the chemistry of slime
Click to view full graphic on the C&EN site

The slime-making craze is sweeping school and homes worldwide, and shows no signs of stopping. This edition of Periodic Graphics in Chemical & Engineering News looks at the ingredients and the science behind slime’s gooey properties. You can view the full graphic on the C&EN site here.

The process of creating this graphic also threw up some interesting misconceptions about slime chemistry. The original version of the graphic showed incorrect depictions of the structure for sodium tetraborate and the crosslinking between polymer chains. These incorrect depictions are widespread in chemical databases and academic papers on slime. Thanks to several boron chemists, we were able to provide the correct structures; C&EN have also put together an interesting account of the widespread nature of these errors which is well worth a read.

 

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