What is the science term for how Water climbs up paper (and other wet objects)?

Question

And as bonus, if the water that was doing the climbing was dilluted with something else (say its "Kool-Aid") then does the water itself climb or does the Kool-Aid (e.g. food coloring) climb up as well?

Answer 1

The word(s) you are looking for is capillarity, or capillary action.

If the liquid being used consists of several components (e.g., sugars, flavorings, dyes, etc., as in the case of Kool-Aid), each component will also be drawn along with the water, but the speed at which those components move will not necessarily be the same as that of water. This forms the basis of a widely used chemical separation or analysis technique known as "chromatography".

The different components of a solution "move" at different rates in a chromatographic separation because the molecules making up each component interact more or less strongly with the material used as the "fixed" part of the chromatographic separation (e.g., the paper in your example). Molecules that tend to "stick" to the molecules making up the paper will move more slowly than ones that don't "stick" to the paper. Just as a runner who doesn't stop at rest stations will reach the finish line faster than a runner who stops every block to rest, a molecule that stays in solution all the time will move faster than one that spends part of the time "resting" (i.e., stuck to the solid paper).

Different molecules have different propensities to "stick" (also depending on the nature of the material used as the "paper" in a chromatographic experiment), and therefore each component ends up separating out into bands that move with characteristic speeds.

You can try this with a piece of blotter paper or thick paper towel and food coloring or water-soluble ink. Moisten the paper, and put a tiny dot of ink or dilute coloring on the paper. Keep the paper moist, and you should eventually get circular rings of different colors centered on the original dot.

Answer 2

Simple absorption. It defies gravity. If you add an electric current and some colloidal solutions with dyes as indicators, you can say you are appliying the principle of chromatography.

If you wish a simple explanation to explain to children, her is a nice website
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Answer 3

(paper) Chromotography?
The experiment you can do with smarties, to test coloured pigments present?
is this what you are on about?

Answer 4

that phenomenon is called "capillary action"