How to burst a balloon using orange ("A stinging orange" experiment)

3,798 views · Published 19 February 2018 · 0:46 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MEL Science · 2018 · Science & Technology

Watch on YouTube

For cool and safe experiments sign up to MEL Science here: https://goo.gl/BKqnZB

Did you know that you can burst a bal­loon with an or­ange? In this ex­per­i­ment you’ll see that an or­ange can be a de­li­cious weapon!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions
Ob­serve safe­ty rules when work­ing with fire.

Reagents and equip­ment:
or­ange;
knife;
spir­it burn­er;
bal­loon.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions
Take an or­ange and cut off a piece of peel. Squeeze the juice from the or­ange peel at the flame of the burn­er. The flame seems to spark!
Take a bal­loon. If you “shoot” juice at the bal­loon, it bursts!

Pro­cess­es de­scrip­tion
If you squeeze or­ange peel hard, juice shoots out of it that con­tains high­ly flammable es­sen­tial oils. When they are di­rect­ed at flame, the drops of liq­uid cre­ate beau­ti­ful flash­es of flame in the air.
One of the com­po­nents of es­sen­tial oil is limonene, con­tained in or­ange peel in high con­cen­tra­tion. It ac­tive­ly dis­solves rub­ber. If we spray our liq­uid at a bal­loon, it will burst, as the thin lay­er of rub­ber that it is made from dis­solves.
You can re­peat the ex­per­i­ment with oth­er cit­rus fruits (man­darins, grape­fruit, lemons), as their peel is also rich in es­sen­tial oils.