How To Make Slime With Glue And Water Without Borax

When you think about slime, you probably think of the toxic waste from comic books or movies, an electric green liquid oozing from barrels dumped somewhere. But what if you could make slime at home, Don't worry, we won't make a toxic version that might turn your pet turtle into a monster, but rather a fun version you can add glitter and food coloring to. Before you start, consider why adding starch to glue would create slime. What is going on between the molecules in the substances we start with, 1. First, combine the glue and water in a bowl.

Mix until they are homogeneous. 2. Next, add any food coloring or glitter you'd like to your slime. 3. Then, add your liquid starch. Continue to mix with the spoon until it reaches a thick consistency you can hold. If your slime is too runny, add some more liquid starch. If it is too thick, you can add more water to the glue to thin it out. What happened when you added the liquid starch, Why do you think the starch was the key ingredient to solidify the glue into slime, How did it change the glue molecules, Liquid glue is a polymer, or a long molecule made of repeating units of a single molecule called a monomer.

There are both natural and synthetic polymers. For example, wool is a natural polymer while all plastics are synthetic polymers. The craft glue we use is called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and is made up of repeating molecules of vinyl alcohol. We can compare polymers to LEGO toys. Let's imagine you had 100 red LEGO bricks. The individual LEGO bricks are your monomers. If you link all the bricks together in a chain, you have a polymer. To learn more about polymers, check out this lesson: What Are Polymers, Glue is a liquid polymer, meaning the long PVA chains aren't linked together.

There are thousands of individual chains in the glue mixed with water molecules, but they don't stick together. The water allows the PVA chains to slide past each other, which makes the glue a sticky liquid. No obligation, cancel anytime. Starch is also a polymer, made of repeating units of a sugar called glucose. When the starch chains interact with the PVA chains, they stick together, slowing down the movement of the PVA polymers. The starch chains weave in and out of the PVA chains, the way strands of wicker are woven together to make a basket. The basket still stretches when pulled, but it ultimately comes back to the same shape. This is how the starch and PVA chains come together to make slime. If you're interested in the chemistry and other uses of starch, you can read more in this lesson: What Is Starch,



The more starch you add, the more weaving will happen between the polymers, and the stiffer the slime will be. When you add less starch, there is less weaving and the slime will be more runny. You can experiment by adding more or less starch to see how it affects the consistency of your slime. Borax is another agent used to create slime with glue. The borax, however, acts as a crosslinking agent. It binds to multiple PVA chains, holding them in place together. This creates the same effect as the starch but does so due to a different type of chemical reaction. The starch does not actually bind to the PVA chains, but rather winds around them, creating a similar effect.