Mengjia Zhu

Mengjia Zhu, Vladislav Voziyanov, Stella Lisova

Different materials, such as silk or polyester or cotton, absorb liquids at a variety of different rates while some materials do not absorb any liquid at all. Knowing the different absorption rates might be useful if you have to wade through a liquid or perhaps have to stand in said liquid for a prolonged period of time and want to know just how long it would take for the liquid to soak through to your skin. Of course this assumes that you are not wearing specifically treated clothing that prevents absorption and instead you find yourself in that particular situation while wearing your regular clothing. Another use for this information would be if you were working with any liquid that could stain the skin without any protective clothing and you wanted to know how long you had to take off the affected clothing.Since we want to know how long after exposure to the liquid will a certain piece of clothing be completely soaked through, it is important to know just how well or how poor certain commonly used clothing materials will absorb the liquid; therefore, we will measure how far the liquid will go (distance) on a strip of cloth of a particular material after a set amount of time. For this experiment, we will be testing a total of three factors.a. The first factor that we will be testing will be the type of cloth that will absorb the liquid. We will be using two different commonly used cloths, 100% cotton and 100% polyester. We chose to vary this factor because we are looking at the absorption rates of different materials and the materials were chosen based on how common they were in everyday clothing.b. The second factor that we will be testing will be the temperature of the liquid which the cloth will be absorbing. We will be using two different temperatures, cold and hot. The cold temperature will be held at 5 ˚C and the hot temperature will be held at 85 ˚C. We chose to vary this factor because the temperature of the liquid affects how well it is absorbed. The temperatures were chosen because they are the extremes of temperatures that are usually encountered in everyday life; the liquid being from the fridge for the cold temperature and a cup of coffee for the hot temperature.c. The third factor that we will be testing will be the type of liquid that the cloth will be immersed in. We will be testing two different liquids, water and isopropyl alcohol. We chose to vary this factor because those two types of liquids are what will be commonly found around the laboratory.