Chromatography Butterfly 

Ingredients

• 1 coffee filter

• 1 pipe cleaner  

• 1 spray bottle

• 1 piece of paper towel

• Water

• Washable markers

Instructions

• Fill your spray bottle with water

• Place your coffee filter on the piece of paper towel

• Draw any design you want on your coffee filter (the more colour the better)

• Spray the filter until the colour starts to run

• Let the filter dry

• Pinch it in the middle and tie the pipe cleaner around it

• Pull up the two sides of the pipe cleaner and curl them to look like butterfly antennas 

• Enjoy!

What’s Happening? 

The ink in markers is often made of several colourful chemicals. When the water soaks into the filter, it dissolves and carries some of the ink molecules with it. The bigger, heavier molecules in the ink don't move as far as the smaller, lighter ones. They move with the water at different speeds and settle in different places as the water travels upwards. This leads to the fun tie dye style art we see on our finished butterfly.