Background information on rust


What is rust?
More often than not, metal objects around us often turn rusty. R­ust is the common name for a very common compound, iron oxide with the chemical formula of Fe2O3. The main cause of rust is due to the fact that iron reacts very readily with oxygen and moisture in the air.


Removing rust.
Rust is indeed a nuisance in our everyday lives. There are many over-the-counter products that are available to remove rust. However, most of these products are sometimes not very environmentally friendly and can cause dire consequences when disposed into the sewage.



What can you do?
Over the years, many people have come up with home-made remedies to remove the effects of rusting. The information of these home-made remedies is widely available on the web platforms such as YouTube. Your job is to find the most effective method of removing rust and justify why these method is the most effective method.

After narrowing down a few methods of removing rust, you may proceed to the lab to carry out some experiments to find out which method is the most effective method. You are encouraged to document the whole process by taking photographs or videos.

Deliverables
You will need to complete a blog to document all the information that you have researched on.

Figure 1 A sample of the blog page

The figure above shows a sample of the blog page. The home page will provide you with some background information on rust to kick-start your research. Subsequently, you need to fill on the pages such as “The chemistry behind rust”, “Experimental design”, “Results” and “Conclusion”.

  • In “The chemistry behind rust” page, you will need to fill in what you know about rust. For example, the chemical reaction that forms rust or the conditions for rusting to occur and the chemical reaction when rust is removed. 
  •  In “Experimental Design” page, you will need to fill in how you intend to carry out the experiment to investigate the best way to remove rust. This section may include information such as experimental procedure and control set-up.
  • In “Results” page, you will need to fill in the results of your experiment. It would be good if you could augment this section with photographs or videos of your experiments.
  • Finally, in “Conclusion” page, you will need to come to a final decision on which is the best method to remove rust. You will also need to justify your decision based your experiment and research.

Each team will be provided with the username and password for the blog. Each blog will be kept private so that other teams may not copy ideas from each other. After all teams have completed the blog, the blogs will be opened and each team will be given a chance to critic on each other’s work.

Guiding Questions:
  • What is the chemistry behind rust?
  • Why are over-the-counter products that are used to remove rust not environmentally friendly?
  • What are some of the home-made remedies?
  • What is the chemistry behind these home-made remedies that make them work?
  • Which is the most effective method to remove rust and why?