Converting bond energy from a glucose molecule to heat / light energy… using a Gummy bear.
12 thoughts on “The Gummy Bear experiment”
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In my high school chemistry class we called this the flaming dragon.
just skip to 2:40 for the fun.
Sooo… We waste 15% of a bottle of fuel that does a pretty decent job of making light to show how a gummi bear and some chemicals make light? All I see is waste. Where’s the MAKE?
@ryan, MAKE is more than making physical things, we have a chemistry book now (science) and this experiment shows “making” light and heat by converting bond energy from a glucose molecule.
Hmm…maybe it’s the terminology, but isn’t energy released because of bond formation when glucose is combusted to form CO2 etc? Bond breaking is endothermic – no energy released there. And potassium chlorate isn’t an enzyme, it’s an oxidising agent.
@jake, yes breaking bonds is endothermic. He probably meant to say that breaking the bonds in the sugar and forming the CO2/H2O bonds here is exothermic. The main point though is that energy is converted from one form to another.