THE STUDY OF HOW HAND WARMERS WARM UP Elsa Field Cary Academy ABSTRACT The purpose of this experiment was to find out how much hand warmers warm up in different situations. Hand warmers are made of different materials which make a chemical reaction and heat; many people have done experiments on heat but not that many on hand warmers. A few hand warmers were put in different materials, and when they were put in the materials the hand warmers warmed up different amounts. Once the hand warmers temperature was measured it turned out that the hand warmers that were in the glove got the hottest followed by a paper envelope, a neoprene water bottle cover, and lastly was a plastic container. The reason why the glove did better than the plastic container is because the glove is tight and doesn t let the heat escape, while the container is big and open and it lets the heat get away from the hand warmer. INTRODUCTION Hand warmers are made of different materials which create heat when you mix them together. The hand warmers are vacuumed shut in their package and the only way for the materials to mix is for the hand warmer to be exposed to air. Hand warmers are made up of oxygen, iron, and a very small amount of water. Once you expose the hand warmer to air, it mixes all the materials which make a chemical reaction and creates heat. The substances in the hand warmers change during chemical reactions and so does the amount of energy that they store. All the changes provide the energy that is given out in the reactions. Salt is an electrolyte and it improves the movement of electrons across water which speeds the exchange between the iron and the oxygen which creates instant warmth and is why hand warmers don t take a long time to warm up. Vermiculite is in the hand warmers, and it is commonly used for fire-proofing. The vermiculite is what makes the heat last a long time.
Temperature is a degree of heat and cold, which can be measured by using a thermometer. A thermometer is used for many different purposes. A thermometer is usually a long piece of glass that has mercury or alcohol inside of it. Thermometers measure in Celsius and Fahrenheit. Celsius is used in the metric system. Freezing is 0 degrees in Celsius, and freezing is 32 degrees in Fahrenheit. Boiling is 100 degrees Celsius, and boiling is 212 degrees in Fahrenheit. If you measure the temperature of something and the number is high, it is hot. If you measure the temperature of something and the number is low, then you know it is cold. If you measure the temperature of something that has a high number in Fahrenheit, it will have a lower number when you measure it with Celsius even though it is the same temperature. The temperature will be a lower number in Celsius than Fahrenheit. Cold blooded animals are not always colder than warm blooded animals. Cold blooded animals become hotter and colder depending on the temperature that they are in. During the day time when the sun is out, cold blooded animals warm up a lot because they soak up the heat from the sun. When the sun goes down, their body temperature drops because the air that they are in got colder. Warm blooded animals make their own body heat when it is cold outside. Whether it is sunny outside, or it is freezing outside, warm blooded animals temperature relatively stay the same. The major difference between warm blooded and cold blooded animals is that, warm blooded animals create their own heat, and cold blooded animals rely on the temperature of what they are in to warm them up or cool them off. Many people have done experiments on heat and warming different materials. They would use different methods to warm up things such as hands and different things that you would use every day. The experiment was to place someone s hands in different objects. They placed someone s hands in three different types of gloves, three different types of cloth, and three different types of containers. They let the person s hands sit in the object for one min and measured the temperature of the hands after the min. This experiment was very useful in many different ways. It was helpful because if you needed to warm up hands, but you didn t have many things to warm them up with, you can use one of the ways in the experiment.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Used in these experiments were 45 new hand warmers, three five year old hand warmers, three 15 year old hand warmers, three 18 year old hand warmers, one thermometer, a plastic container, a neoprene water bottle cover, a paper envelope, a glove, a timer, a freezer, a refrigerator, and an oven. In the first experiment the hand warmers were exposed to air for 20 min and the temperature was measured every min. The hand warmer would get shaken 10 times every min. The experiment was repeated three times. In the second experiment different hand warmers were placed in different objects, which were a plastic container, a neoprene water bottle cover, a paper envelope, and a glove. The temperature was measured every five min for 20 min. The experiment was repeated 3 times. In the third experiment four hand warmers got shaken different amounts every min for 20 min. The numbers of shakes were 0, 5, 10, and 15 shakes. The temperature got measured after 20 min. The steps got repeated three times. In the fourth experiment four hand warmers were placed in different places that had different temperatures. The temperatures were -2 10 degrees (a freezer), 30-40 degrees (a refrigerator), room temperature, and 85-100 degrees (an oven). The hand warmers were put in the places for 10 min. After the 10 min the hand warmers sat for 10 more min and were let to warm up the temperature was measured after they warmed up. The steps were repeated three times. In the fifth experiment four hand warmers were taken. Each hand warmer had a different age; the ages were one yr, 5 yr, 15 yr, and 18 yr. The hand warmers were shaken 10 times every five min. The temperatures were taken after 20 min. The experiment was repeated three times.
What temperature the hand warmers get (c) RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 40 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 How long the hand warmer has been exposed to air (min) Figure 1 How hot the hand warmer gets in a certain amount of time In this experiment the hand warmer started to warm up a little slow, but after a few minutes the temperature started going up a lot and fast. Once it slowed down, the temperature gradually went up for about another 10 min. The results came out like this because the hand warmer takes a little while to activate and mix all of the materials inside of the hand warmer. Since it takes a while to warm up it started out a little slow but once it started to get warmer, it got a lot warmer. The reason why the data kept going up gradually is because it got close to the heat that it is supposed to get to, and so it didn t have that much more until it was as hot as it could get, so it just went slowly.
What temperature the hand warmers got to (c) 50 45 40 30 25 20 Plastic bottle paper glove 15 10 0 5 10 15 20 25 How long the hand warmers were in the container (m) Figure 2 how hot hand warmers get inside of different materials In this graph it shows how the glove warmed up the hand warmers fast and a lot. It also shows how the plastic container didn t warm the hand warmers up as much. The glove warmed the hand warmer up the most because a glove is tight, and doesn t let that much space for the hand warmer to air out once it gets hot. Once the hand warmer is warm, the air can t get out in small spaces. The reason why the plastic container didn t keep the hand warmer hot is because the container is big and has a lot of space for the hand warmer to cool down in, unlike the glove. The plastic container didn t keep the hand warmer hot because it would be a little like putting the hand warmer out in the open, not in a small space where it will stay warm. Over all the hand warmers were heating up the same in the beginning, but once they started to get hot, what they were in affected the temperature a lot.
What temperature the hand warmer got to (c) 39 38 37 36 34 33 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Number of shakes Figure 3 how the number of shakes affects the heat of the hand warmers In this graph it shows that the number of shakes does affect the temperature that the hand warmers get to. It shows that the hand warmer gets hottest when there are 15 shakes, and it is the least warm when there are no shakes. This happens because when you shake the hand warmer, it mixes all the particles which make the reaction to create heat. When there were 0 shakes, not many of the particles were mixed so the hand warmer didn t heat up as much as the other hand warmers. The hand warmer with 15 shakes got the hottest, it is because all of the particles in it got mixed and created more heat every shake. The hand warmers that only got 5 and 10 shakes still did better than the hand warmer that got no shakes because everything got mixed more than the hand warmer with no shakes.
How hot the Hand warers got (c) 50 45 40 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Freezer Refrigerator Room Temperature What the hand warmers are in Heat Figure 4 how the temperature that the hand warmers in affect how hot they get In this graph it shows that the hand warmers that were put in the oven got the hottest, and the hand warmer that was in the freezer warmed up the least. This happened because the hand warmer that got heated had a head start and it had warmed up faster because of that. The hand warmer that was in the freezer warmed up the least because it had gotten cold before it warmed up so it took longer for it to warm up. The hand warmer that was in the refrigerator warmed up a little more than the one that was in the freezer, because it was a higher temperature than the freezer. The hand warmers reacted mostly to what temperature they are in. They would warm up less when the temperature they were in was lower, and when it was higher it would warm up more.
How hot the hand warmer got (c) 40 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 5 10 15 20 How old the hand warmer is (yr) Figure 5 How the age of the hand warmer affects how hot it gets In this experiment you can see that the older the hand warmer is, the less heat it gives. There were four ages of hand warmers tested which were 1 year old, 5 years old, 15 years old, and 18 years old. The hand warmers temperature decreases a little every year because they get tossed around and a little bit of air can get inside of the package, which makes the hand warmer heat up. Once the hand warmer gets a little bit used, it can t heat up as much which makes the heat measure less. The hand warmers temperature decreases about one degree every year since it is made. The main results are that the older the hand warmer is, the less hot it gets. If you want a hot hand warmer than you should get new ones, if you want a little cooler temperature then use an old one. CONCLUSION The most important experiment done was when the hand warmers were put in different containers to see how they would warm up. The hand warmers were placed in a glove, a neoprene water bottle case, a paper envelope, and a plastic container. The Hypothesis was partially correct, it was thought that the Neoprene water bottle cover would heat the hand warmers the most because it is insulated, and also thought that the plastic container would do the worst because it is big and open. The results are important because if someone needed to warm
up a hand warmer a lot, then they could use a glove which worked the best. Some future experiments that could be done are if the size of the plastic container affects how warm the hand warmer gets, or an experiment with different materials and see if they affect how warm the hand warmer gets. CITATIONS Bateman, Graham. Introducing Matter, Energy, and heat. Heat. Tucson, AZ: Brown Bear Books, 2010. Print. Lewis, Peter and Ryles, Briony. Introducing Chemical Reactions. Chemical Reactions. Tucson, AZ: Brown Bear Books, 2010. Print. Luby, Kevin. How hand warmers are made. What s inside a hand warmer. Cruz Bay Publishing, Inc. 2014. Web. Jan 14, 2014. Lowry, Alexander. Heat. Encyclopedia Britannica. (2014) Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. Web. 13 January, 2014 Mathis, Lacey. The Study of warming hands using gloves. Cary Academy. 2013. Weather Wiz Kids. Temperature. What is temperature? Weather Wiz Kids. 2013. Web. Jan 14, 2014.