Today I did a quick & simple demo of the activity series of metals. I had a solution of copper chloride. Metals that are more active than the copper ions in solution (such as aluminum) react, displacing the copper ions in solution. Metals that are less active than the copper ions (such as gold) do not react.
I poured the blue CuCl2 solution into two beakers. Into the first one, I dropped a piece of aluminum foil. The aluminum dissolved impressively in front of their eyes, smoldering, fizzing, and heating up the beaker enough to create small clouds of water vapor (which many people mistakenly refer to as steam) coming out the top. After about a minute, the aluminum was completely gone, there was a pile of copper metal at the bottom of the beaker, and the solution had turned from blue (copper chloride) to clear (aluminum chloride).
After the fizzing and sizzling was finished, I took off my gold wedding ring and dropped it into the other beaker of copper chloride…
