What cleans a penny best science project?
Sarah Garza
Updated on April 09, 2026
Create a solution of vinegar and salt using one teaspoon of salt and 1/4 of a cup of vinegar. Mix until the salt is dissolved (it helps if the vinegar is a little warm). Add the pennies. Wait about 5 minutes, then remove the pennies from the solution.
Which substance best cleans the penny?
As you found out when you cleaned your pennies, your mixture of salt and vinegar is really good at dissolving metals and metal oxides. When you put the steel nail in the mixture, some of the iron dissolves. Like the copper atoms, each of the iron atoms that dissolves leaves two electrons behind.
Does water or vinegar clean a penny better?
You can see the surface of the pennies change and become shinier. You can then rinse them with running water and set them on a towel to dry. Vinegar and lemon juice both work really well for cleaning pennies.
What is the best way to clean a coin without damaging it?
Follow These Steps:
- In a jar, combine one cup vinegar (or lemon juice) and 1 tablespoon salt.
- Pour the solution into the plastic container.
- Add the coins in a single layer, so none of the coins are touching.
- When you remove the coins and wipe them with a cloth or paper towel, they should look shiny.
Will lemon juice or Coke clean a penny better?
Coke and off-brand colas will quickly remove the tarnish. Just don’t drink the coke afterward. Coke contains phosphoric acid that cleans the oxides. Try a variety of citrus juices to see which works best or simply let your pennies soak in lemon juice.
What kind of juice or liquid cleans pennies best?
You can “clean” a penny a little bit and very slowly with lemon juice or vinegar (mild acids), but put a dash of salt in the lemon juice and the penny will turn orange with a quick rub. People say that ketchup and taco sauce are good cleaners for pennies, but read the ingredients: “Tomatoes, Vinegar, Salt. . .
Which is better to clean a penny hot or cold?
Suppose your hypothesis is that hot lemon juice will clean a penny better than cold lemon juice. So you put one penny in cold lemon juice for 30 seconds and you drop one penny into boiling lemon juice, intending to leave it for 30 seconds. You want to retrieve your penny from the boiling juice but your mom yells “Whoa, you may burn yourself!
What’s the best way to remove oxide from pennies?
Your Materials For This Science Experiment & Steps Combined. 1. Ketchup Soak your pennies in ketchup to clean them like new. Well, after you wash the ketchup off, that is. The salt and acetic acid in vinegar do the trick. 2. Hot Sauce Hot sauce, like Tabasco or taco sauce, also will remove the oxides off pennies.
What’s the best way to clean copper pennies?
If you would like to add a little bit more shine to your pennies, follow up with the Bon Ami Cleanser or baking soda method described below. This method will restore the bright orange copper color to your pennies. However, it will not give them a mirror-like shine.