The Harcourt Essen Experiment

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The Harcourt Essen Experiment

The aim of this investigation is to: 1) find the rate equation for the reaction between hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide and sulphuric acid by using the iodine stop clock method and plotting graphs of 1/time against concentration for each variable. Then to find the activation energy by carrying out the experiment at different temperatures using constant amounts of each reactant and then by plotting a graph of in 1/t against I/T, 3) to deduce as much information about the mechanism as possible from the rate equation.

The first experiments investigate the order of reaction with respect to the reactants; hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide and sulphuric acid by varying the concentrations and plotting them against 1/time. An initial rate technique is used in this experiment so ‘the rate of reaction is inversely proportional to time.’ To find the order of reaction in respect to the reactants, 1/time is plotted against the concentration of Hydrogen Peroxide using the equation:

1/t = k(a) ͯ

t = time, a = volume of reactant, k is a constant of proportionality; x is the order of reaction. Because k is a constant of proportionality 1/t is directly proportional to the rate of reactant. Then to find out the order of reaction in a catalysed system the volume of ammonia molbydate is varied and the concentration of the other reactants kept the same. Thirdly to investigate the activation energies, the concentrations are kept the same and the temperature is varied.

Background information:

The Harcourt Essen experiment consists of two reactions:

2H+ (aq) + H202(aq) + 2I-(aq) 2H2O(l) + I2(aq)

This is the first reaction in the Harcourt Essen experiment. The iodine is oxidised to produce I2 wh...

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... point was subjective; however it would have been a systematic error because I consistently judged the end point of my experiment. To eliminate this inaccuracy I should have used a colorimeter to judge the end point of my experiment.

Also the stop clock had a degree of percentage error measured by:

There was also a percentage error with the graduated pipettes calculated by:

The percentage error of the burette:

The percentage error of the graduated pipettes:

Overall percentage error:

There is also the potential of human error within this experiment for example finding the meniscus is important to get an accurate amount using the graduated pipettes and burettes. There is a possibility that at one point in the experiment a chemical was measured inaccurately affecting the results. To resolve this, the experiment should have been repeated three times.

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