Parallax Error Lab Report

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Discussion: For the reaction to occur, the particles of the reactants must collide in the right orientation and they must have the sufficient energy to exceed the activation energy required. When the hydrochloric acid is mixed with calcium carbonate, the acid particles keep colliding with the calcium carbonate particles and once they collide in the correct place and exceed the activation energy required, they can react successfully. With a higher concentration of acid, there are more acid particles to collide with the solid and increasing the chance of colliding in the right place. Therefore, more successful collisions per second, increasing the rate of reaction. The line of best fit of Figure 2 shows that the average time for the flask to …show more content…

As the bottom of the meniscus in the measuring cylinder should be read at horizontal eye level, there will be some variation between trials as participants cannot insure they are looking at the scale at a horizontal level each trial measurement. When the contributor views the meniscus at a horizontal eye level but slightly above the horizontal without realising it, the value would become less, causing recording of a lower volume. Vice versa, when viewing the meniscus in a position below the horizontal, the reading of the scale would be larger than the correct volume. Parallax error occurring during measurement, makes the concentration of the acid …show more content…

However, this is hard to control as each marble chip has different shape and unequal mass. Therefore, the weight of calcium carbonate was measured as close to 15g as possible instead of getting exact 15g each time. The bigger the mass of this reactant, the higher reaction rate will be, referring to the collision theory. Precision: The data is not very precise as there is a difference between the time in trials with the same volume of acid. Refer to the raw data table from the appendix, the average time and the reactive rate has been graphed and there are scatters about their line of best fit. The scatters above the line of best fit shows that they need more time to drop 0.2g of mass and the scatters under the line shows that they take less time to drop the mass. Systematic error: The concentration of the hydrochloric acid might not be as the same as what was written on the label. There will be a possible that the acid has been used inappropriate in previous experiment so it was contaminated. Therefore, the concentration of the acid might be lower than 2M. When it was added into the flask, there will also be less acid particles to collide with the calcium carbonate and the rate of reaction

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