Wet chemistry Facts for Kids

Wet chemistry is a way of studying chemical reactions that happen in liquids. It's also called bench chemistry because many of these tests are done on a lab bench.

Tools for Wet Chemistry
A Look at History
What Wet Chemistry Is Used For
Images for kids
See also

Tools for Wet Chemistry

Wet chemistry uses common laboratory glassware, like beakers and flasks. It doesn't usually need fancy machines for detailed measurements. Many high school and college labs teach students these basic wet chemistry methods.

A Look at History

Before computers and advanced theories, wet chemistry was the main way scientists discovered new things in chemistry. That's why some people call it classic chemistry. Even today, with all our modern needs for checking quality, wet chemistry is still very important. Many of its methods have been made automatic and use computers for quicker results.

What Wet Chemistry Is Used For

Wet chemistry techniques can be used to see general chemical changes, like a change in color (colorimetry). But it's often used for more exact measurements, like finding out the weight of a substance (gravimetry) or how much of one substance is needed to react with another (titrimetry).

Some things wet chemistry can test for include:

pH (how acidic or basic something is)
concentration (how much of a substance is in a liquid)
conductivity (how well a liquid carries electricity)
cloud point (for certain cleaning chemicals)
hardness (like in water)
Solids or dissolved solids
salinity (how much salt is in water)
specific gravity (how dense a liquid is compared to water)
density (how much "stuff" is packed into a certain space)
turbidity (how cloudy a liquid is)
viscosity (how thick or runny a liquid is)
moisture (how much water is in something, using a method called Karl Fischer titration)