Last week, fourth graders from The KAUST School learned all about the four states of matter in an exciting visit to the lab of Prof. Husam Alshareef, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.
The students were enthralled as they observed reactions that caused visible changes between the states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. The students observed plasma in the dark and then saw how plasma can be used to make mirrors, electronic chips, and even invisible circuits; they watched a saturated salt solution change from liquid to solid state, forming a tower of ‘hot ice’ before their eyes – the heat produced from the exothermic reaction in the crystallization process; and they made a real life ‘genie in a bottle’ – steam spewing out from a reaction bottle – by decomposing hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and water with the help of a manganese dioxide catalyst.
Prof. Alshareef’s research group works with Functional Nanomaterials and Devices targeting energy harvesting, energy storage, and emerging electronics applications. Keep a look out for more about Prof. Alshareef’s laboratory in the May edition of The Beacon.
Click below to see photos from the lab visit:
I appreciate the lab team for letting Grade Fourth Students visit them. Thank you for showing the experiments and giving our class a sample plasma mirror too. I would love to visit again soon because I want to see more experiments!
I admired seeing and feeling all the experiments and looking at the cool states of matter, and I adored witnessing the water instantly turning into ice like magic. In addition, I appreciated the genie in the bottle, even though it wasn’t a genie that would grant me a wish, I liked seeing the gas at the top of the green bottle go out. I thought the genie was the most interesting though, because there was a reaction at the bottom of the bottle when gas was let out, and I could see the gas.
At first we thought the field trip to the lab would be a normal field trip, but it actually turned out to be great!
We liked the saturated salt which turned into hot ice. It was like magic!! We also liked to see the artificial plasma in the vacuum. Additionally, we enjoyed feeling and seeing the plasma mirror. We thought that we couldn’t make plasma mirrors, but we actually saw a real one. The most interesting part was when we saw plasma.
Thank you so much for inviting us to your lab and teaching us about the four states of matter. We learnt a lot about plasma and the states of matter. Thank you Lab Team!! ☺ From: Aya Alshareef, Hashem Bkayrat, Salman Naqvi, and Mohammed Aseeri.
Thank you for that nice trip to your lab! Our group liked the hot ice mountain and the genie that came out of the bottle. When the lab technician poured the liquid in a small container it formed to ice in one second, and it that was hot. We also liked the genie that came out of the bottle because it looked like a real genie coming out of the bottle.
We thought the plasma trapped in the vacuum machine was the most interesting because we’ve never seen plasma before.