Dissolving styrofoam in acetone experiment

Описание: In this episode of TinkerTime, I'll be dissolving styrofoam in acetone. A cool little experiment that makes it look like you're playing with acid. The science behind this is that when you add styrofoam to acetone, the styrofoam dissolves because acetone breaks down the bonds in styrofoam, which is made up of long chains of a plastic called polystyrene.

Styrofoam also contains a lot of air, so when it dissolves, it seems to vanish because all that air escapes and only a small amount of plastic remains. This is why Styrofoam quickly shrinks and seems to disappear into the acetone.

When you see bubbling as you dissolve Styrofoam in acetone, it’s not actually boiling; what you're observing is the release of air trapped within the Styrofoam, which is mostly made up of air, with up to 90% of its volume being air pockets. This is what makes it such a good insulator and so lightweight.

As the acetone breaks down the polystyrene (the plastic material of Styrofoam), it frees the air trapped within the structure. The release of this air in the liquid acetone creates bubbles, similar to when you open a carbonated drink and CO2 escapes. It might look like boiling, but it’s just air escaping rapidly as the solid structure of the Styrofoam collapses.

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