Drinking Candle : Cool Candle Science Experiment

Drinking Candle is a fun science experiment for kids to do at home. It is an awesome science experiment which shows how a burning candle drinks up all the water kept beneath it, but is the candle actually drinking the water? In order to explain the mystery of the drinking candle, you will have to do the experiment yourself to find out how atmospheric pressure behaves.

Safety First! Adult Supervision Required. Don’t Eat/Drink your Experiments, Wear safety goggles where ever required

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Materials and tools required.

In the box

1. Water
2. Food Color
3. Candles
4. Lighter
5. White Plate
6. Mixing Spoons
7. Tall Glass
8. Measuring Cylinder

Video on Youtube for the Experiment

What to Do ?

1. Pour 100 ml of water on a white plate and add few drops of green food color.
2. Take a candle and place it at the center of the plate.
3. Light the candle using a lighter and cover it with a transparent glass.
4. You can see as the flame goes off, the candle drinks up the water.
5. Now, try it out with two similar candles.
6. This time you can see even more water gets inside the glass, and water level rose higher.

Images for Instructions

Working Principle of Drinking Candle :

The drinking candle experiment visually shows us that atmospheric pressure exists and air exerts pressure from a high pressure area to a low pressure area.

The candle flame heats the air in the glass, and this hot air starts expanding. A fraction of expanding air also escapes out from beneath the glass (you can see some bubbles oozing out). Eventually, when the flame goes off, the air inside the glass cools down and the cooler air starts contracting. The cooling of air inside the glass creates a relatively low pressure area inside the glass than the area outside the glass.

So, this low pressure area is responsible for pulling in water inside the glass. This happens as air exerts pressure from a high pressure area to a low pressure area.

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