Color Change Chemistry Experiments

Try the Briggs-Rauscher Oscillating Clock Reaction

The Oscillating Clock or Briggs-Rauscher reaction changes color from clear to amber to blue. The reaction cycles between colors for a few minutes, eventually turning blue-black.

Try the Briggs-Rauscher Color Change Reaction

Fun Water into Blood or Wine Demonstration

pH indicators are extremely useful for color change chemical reactions. For example, you can use phenolphthalein indicator to make water appear to turn into blood or wine and back to water (clear - red - clear).

This simple color change demonstration is perfect for Halloween or Easter.

Turn Water into Blood or Wine

Cool Olympic Rings Color Chemistry

Transition metal complexes produce brightly-colored chemical solutions. One nice demonstration of the effect is called the Olympic Rings. Clear solutions change color to make the symbolic colors of the Olympic Games.

Make Olympic Rings with Chemistry

Turn Water Into Gold With Chemistry

Alchemists try to turn elements and other substances into gold. Modern scientists have achieved this feat using particle accelerators and nuclear reactions, but the best you can manage in a typical chemistry lab is to make a chemical appear to turn into gold. It's a fascinating color change reaction.

Turn Water into "Liquid Gold"

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10 Fun Chemistry Demonstrations and Experiments

By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.

Water - Wine - Milk - Beer Color Change Reaction

Here's a fun color change project in which a solution is poured from a water glass into a wine glass, tumbler, and beer glass. Pre-treating the glassware causes the solution to change to appear to go from water to wine to milk to beer. This set of reactions is perfect for a magic show as well as a chemistry demonstration.

Try the Water - Wine - Milk - Beer Chem Demo

Easy To Make Red Cabbage Juice pH Indicator

 You can use household ingredients to observe color change chemistry. For example, red cabbage juice changes color in response to pH changes when it is mixed with other chemicals. No dangerous chemicals are needed, plus you can use the juice to make homemade pH paper, which will change color when used to test home or lab chemicals.

• Make Red Cabbage pH Indicator
• Make Homemade pH Paper
• Use Cabbage Juice to Make Green Eggs

Blue Bottle Color Change (Other Colors Too)

The classic 'blue bottle' color change reaction uses methylene blue in a reaction that changes color from clear to blue and back to blue. Other indicators work, too, so you can change colors from red to clear to red (resazurin) or from green to red/yellow to green (indigo carmine).

Try the Blue Bottle Color Change Demonstration

Magic Rainbow Wand Chemical Reaction - 2 Ways

You can use a pH indicator solution to display a rainbow of colors. All you need is the right indicator and either a glass tube containing indicator solution and a pH gradient or else a series of test tubes at different pH values. Two indicators that work well for this color change are Universal Indicator and red cabbage juice.

Make a pH Rainbow Wand

Spooky Old Nassau or Halloween Color Change Reaction

The Old Nassau reaction is popular as a Halloween chemistry demonstration because the chemical solution changes from orange to black. The traditional form of the demonstration uses mercury chloride, so this reaction is not commonly seen anymore because the solution shouldn't be poured down the drain.

Try the Old Nassau Reaction

Valentine's Day Pink Color Change Demonstrations

Try a pink color change chemistry demonstration for Valentine's Day.

The "Hot and Cold Valentine" is a temperature dependent color change that goes from pink to colorless and back to pink. The reaction uses the common indicator phenolphthalein.

The "Vanishing Valentine" uses a resazurin solution that starts out blue. After a matter of minutes, this solution becomes clear. When the flask is swirled, the contents change to pink. The liquid again becomes colorless and can be cycled through the clear-to-pink cycle multiple times.

• Try the Hot and Cold Valentine Reaction
• Try the Vanishing Valentine Demonstration

Red and Green Christmas Chemistry Color Change Reaction

You can use indigo carmine to prepare a solution that changes color from green to red, making an excellent Christmas chemistry demonstration. Actually, the initial solution is blue, which changes to green and finally to red/yellow. The color of the solution can be cycled between green and red.

Try the Christmas Color Change Reaction 

Colored Flames Chemical Reactions To Try

Color change chemistry isn't restricted to chemical solutions. Chemical reactions produce interesting colors in flames, too. Using spray bottles may be the most popular, where a person sprays a solution toward a flame, changing its color. Many other interesting projects are available. These reactions are the basis of flame tests and bead tests, used to help identify unknown samples.

• Colored Fireworks Chemical Elements
• Making Colored Candle Flames
• How To Do a Flame Test
• How To Do a Bead Test

More Color Change Chemistry Experiments

There are many more color change chemical reactions that you can do as experiments and demonstrations. Here are some to try:

• Color Changing Lava Chemical Volcano
• Easy Blue Color Change Demo (uses household ammonia and copper sulfate)
• Simple Disappearing Colors Experiment (food coloring, water, bleach)
• Bleeding Knife Chemistry Trick
• Color Changing Liquid Thermometer