“Disappearing spoon” experiment

How to make a spoon which dissolves in hot water

Do you want to trick your friends, but don’t know how? In this ex­per­i­ment, we’ll show you an in­cred­i­ble prop­er­ty of gal­li­um!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Af­ter work­ing with gal­li­um, rinse ev­ery­thing with al­co­hol, and then with soap and wa­ter. Liq­uid in which gal­li­um has melt­ed must not be con­sumed.

Warn­ing! Only un­der adults su­per­vi­sion.

Reagents and equip­ment:

  • gal­li­um;
  • sil­i­cone sealant;
  • tea­spoon;
  • plas­tic con­tain­er;
  • spat­u­la;
  • box cut­ter;
  • match;
  • rub­ber bands.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Squeeze sil­i­cone sealant into the con­tain­er – the lay­er should be about 2 cm thick. Spread the sealant even­ly with a spat­u­la and place an or­di­nary tea­spoon on it. Put a match un­der the edge of the spoon to the wall of the con­tain­er – it will make the cav­i­ty into which we will lat­er pour melt­ed met­al. Add an­oth­er lay­er of sealant, even it out and leave to dry at room tem­per­a­ture for 2 weeks.

Af­ter the sil­i­cone is com­plete­ly dry, take out of the mold, cut it open care­ful­ly and re­move the spoon and match. Place the two halves of the mold to­geth­er and fix them to­geth­er with rub­ber bands, to en­sure there is no leak­age. Take an am­pule con­tain­ing gal­li­um and im­merse in hot wa­ter. Col­lect the melt­ed gal­li­um in a sy­ringe and squeeze it into the hol­low that we made pre­vi­ous­ly. Put in the fridge for 20 min­utes.

Re­move the rub­ber bands and care­ful­ly take out the spoon – it doesn’t look any dif­fer­ent from an or­di­nary one. In­vite your friends around for tea and watch their amazed faces. Just make sure they don’t drink the tea – it has a nasty taste and isn’t good for you!

Try it