Great Grease Experiment

By: Kelci & Samantha

Our topic was all about what cleans grease off of ceramic tiles best. We chose this topic because both of us were interested in our topic. We wanted to find a cleaner that was environmentally friendly.

Our question was: Which cleaner out of our own cleaner, Orange Cleaner, Windex, and Pine-Sol worked the best against bacon grease on ceramic tiles.

When looking for background research we found one article on the KIC web site by a boy named Brandon about our topic. He gave good information and a variety of recipes. We also found information on www.savethebay.cbf.org. Recipes for Alternatives to Toxic Household Products were listed.

This is how our experiment was done. First, we got bacon grease. Second, we put ¼ teaspoon of grease on a tile. Third, we dipped the dirty tile into a container full of the independent variable. We took it out after 5 seconds. After that we scraped off the grease that was left and put it into a cup. We repeated these few steps for each independent variable. Then we put the cup with the grease for 1 independent variable on the scale. We saw how much each independent variable weighed. We recorded the results on a chart. Then we melted each cup with grease in it in the microwave. We poured the liquid into a graduated cylinder and measured it. We wrote down the results. Then we cleaned out all the glasses and weighed them. Some of the glasses weighed different amounts than others. We subtracted the weight of the clean glass from the weight of the glass with the grease in it and that showed how much the grease weighed.

We learned that our own cleaner cleaned the most grease off of the ceramic tiles.

After we were done the experiment we then thought that the best way to see how much the cleaner cleaned the grease off the tiles was to measure the weight of the grease in the glass because the other way did not get all the grease out of the glass so our results were not accurate.

Here are some suggestions we would like to make for a more accurate experiment:

• Don’t scrape off the grease into a glass, rather measure it directly on the tile and then measure the clean tile and find the difference in weight. This way you won’t lose grease on the scraper.
• Weigh the grease before you put it on the tiles.

If you try this experiment, we suggest to try using different cleaners than we did. Try making your own environmentally friendly solution.

The Winning Recipe

The recipe for our own cleaner is ½ cup of Borax, 4 cuts hot water, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Stir until powder is dissolved.