You can learn a lot from eggs.
The versatile, dubiously delicious depending on who you ask, humble chicken egg.
You can unlock the secrets of the universe with these lil guys, or at least a couple
of them as they pertain to some DIY chemistry.
Alright.
It’s time to make some chickens really nervous.
First off.
You can ‘’’’cook’’’’ an egg by dumping it in alcohol.
Well, it’s not actually cooking, but the molecular process is pretty similar.
Before we get to that, we here at Reactions care about your safety, so let me take a moment
to remind you of the first rule of chemistry: Do Not Lick the Science.
Okay?
Got it?
Great.
Back to the eggs.
All you have to do is crack an egg into some sort of alcohol and walk away for a bit.
We used 91% rubbing alcohol [isopropanol].
The stronger the alcohol, the faster this will go, but it still took us about an hour
to get to this point.
How’s it work?
Egg white is made of mainly protein and water.
[on screen: albumin] Proteins are made of long chains of amino acids.
Those chains fold up in a very specific way to give the protein both its shape and its
function.
It’s a little like origami: every fold has it’s purpose.
The folds in an amino acid chain are held together by a variety of chemical interactions,
many are hydrogen bonds.
These are weak chemical bonds that can be easily broken by heat or other things, like
alcohol or acid.
When the hydrogen bonds are broken, the amino acid chain can unravel.
The egg white turns, uh, white, as the proteins unravel and stick to one another.
this chemical change takes place throughout.
Congratulations!
You have successfully used alcohol to denature your albumin.
Remember what I said about licking the science!
Rubbing alcohol is poisonous.
Do not eat this egg.
How about making an egg bounce like a basketball?
For that you’ll need a fresh egg and some vinegar.
Pour vinegar over your egg until it’s covered.
After just a few minutes, you’ll start to see bubbles forming all over its surface.
You can cover it for the smell and leave it for about 24 hours.
Pull it out, give it a rinse, and...
To see why this works, let’s check out a regular ol’ eggshell.
The outside is a shell made of calcium carbonate.
The calcium carbonate reacts with vinegar, or acetic acid, to produce calcium acetate,
which dissolves away, along with water and carbon dioxide.
The carbon dioxide is what’s making those bubbles.
But with the hard shell gone, there’s still something keeping the egg together.
It’s a sturdy membrane that provides another line of defense for the chick.
It’s flexible...and bouncy.
And because it doesn’t let in any vinegar in, the albumin is safe from denaturing, leaving
the egg completely raw.
Hey!
there’s still no licking allowed.
Finally, maybe you want to make green eggs, because you’re a huge fan of Dr Seuss, or
the color green, or learning about acid-base chemistry in your kitchen.
Oh, boy, have we got you covered.
For this one, you’re gonna need some red cabbage from the grocery store.
Chop that cabbage up, cover it with some water, and cook it for a while either in the microwave
or on the stove.
Strain out the cabbage and keep the water, which should be nice and purple.
Separate the egg white from the yolk and set the yolk aside.
Whisk some of your cabbage extract into the egg white and…..
BOOM It turned green!
The pigment that gives red cabbage and lots of other plants its color is called anthocyanin
[an-tho-SIGH-an-in], and it actually changes color depending on the pH of its surroundings.
That’s right--you just made a pH indicator in your kitchen.
Egg white is slightly basic, and the higher pH turns the indicator green.
Splash that bad boy into a pan and replace the egg yolk to fry up your green egg.
And remember, do not lick the--Actually, this one’s edible.
But it tastes like cabbage, so maybe this one is just about aesthetic.
Do you know of any other chemistry principles can you learn from eggs?
Would you like us to mangle even more of them in the name of science?
Let us know in the comments, and hit thumbs up and subscribe while you’re at it.
Until next time, kitchen scientists!