Oozing Goo - The Lava Lamp Syndicate

I just read about adding alcohol to the liquid? I'm not really understanding what it does besides weigh the water down. Anyone try this or understand what alcohol is supposed to do?

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You answered your own question :)

Lava lamps work like this - liquid heavy, wax light (when heated). Heat rises, falls when cool. If the liquid it's suppose to do this in is too heavy, the wax will not rise. They cancel each other out.

If alcohol is suppose to make the water heavier, that means the wax should be lighter. It's all a balancing act.
So, why do we only hear about adding the salt rather than adding the alcohol and why would you add both? I tried it and I think it clouded the water, plus I'm adding just as much salt as I did without the alcohol. I won't try this again. I'm probably just going to start all over. How about glycerin. Any thoughts on adding glycerin to the water? I'm guessing it's a surfectant? Not sure, I've tried adding it and I can't tell that it does anything.
Well, if you read on my profile will know that I had a bad luck with my recent purchased lava lamp. It arrived to me with the clear liquid clouded. Even with the seller offering to return my money I decide stay with the lamp to make some experiments with it. By first I opened the bottle and stored the liquid. So I put tap water to see what will happen and when the lamp became hot nearly all the ooze stay at the top in the most part of the time. Only when the ooze cools it falls to the bottom on the form of giant bubble. The conclusion was: when the ooze was melted, its density is too less that the density of the water. By this way I decide measure the density of the clouded liquid and according to the densimeter I used, it was slightly less than the density of the water. So I think: perhaps I can repair the lamp adding one substance to the water to decrease its density. I decide add some ethylic alcohol to see what would happen. At first it seemed to be the solution because on the first additions the lava was not accumulating too much on the top but the bubbles was somewhat big. Unfortunately the idea proved to be not good: the water with alcohol became slightly colored and the color of the ooze changed, it was blue and now is red-pink. Also some alcohol mixed with the ooze when it was melted reducing its specific mass. As result the ooze started to accumulate at the top again. The conclusion: add alcohol to the clear liquid of the Chinese lamps is not a good idea. If you want reduce the density of the water of these lamps we need found one substance with the density less than the density of the water that can be mixed to it and don’t contaminate the ooze.
I honestly am not sure. I have tried several times to revive a lamp and in doing so, it only ended up in failure. I gave up doing that. About the only thing I do is top off lamps with the same year liquid. That's about it. Since I no longer purchase china lamps, I have no need to filter the liquid anymore either. I stick with 32oz or 52oz USA lamps.
Thanks for your advice-I think I will stick to adding salt water. Epsom salt seems to be the best, and it doesn't cloud the water. Alcohol was a bad idea! I think it made my goo bleed into the water as well. Good luck with your lamp!
If you don’t know how the specific mass of the ooze inside your lava lamp are is not a good idea add salt to the clear liquid. The addition of salt to water makes it denser and the ooze can accumulate at the top of the lamp. Do you remember the experience made with a boiled egg inside a bowl filled with water? Without salt the egg stays at the bottom and as you add salt it starts to float until you add too salt that the egg remains at the surface of the brine!!!
As I told to you, I’m wanting maker my own lava lamp using the perc/wax mix recipe that you can found at the oozing goo. This recipe really works and you can see a video at you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAJG8jh2SJA

where some students make the lava lamp. According them, they spent a whole week until get the right balance between the densities of the water and the ooze. I want make my life easy so I will provide a densimeter to measure the density of the ooze and the brine. This densimeter I found on the web and was at first published in a serious brazilian physics magazine and I translated the article to English intending share it. If you wish receive the text, please just ask it to me.

Kindest regards,

João Roberto Gabbardo

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