How To Make A Naked Egg

Yeah, you read that right, a naked egg. What the heck? What's a naked egg, you ask. Well read on because if you have kids and if they like science at all (or doing cool things) they will love this one! 

First I'll tell you how to do it and then I'll explain how it works. 

How to make a Naked Egg

Source: Imagination Station

You'll need:

* an egg (not hard boiled, just a regular egg)

* vinegar 

* a jar

Fill a glass jar with vinegar. 

Gently add the egg.  Make sure there's enough vinegar to completely cover the egg.

Here's the hard part.  Now you have to wait and see what happens.

After about 12 hours you will notice a white foam on the top of the jar.  That's the egg shell.

After about 2 days gently take the egg out of the vinegar.  Rinse it off and what do you have?  An egg with no shell!  You read that right.  AN EGG WITH NO SHELL.  How cool is that?!?!

How does this work?  

The shell of an egg (typically a chicken egg) is made up of primarily calcium carbonate. If you soak this egg shell in vinegar (which is about 4% acetic acid), you start a chemical reaction that dissolves the calcium carbonate shell. The acetic acid reacts with the calcium carbonate in the egg shell and releases carbon dioxide gas that you see as bubbles on the shell. The egg insides remain intact and are held together by the two fragile membranes just inside the shell.

Weird, right?  So it's a naked egg.

You can bounce the egg if you drop it about an inch or so above a counter top.  

It's squishy!

And if you hold it up to the light you can see the yolk in there moving around.

And look how much it grew!

If you want to see your egg get really big, simply put it in a cup filled with water. The makeup of the inside of the egg is around 90% water. If you put the egg in a cup of (100%) water, the water will begin to move inside the egg through the membrane to equalize the amount of water inside and outside of the egg membrane. This process of water moving through a membrane is called osmosis. Osmosis equalizes – or makes the concentration of water on both sides of the egg membrane the same. This means the egg will swell as the water moves inside and get larger.

It's freakish, right?

Try it and see what your kids think.  They'll love it and learn a little science at the same time.

 

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