Balloon in Syringe Boyle's Law
Materials: ★★☆ Available in most school laboratories or specialist stores
Difficulty: ★☆☆ Can be easily done by most teenagers
Safety: ★☆☆ Minimal safety procedures required
Categories: Gases, Particles and States of Matter, Pressure and Fluids
Alternative titles: In and Out: Demonstrating Boyle’s Law
Summary
Using balloons inside a syringe, this experiment shows how gases expand when pressure decreases and contract when pressure increases, illustrating Boyle’s law.
Procedure
- Fill one small balloon with air, keeping it small enough to fit inside a syringe, then tie it off.
- Fill another balloon with water to match the size of the air-filled balloon and tie it off.
- Place the air-filled balloon into the syringe and insert the plunger.
- With the syringe tip open, push the plunger and observe how air escapes.
- Seal the syringe tip with a finger and push the plunger again, noting how the balloon contracts as pressure increases.
- Pull the plunger back with the tip sealed and observe the balloon expanding as pressure decreases.
- Repeat the procedure with the water-filled balloon to show that liquids do not compress like gases.
- Optionally, add water inside the syringe with the air-filled balloon to see how liquid limits the plunger’s movement while still affecting the air volume.
Links
Boyle's Law Experiment - Balloon Test - Science Projects for Kids - MocomiKids:
Fun with Boyle's Law | English | Air Water Compression - Arvind Gupta:
📄 In and Out: Demonstrating Boyle’s Law - Science Buddies: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-and-out-demonstrating-boyles-law/
Variations
- Compare balloons filled with different gases (air vs. carbon dioxide from a soda).
- Try different syringe sizes to see how compression changes.
- Use warm and cold balloons to investigate whether temperature affects expansion and contraction.
Safety Precautions
- Be careful when using scissors to cut balloons.
- Ensure the syringe has no sharp needle attached.
- Do not overfill balloons, as they may burst when compressed.
Questions to Consider
- What happens to the air-filled balloon when you push the plunger with the tip sealed? (It contracts because pressure increases, reducing volume.)
- What happens when you pull the plunger back with the tip sealed? (It expands because pressure decreases, increasing volume.)
- Why does the water-filled balloon not change shape? (Liquids are nearly incompressible, unlike gases.)
- How does this demonstration connect to how we breathe? (Expanding the chest cavity lowers pressure, drawing air in; contracting raises pressure, pushing air out.)