What is that white powder?

What is that white powder?

Today you will be a forensic chemist. 

A bag of white powder has been confiscated by the airport customs. You need to find out what white powder it is?

Aim: To learn about the makeup of different white powders.

There are  a number of different white powders in our everyday life. Some of these are harmful and others are not. Test the four white powders listed to see which one has been found at the airport.

Here are some examples of everyday kitchen white powders.

Flour

Cornflour

Sugar

Salt

Baking Soda

Baking Powder

Icing Sugar

Tartaric Acid

Citric Acid

Gluten Free flour

Materials

1.  vinegar
2.  pipette
3.  iodine
4.  magnifying glass 
5.  black paper
6.   
7. 

Upload a photo of each powder.

1.  Cornflour
2.  Baking Soda
3.  Salt
4. Sugar 

On the black cardboard using a microscope you need to record what you see. You will be given a small amount of 4 white powders on your cardboard. Look at them under your microscope and record what you see. 
Do not mix the powders or taste the powders.

Findings:

	Sugar	Salt	Baking Soda	Cornflour
Appearance	white	white	white	white
Texture	bigger square crystally	smaller square crystals	powdery	like chalk smooth
Smell	sweetish lolly	old rocks	acidy	dry wheat smell
Iodine	changed colour to brown	made it urine colour	made it orange and hard	went hard and changed colour to black
Water	no change	no change	dissolved	turned into a go goey stuff
Vinegar	went wet	no change	foamed and fizzed	nothing

Write a paragraph about your findings.
When you add different chemicals to different powders some of them cause fizzing and some of them make goo. some have no reaction at all. My favourite was when the baking soda and the vinegar mixed together and fizzed.