Flame Test Lab
Every metal ion glows its own color. Heat the salt, read the light, name the metal.
1The Burner
3Mystery Samples
Three unlabeled vials, picked at random. Burn each one, look at the color, then name the salt.
4Flame Test Data
| Salt | Formula | Metal ion | Flame color observed | Main emission | Tested? |
|---|
The last three columns stay blank until you burn that salt — fill the table in as you go. Every salt on this tray is a chloride. The chloride ion (Cl−) never changes the color — so any color difference has to come from the metal cation. That is the whole idea behind a flame test.
5How to use this simulation
- Look at the clean flame first. With no salt on the spoon the burner burns pale blue — that is your control. Nothing is glowing yet.
- Click any salt in the Salt Tray. The chemist scoops it up, lowers the spoon into the flame, and the crystals fall into the heat.
- Watch the flame change color and read the white box on the picture. It names the color you are seeing and the metal ion that is making it.
- Check the rainbow bar in the Now Burning panel. The black marker slides to the exact color of light that metal gives off, so you can see where it sits in the rainbow.
- Turn on "Hold the color" if you want the flame to stay colored while you write down your observation. Turn it off and the flame cools back to blue on its own.
- Fill in the data table. Each salt you burn gets a green check in the "Tested?" column, so you can see which ones you still owe.
- Finish with the Mystery Samples. Burn A, B, and C, pick a name for each from the dropdown, and press Check. Press New mystery set for a fresh round.
6Why the flame changes color
Every atom has electrons moving around it. Picture those electrons sitting on a set of steps. An electron can sit on a low step or a high step — but never in between.
Heat from the burner gives an electron enough energy to jump up to a higher step. It cannot stay up there. When it drops back down, it has to get rid of the extra energy, so it lets the energy go as a tiny flash of light.
Small drop → less energy → orange and red light
Here is the useful part. Every metal has its steps in different places, so every metal gives off its own colors. Copper's steps make green light. Sodium's make yellow. Lithium's make red. The color works like a fingerprint — see the color, name the metal.
Two things to watch for. Sodium's yellow is very strong, so even a speck of it can hide every other color — that is why real labs clean the wire loop between samples. And lithium and strontium both look red, so they are easy to mix up.
The colors in this simulation match what your eyes would see in a real flame test. In high school you will write the light's energy as E = h f, but the idea is the same: bigger drop, bluer light.