Chemical Reaction Lab

633 Words2 Pages

The experiment was to investigate what are the products of a chemical reaction, more specifically, what iron compound is formed. A chemical reaction is anything that has had a color change, the formation of a solid, bubble, or a temperature change. In an oxidation-reduction reaction, charges of molecules are going to change. The first balanced equation was Cu〖SO〗_4+Fe(s)→Fe〖SO〗_4+Cu. The second balanced equation was 2Cu〖SO〗_4+3Fe(s) →3〖Fe〗_2 (〖SO〗_4 )_3+Cu. Given the two different chemical formulas, the theoretical yield was found to determine how much copper would be left over after the reaction by using the balanced chemical equations and stoichiometry. With the iron being the limiting reagent, we knew that the excess of copper product …show more content…

After figuring out the mass of the empty beaker to be 72.5 grams, 100 milliliters of water were heated using a hot plate. The water warmed just below boiling. Once the beaker of water was removed from the hot plate, 12.1 grams of copper (II) sulfate was added. Once the copper (II) sulfate was stirred, 1.5 grams of iron filling was added to the beaker and set to allow the copper to settle on the bottom of the beaker. Once the beaker was cool enough to touch and the copper was settled to the bottom, we began the decanting process. Decanting was used to remove the limiting reagent, the iron sulfate compound, to dry out the excess reagent, the copper. The copper was decanted twice again with water to clean off any left over iron sulfate compound. Then the copper was covered with acetone and put in an oven for 15 minutes to dry completely. Once the copper was dried, the electronic balance was used again to measure the mass of the beaker and the copper. Once this mass was calculated to be 75.2 grams, the empty beaker’s mass of 72.5 grams was subtracted from it to give us the total mass of the copper, which was 2.68 grams. We knew a reaction occurred when a solid formed at the bottom of the …show more content…

This answer of 104% is our percent yield. With our percent yield being over 100%, human errors obviously occurred. The mass of the beaker could be off or if more than 1.5 grams of the iron filling was added, this can answer the reasoning for having more than 100% percent yield. Our group still managed to say that the product formed was iron (III) sulfate. When comparing data with other groups, there was a vast range of percent yields in the lab. Possible error with decanting or not allowing the copper to completely dry could have answered the fluctuation in numbers. Our group was the only one a percent yield of over 100% but still had the correct iron filling. When checking over the calculations, the class agreed that the product produced was iron (III) sulfate. After checking our calculations again, there is no answer for how our group had over 100% percent yield, even with decanting. Usually during decanting, it is usually not as

Open Document