How To: Make Pancake Syrup Turn Blue When You Shake It with This Color Changing Experiment

In this video, I will show you how to perform the color-changing, blue bottle experiment with common household products.

What You Need:

• Methylene blue (commonly sold as a fish treatment for fungal infections)
• Sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner)
• Your favorite table syrup (must contain high-fructose corn syrup)

How It Works:

In this experiment, the solution is made of glucose and fructose from syrup, both reducing agents, along with methylene blue and sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner).

When you shake the bottle, oxygen in the bottle oxidizes methylene blue, and that causes the solution to turn blue. The glucose and fructose in the bottle will slowly reduce the methylene blue to its colorless, reduced form.

This is a classical example of how redox reactions occur.