Alchemy Demo

There were a couple of things that I noticed during the alchemy lab during IPC class. The objective was to see how a penny could be colored gold, silver, and other things besides the usual copper through science. In the beginning, our teacher dropped the penny into a mysterious and unknown (to us) boiling liquid. The penny stayed there for about a minute, then we took it out. The penny was silver! What I noticed during the time that we waited was that the pennies were bubbling inside the flask. Some sort of chemical reaction was taking place that, in my opinion, added another layer onto of the penny. Some material in that mixture was eating away at the rust coat of the penny, and replacing it with another coat of silver. I have a feeling that the coin was thinner after it was placed in the bubbling liquid than before. Once we had examined it, we took the penny and held it over a flame with a pair of tongs. After a few seconds, we noticed that the color started to change. The penny caught on fire, and we dunked it in some plain water. When we removed it from the water, instead of silver, the penny was plain gold! I think this happened because we burned it a different color. Overall, I observed that the materials in a regular copper penny change when they've undergone a chemical reaction. Somehow the penny changes its color, and soon we will find out exactly how.