(2214) Hi Ho Silver
Madison Hynes
St. Paul's Norwood

Abstract


My project is about removing silver tarnish. Silver tarnish is silver sulphide. It turns from yellow to dark brown to black. It is caused by anything containing sulphides that comes in contact with silver. This could be wool, rubber, onions, eggs, oily hands, hairspray or cosmetics. The procedure I used said to remove tarnish from silver you need to use salt, baking soda, aluminum foil and boiling water. My problem was I wanted to find out if you could remove the tarnish without one of the above items, as well as did it matter if you used the shiny or dull side of the aluminum foil. My hypothesis was that the shiny side of the foil would work better than the dull side and that the baking soda would still work without the salt.

My results were that the dull side of the aluminum foil worked better that the shiny side, and that if you left out any of the items salt, soda, or heat, although the silver spoons looked cleaner, the black tarnish did not lift off. I concluded that you really do need all the ingredients to clean your silver well. The salt and baking soda need to react together to remove the tarnish. You need the heat and aluminum foil to make an electrical current to lift the tarnish off the silver.

If you want to avoid tarnish on your silver: 1. for jewellery put in on clean skin only and take it off as soon as possible 2. For silverwear wash as soon as possible after being in contact with oily hands or foods containing sulphides.