Скачать или смотреть The Amazing Story of Wonderful Waterlock

One of the most amazing molecules on the planet is sodium polyacrylate – commonly called Waterlock. Waterlock was engineered by scientists for the Department of Agriculture in the 1960’s. They were trying to develop new materials that could improve water conservation in soil.
But when you look at it, it actually seems quite ordinary. But, it turns out, this white powder can do one thing better than anything else on the planet - absorb water. It can actually absorb about 700 times its own weight of water. Because of this, it is called a super absorber.
And it turns out that Waterlock has other useful properties too. For example, it has high heat resistance and good mechanical stability. And so Waterlock is used for a bunch of different things. It is used often as a soil additive to retain water for new plants while their root system develops. It’s also used as a thickening agent for several water-based products including hair gels, soaps – and, believe it or not, ice cream.
But it’s most famous and profitable application by a long shot has been its inclusion into every single disposable diaper in the developed world. You see the average baby goes through between 3 and 4 thousand diapers before they are potty trained. And since each one of them has Waterlock powder woven into the fabric of the diaper, this means that literally tons and tons of Waterlock is used every year. So it’s a pretty profitable powder too.
Our experiment for today is to see how many two ounce cups of water a diaper can hold before it is totally saturated. You'll be surprised to see just how much water it can hold.
#sodiumpolyacrylate #diaperpolymer #edutainment #stem

Next Generation Science Standards:
5-PS1-3 Matter and Its Interactions
Make observations and measurements to identify materials based on their properties.
MS-PS1-2 Matter and its Interactions
Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.