Invisible ink - The best way masking important text. Some still remember how, during the Soviet Union, Lenin managed to convey important statements from prison to his comrades, on the pages of an ordinary fiction book. Do invisible ink- as simple as shelling pears, let's start creating!
How to make invisible ink with your own hands?
So, let’s prepare the things we need:
Milk or lemon juice;
Bread, black;
Fountain pen (or paint brush);
1. We will use black bread to make an inkwell. We take a piece of bread and cut out a small container from it, about 50 milliliters.
If you don’t want to use bread, you can use any other container. Bread is used to give this process a historical character, and to completely immerse yourself in that atmosphere.
2. Pour milk into the finished inkwell.
The ink is ready!
How to use invisible ink?
We take a sheet of paper, dip a pen in ink and write on a sheet of paper. Soon the milk will dry and the paper will turn white again. For convenience, you can pour the liquid into a syringe.
How to read invisible text?
Instead of milk, you can use lemon juice, the effect will be the same.
How to make invisible ink from potatoes?
This time, we will use completely different ingredients, we need:
Potatoes, 1 pc.;
And, of course, a sheet of paper, a feather and a candle.
Let's get started!
1. Take a potato and cut out an inkwell from it. We don't throw away the leftovers!
2. We grate the trimmings and place them in cheesecloth. Then squeeze all the juice into our inkwell.
Probably not in the kitchen anymore, but on paper. Let's do it DIY invisible ink.
It's great to use developing liquids for secret drawings, treasure maps, secret letters.
The first method is perhaps the most famous.
Invisible ink made from milk
Vlad was unable to write a letter with a brush; for now he can only manage it with a pen or pencil. I received this message one morning 
Therefore, they painted a landscape with milk, dipping a brush into it. After drying, we ironed it and the writing became visible.
This happened because the protein contained in milk burns at a much lower temperature than paper. Therefore, when heated, the paper remains white, but the milk already darkens.
Invisible ink made from lemon juice
Another way of chemically classifying messages iswrite lemon juice. After drying, wipe with cotton wool and iodine. In place of the letters there will be bright spots. This is what they recommend in the book, but in practice it was hard to see. The result is a drawing - Africans in night Africa)))
This is a dad with his son and a truck on a string. We were not at all upset when we saw this result. Our grandmother had a lot of fun with her creation. And then Vladik and his grandmother drew a joint masterpiece.
Grandpa turned out to be very similar! By the way, I read that felt-tip pens are also indicators and react differently to acids and alkalis. But during our experiment, the stains from the felt-tip pens blurred equally, whether from a solution of soda or from vinegar.
But the Chinese emperor Qing Shi Huangdi (249-206 BC), during whose reign the Great Chinese Wall, used thick congee, which, after the written hieroglyphs dry, leaves no visible traces. If such a letter is slightly moistened with weak alcohol solution iodine, then blue letters appear. And the emperor used a brown decoction of seaweed, apparently containing iodine, to develop writing.
And what creative continuation of the experiments would you offer your child? Share your ideas in the comments and send photos of experiments and experiments from your home laboratory. Thank you for reading our notes and sharing them on in social networks. We're committed to making science fun for you.
Happy experimenting! Science is fun!
With your friends, you will probably be interested in how to make invisible ink. There are several ways to write a secret message at home. All the methods presented below are absolutely safe and can be freely used in children's games about spies and intelligence officers.
The simplest recipe
You may have already come across a mention in adventure books or children's detective stories that ordinary lemon juice can be used as a secret substance for spy messages. Incredible but true: in order to own experience to figure out how to make invisible ink, it is not at all necessary to own specific tools or technical skills complex equipment. To conduct a fascinating experiment, you will need materials and items that can be found in any household, namely:
- half a lemon;
- water;
- spoon;
- Bowl;
- cotton swab;
- White paper;
- lamp.
Lemon magic
Once you have collected all the necessary items, you can begin your first experiment. Subsequently, you will be able to proudly show your friends how to make invisible ink at home without any preliminary preparation. So:
- Squeeze some into a bowl and add a few drops of plain water.
- Mix juice and water using a spoon.
- Dip a cotton swab into the mixture and write your message on white paper.
- Wait until the juice dries and becomes completely invisible.
- When you are ready to read or show your secret message, heat the paper, holding it close to the light bulb.
How it works
Lemon juice is organic matter, which oxidizes and acquires Brown color when heated. The juice is diluted with water so that when the resulting mixture is applied to paper, the letters and symbols practically disappear from the surface. No one will even guess that there is something written on the piece of paper until you heat up the message. Other substances work on the same principle - for example, orange juice, honey, milk, onion juice, vinegar and wine. If you're interested in other ways to make invisible ink at home, try doing chemical experiments or looking at spy liquids under ultraviolet light.
Experiments with soda
Fast chemical experiment can be organized in just a few minutes if you have regular baking soda on hand. Moreover, science knows at least two ways to make invisible ink from this inexpensive powder. Try this:
- Mix baking soda and water in equal proportions.
- Using a Q-tip, toothpick or paint brush, write a message on white paper using the solution baking soda as ink.
- Wait for the lettering to dry.
- The first way to read a secret message is to heat the paper - for example, under a light bulb, as is the case with lemon juice. The lines will turn brown.
- The second method is much more interesting. To bring it to life, paint over the entire paper with black grape juice. The message will appear in letters of a contrasting color.
Hints
If you have already figured out how to make invisible ink, pay attention:
- If you prefer heat to develop your message, be careful not to ignite the paper - do not use halogen light bulbs.
- Baking soda and grape juice react with each other in an acid-base reaction, producing changes in the color of words and letters.
- The solution can be made weaker by adding one part baking soda to two parts water. This will not affect the final effect.
- If you want to make the color change more vibrant and obvious, use grape concentrate instead of regular juice.
other methods
Those who are interested in how to make invisible ink will surely like the idea of using a variety of different substances as the main material for secret correspondence. Indeed: many substances are suitable for spy and intelligence correspondence, but secret agents need to remember which reagents are used to manifest each of them. If you've forgotten the perfect reagent, don't despair: most of the substances listed below can be developed using acid. So, just paint the secret paper with lemon juice. Some messages appear when heated, so if you already know how to make invisible ink and write magic letters with it, keep a heat source with you.
Ideal for experimenting with secret correspondence:
- phenolphthalein (demonstrated by soda);
- vinegar or diluted acetic acid (you can see the message by dipping it in a decoction of red cabbage);
- table salt (silver nitrate is enough for development);
- (you will need sodium iodide or;
- ferrous sulfate (manifested by soda);
- corn or potato starch(To read, you need an iodine solution).
Now you know a lot about how to make invisible ink - you can go exploring!
Invisible ink is a collective name for compounds that, once applied to paper, are invisible to the naked eye and appear after treatment with reagents or changes in temperature. Similar writing instruments were used in diplomatic correspondence and intelligence.
Below are simple recipes, available to all novice spies and conspirators. The necessary ingredients can be found in every kitchen, found in any chemical kit, or purchased at the nearest pharmacy.
Read also:
Invisible ink recipes
So, what can we do with our own hands at home? And a lot of things!
Cow material
Pour some milk into a glass. We write the secret message with a thin brush or a cotton swab; in extreme cases, a toothpick, a feather, or an ordinary sliver will do.
Having entrusted information to a piece of paper, it should dry thoroughly, preferably without resorting to direct sunlight: Ultraviolet light is harmful to spy secrets. After making sure that the milk is dry and invisible on the paper sheet, you can send it to your accomplice.
You can make text visible by heating the paper. In our hasty times, this is usually done using an iron.
Sometimes a secret document is put in the oven, heated near a light bulb, and if the message is not so urgent, it can be placed on warm battery. True fans of spy traditions use a candle flame and nothing more.
"Juicy" ink
After cutting the lemon, squeeze the juice into a cup, add a few drops of water, and stir. In a similar way we can use fresh apple: having grated the fruit on a fine grater, squeeze out the juice we need. If you don't have an apple, you can take an onion.
You will have to experiment a little with the ratio of juice and water: if the concentration of acid in the composition is too high, the fresh inscription will stand out against the background of the paper and will no longer be secret, otherwise the developed text will turn out unclear.
The time spent is repaid by the ease of use of the resulting solution: if you are too lazy to fiddle with brushes and sticks, you can pour it into a fountain pen. After writing, dry. Develop by heating the paper.
Rice to work!
The ancient Chinese once again confirmed their status as the wisest people on the planet by combining the exciting and therefore energy-consuming process of writing a secret message with cooking.
Thick rice porridge Cooked in such a way that some of the liquid remained on the surface without being absorbed into the rice. Dipping a brush into this liquid, they wrote a message. After completing the work, the narrow-eyed spy wiped the sweat from his forehead, left the paper to dry and, after offering a short prayer to Buddha, began to eat.
The “delicious” recipe for invisible ink did not remain a Chinese monopoly for long; it was soon borrowed by scouts from the islands lying in the east.
So the young spy, devouring another portion of porridge left after a secret writing session to the delight of his mother, can rightfully consider himself a successor to the ninja traditions.
In ancient times, the “rice” inscription was developed by heating the paper. But the white-faced devils came up with an innovation here too: they began to cover the leaf with iodine. The text now appears more clearly.
Time-honored invisible ink recipes are listed. Let's move on to more modern methods in the style of James Bond.
Other recipes
There are other options for making ink. We have a dime a dozen craftsmen!
From... soda
Mix water and soda in equal proportions. We apply the text to paper and dry it in the shade. It is curious that the usual heating for developing text will not help, you should resort to help grape juice. By applying the juice with a brush over the entire surface of the leaf, we can read the message.
Starch
Add one part water to two parts, stirring, heat the resulting mixture over low heat, let it cool. Apply the text with a toothpick, match, or any wooden stick.
For manifestation cover the paper with iodine. The leaf will become tender purple shade. The inscription will be dark purple.
Vitriol
Add a couple of pinches of copper sulfate to a glass of water, stir thoroughly until the crystals are completely dissolved. Apply the inscription with a brush, a cotton swab or a fountain pen filled with a solution. Dry in the shade. For manifestation hold the leaf for some time over the container with ammonia , under the influence of the vapors of which the text will turn blue-green.
Instead of washing
Dilute regular bleach with water washing powder, make an inscription, dry it in the shade. The text can only be seen with an ultraviolet flashlight.
We use aspirin
Dissolve in water a regular aspirin tablet, and invisible ink is ready. We apply the text and dry it. You can read the message after treating the paper with a solution of iron salts, which are found in powder form in almost every chemical kit.