Me and 3 of my friend have been wantin to make bath bombs for a while now so for this section we decided to make them from scratch. The first thing we did was conducted research on how bath bombs work and why they react with water the way they do. We found that bath bombs are made of citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. The two are inert when dry but once they come into contact with water they start to create sodium citrate and carbon dioxide causing the water to bubble the way it does. Next we had to mix citric acid, baking soda, Epsom salt, and corn starch. After mixing them together completely so there we no lumps. We then mixed water, essential oil, and food coloring in a separate beaker. Next we had to very slowly mix the liquid ingredients with the solid ones to prevent any reaction to occur. After mixing them we had a sort of mold able sand. We used round frappucino lids from Starbucks. We put the mixture in two lids then pressed them together to make a circle. Once they are molded we carefully took the lids off of the mold and set it on a shelf to let them fully dry for 24 hours. We made four bombs in total. The next day, to test if they worked properly we filled a bucket with water since we couldn't use a bath tub. We tossed one in and watched what happened.
Immediately you can see the reaction happening and the gases being released. It quickly dissolved and left the room smelling like the pikaki flower and orange essential oils we used.
Looking back I think one thing that would have made this experiment more interesting for me would be to to extract our own essential oil like we'd planned, but we didn't have enough Rosemary to extract a large enough amount. I worked with Nick, Autrina, and Isabelle. I've worked with them before so I knew that we'd be able to cooperate and get work done and we did.