Superhomemade "Elephant Toothpaste"

How to make Elephant Toothpaste at home

Have you been dream­ing of do­ing a cool ex­per­i­ment for ages? Check it out – it’s an easy DIY ver­sion of the beloved “Ele­phant Tooth­paste” ex­per­i­ment!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Work in pro­tec­tive gloves in or­der to avoid stain­ing your hands with dye. Con­duct the ex­per­i­ment on a tray or any oth­er eas­i­ly cleaned sur­face.

Reagents and equip­ment

  • 100mL 3% hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide so­lu­tion;
  • 10g dry yeast;
  • food col­or­ing;
  • 30mL wa­ter;
  • 3 cups.

Step-by-step in­struc­tion

In one cup, mix 10g of yeast with 30mL wa­ter. Com­bine some food col­or­ing and 100mL 3% hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide so­lu­tion in a sec­ond cup. Quick­ly pour the yeast mix­ture into the col­or­ful hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide. Ob­serve the for­ma­tion of a large amount of foam.

You can ex­per­i­ment and add 10mL liq­uid soap to the ini­tial so­lu­tion. This will make the foam thick­er and fluffi­er!

Process de­scrip­tion

In the pres­ence of hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide, yeast se­cretes an en­zyme known as cata­lase very ac­tive­ly. This en­zyme ac­cel­er­ates the de­com­po­si­tion of hy­dro­gen per­ox­ide into wa­ter and oxy­gen, which makes the mix­ture foam.

2Н₂О₂ = 2Н₂О + О₂