Awards Earned: 1st Place, 8th Physical Science, PCA Science Fair 2nd Place, 8th Physical Science, ACSI Science Fair

What substance absorbs motor oil the best?

I think cat litter will absorb motor oil the most because my dad uses cat litter to absorb oil.

Cat litter, sand, powdered limestone, saw dust, corn starch and flour.

The control group is a coffee filter alone without any absorbent.

Motor oil, cat litter sand, limestone, flour, saw dust, corn starch, metal pan, coffee filter, and gram scale.

1. Fill a coffee filter with 100 grams of cat litter.
2. Weigh the cat litter with the coffee filter on the gram scale.
3. Dump 50 ml of motor oil through the coffee filter with 100 grams of cat litter. Excess oil not absorbed by the cat litter will drain into a metal pan.
4. Let the coffee filter with the cat litter in it drip for 1 minute.
5. Weigh the cat litter with the coffee filter on the gram scale.
6. Repeat with the sand, limestone, saw dust, corn starch, and flour.
7. Weigh a coffee filter by itself.
8. Pour 50 milliliters of oil through the coffee filter.
9. Weigh the coffee filter with the oil in it and then subtract it from the weight of the coffee filter with the absorbent for each test.
10. Compare the amount of oil held by each absorbent.

Pine saw dust absorbed the most oil. Cat litter came in second place.

I predicted that cat litter would absorb the most oil, but pine saw dust absorbed the most amount of oil which made mny hypothesis incorrect. Although cat litter did come in a close second. I think saw dust absorbed the most oil because saw dust comes from trees. The cells in the wood absorb liquids.

Genesis 1:26 says “And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

In my science project I found the best way to clean up oil spills. In the Bible God says that we need to take care of the earth because He put man in charge over the earth. We need to take care of the earth by cleaning up the oil we spill so that it does not seep into the ground or water and contaminate it.

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