Citizens Who Care

Purple by Tej Mehta How it got its name: Purple came up in the ninth century as the old English word aspurpul. That word came from the latin word purpura. Purple was and still is used mostly as a decoration, for clothes, walls, dresses, and many other things. How It's Made: The Ancient Romans made purple dye from snails. The snails were not originally purple, but the Romans heated them in lead vats, making them exposed to heat and light, which harvests chemical precursors that lead to the dye Tyrian purple. Later, somebody accidentally figured out how to make the purple dye without capturing the thousands of snails that the Romans did. William Henry Perkin was trying to synthesize quinine (a material that could be used to fight malaria). But all he ended up with was a sticky, black mess. He tried to soak his tar-like material in alcohol, and he ended up with the purple dye.  The snail that releases the purple dye. I used Smithsonian  and Gizmodo .  ...

Blue Pigment By Samuel Desai and Tej Mehta Here are the different Pigments: Azurite Azurite was discovered at the time of the Egyptians, and continued use until the late 18 century. It is a mineral which is found near malachite Cerulean Blue  This pigment was introduced in the 1860's. It's hiding power is great. Cobalt Blue This pricey and very stable pigment was introduced in 1821. It can be made by combining  Aluminum chloride AlCl 3 , Cobalt(II)-chloride CoCl 2  · 6H 2 O Egyptian Blue This very stable pigment was used from the time of the Egyptians to the time of the Romans. Prussian Blue This pigment is the first of the modern ones. Available in 1724, it was also used on postage stamps. It continues in use today Smalt This pigment, used from the 1400s to the 1700s was very popular because it was cost effective to buy Ultramarine  This pigment was the finest known pigment to the ancients.It was even more expensive than g...

By: Sameer Mehta 1 Introduction How does clothing, paint, ink, plastic, fabric, cosmetics, food, and other materials get their color?  They get it from different types of pigments.  This article is going to let you know how green pigment was used to be made and how it is made now. Cobalt Green This pigment, was very expensive, and it couldn't tint well so is isn't commonly  commonly used. It was discovered in 1780 because of the preparation of zinc oxide. You can make it using a 1 to 5, cobalt to zinc ratio. Copper Resinate   This pigment, was used from the 1400's to the 1600's.  Emerald Green  This HIGHLY POISONOUS pigment was discovered  in 1808. It was one of the best pigments of the time, so they thought it would be best to kill people instead of having to "suffer" with bad paintings Green Earth This pigment, is an all natural one with the elements iron, magnesium, aluminum, and potassium. This pigment is still ...

By Nathan Shan Cadmium Yellow: Artificial, made in a lab with the minerals greenockite and hawleyite, along with some chemicals. It can be made in a variety of colors. Relatively cheap. Chrome Yellow: Also artificial, made by adding chemicals to lead salt. It's fairly dark and dull. Not very expensive. Cobalt Yellow: Artificial, made entirely of chemicals. It's lighter than Chrome and fairly expensive. Indian Yellow: Made from the urine of cows that were fed mango leaves. Looks more like orange than yellow. It was banned from the market because feeding cows only mango leaves made them starve, so Indian yellow was considered inhumane. Not very expensive. Lead-Tin Yellow: Artificial, made entirely of chemicals. It is very bright, and relatively cheap. Lemon Yellow: Artificial, made entirely of chemicals. It has the same color as a lemon, and is not very expensive. Naples Yellow: Artificial, made with a lead compound and chemicals. It's fairly dark...

Orange How the color got its name The color we now know as to be orange was called "geoluhread" an Old English term which means "yellow-red". It is a very important color. This is because it is used on traffic cones. How it's made: Turmeric: Although the site I used, doesn't mention this spice, my grandmother (who grew up in India) told me that they used turmeric in their orange dyes Chrome Orange:  This orange became used as a pigment in the year 1809 the color ranges from light to deep oranges, and the hiding power is excellent. You need the chemicals  Lead(II) nitrate ,  potassium dichromate , and  sodium hydroxide to make this pigment. The scientist Nicolas Louis Vauquelin noticed that the new element chromium produced a bright orange color. This color stopped being produced a few years ago. Realgar: Realgar is a HIGHLY TOXIC arsenic sulfide and it was the first pure orange pigment. It was used in paintings until the early 1800...

The Pigment RED Cinnabar- Cinnabar is a type of red mercury ore when mixed with burning sulfur, you get expensive red paint used by the Romans. The Romans treasured this. Ratio- 1:1 Madder Lake- Natural Dyes from plants added to a white base substance. This pigment is one of the most stable and was used on most red clothing in the late 1800's. Red lead- This pigment is one of the oldest ever artificially prepared. It is good at hiding things but isn't that stable. It is made using the mineral minium.It was used frequently by the Persians. It is no longer used because of its way of disappearing over time. Red ochre- This pigment is comprised of mainly iron oxide, with some silica and clay too. The best comes from Cyprus. It started being in use a long time ago, and is still in use today. Vermilion- This pigment, used from 2,000BCE to 1,900 AD, is no longer in use.It   Minium

Hi all, I am proud to announce that we have blog version 6.1. out! Changes include Re-linking of the picture on the sidebar. It was supposed to take you to teslamotors.com, but it didn't Accessibility of the energy sources poll! Added Tech Support to description New name (not URL) Next school year, we will continue the blog from may schools. We are now called "Green Blog" Removed "Are you excited about the Energy Sources series?" poll Added "Are you excited about the Pigments series?" poll Changed "Listen to this" image because it didn't work. In other news, we're doing a new series on how colors were made on clothing long ago, and now! Here's the schedule: Jan. 9- Samuel Du: Red Jan. 16- Samuel Desai: Orange Jan. 23- Nathan Shan: Yellow Jan. 30- Sameer Mehta: Green Feb. 6- Nathan Shan: Blue Feb. 13- Tej Mehta: Purple We are also proud to announce... Our link will be on the C...