Wonderstuff; this morning
04 December 2013
Today saw the return of 'Wonderstuff' on ITV's This Morning but this wasn't going to be the ordinary show! Zoe (our creative director) along with the team (The Stuffettes) headed down to the south bank of the Thames armed with some wondrous metals for the Christmas special.
Zoe began the session by demonstrating some metal salts that give fireworks their colours. She sprayed the metals, suspended in a methonol solution, into the naked flame, which then turned the flame green (copper chloride), red (strontium chloride) and orange (sodium chloride). Take a look at Phillip's face: he was totally amazed by it.
The next 'magical' metal was shiny table tennis ball that has been coated in nanocrystalline nickel-iron, making it super strong! Zoe, Phillip and Holly were able to ballence all theri weight on it without it giving way despite it being hollow!
Finally it was the turn of the magical molten copper. Upon opening the kiln, and lifting out the glowing crucible, we found that the copper hadn't fully melted (unfortunately the copper didn't know it was going to be live on TV!). So to make sure we had a star for the This Morning Christmas tree, Zoe melted some pewter, which has a much lower melting point. Hey presto, we had a silver pewter star!
To watch the clip click here: http://www.itv.com/thismorning/home-garden/wonderstuff-dr-zoe-laughlin-magic-metal
