal and var­i­ous resins. When dipped in wa­ter, the egg turns “sil­very.” The soot re­pels the wa­ter, and the egg is cov­ered with a thin film of air that re­flects light rays, caus­ing the change in ap­pear­ance.

Try it