Sacrificial Protection

         We've been studying and conducting an interesting experiment this week and last week. We are learning about metals. But today I'm going to share with you our experiment about sacrificial protection metals to nails.

Aim: To identify which metals has the most rust and least rust in the nails.
Equipment: 

• Test tubes (6)
• Iron nails (6)
• Test tube rack
• Aluminium metal wire
• Copper metal wire
• Magnesium metal wire
• Nichrome metal wire
• Water
  
  
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Method:  Put water to the 5 test tubes and leave the one test tube without water. Wrap the metal wires in the 4 nails. Use the sandpaper to take off the coating of copper and aluminium metal wires for clearer results. Leave it for two days.


Results: Unfortunately, we didn't take off the coating properly so the results didn't show off clearly as the others. But we've also discussed about this and I will share it to you.

• Iron nail in the air -slightly rusted 
• Iron nail in the water- mostly rusted 
• Iron nail w/ copper-  mostly rusted
• Iron nail w/ magnesium- slightest rusted
• Iron nail w/ aluminium- slightest rusted
• Iron nail w/ nichrome- slightly rusted

Conclusion:

This experiment relates to the reactivity of the metals and corrosion. As of my research and what Ms. Boothby taught to us, iron is a reactive metal to water which leads to what we called corrosion. Corrosion means when the metal breaks down and forms compound on the surface of the metal. It is causes metal to corrode because it is exposed to the oxygen and water which forms oxides. Corrosion results to rusting of the metal.

But how about magnesium and aluminium? They are reactive metals too. Here comes the sacrificial protection. Almuminium and magnesium are more reactive than iron so they protect iron and they are the one who's sacrificing to corrode. This process is called galvanizing.