Today we made this really cool ferrofluid. A ferrofluid is a liquid that becomes strongly polarized in a magnetic field. The word itself is sort of explainable; ‘ferrum’ is latin for iron and that word is combined with ‘fluid’.
We made this black liquid stuff by mixing some iron stuff with some ammonia stuff and some other stuff. Im not good with the specifics, but I do know it had to have iron in it because that is what makes its pattern the way it does with the magnet. As far as analysis goes, our final project was this black, kind of gelly wet solution. Its pH was slightly basic.
What was so cool about the liquid was how it preformed in a magnetic field. Careful to keep the magnet out of contact of the fluid, we placed a magnet below the fluid in the plastic. Much like how iron flakes follow patterns of magnetic fields in those common pictures, this fluid followed a magnetic field. The thing about the fluid though, was that it followed the field in 3 dimensions. We were able to move the magnet around and move the fluids, twisting it and making little spikes pop up and down. We were able to get clearly defined spikes that were solid and thick.
A ferrofluid really up close
Our results happened to be amazing. I think it was because we mixed our solutions so slowly, drop by drop. This actually reminded me of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince because in that movie, Harry actually mixes the potions wrong to get a better result. I wonder if we did something just a little bit wrong that made our results amazing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrofluid
http://www.flypmedia.com/issues/12/#15/1
http://www.kodama.hc.uec.ac.jp/protrudeflow/works/index.html
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA2/MAIN/FEFLUID/CD2R1.HTM