Compare And Contrast The Reaction Between Sodium Sulfate And Hydrochloric Acid

Our next goal was to confirm the identity of our compound. We accomplished this goal by creating five reactions containing Sodium Sulfate that would confirm our compound and show its chemical properties. In each reaction, we replaced the presence of Sodium Sulfate with our unknown. Our first reaction was the reaction from the sulfate anion test between Sodium Sulfate and Barium Chloride. If the compound was in fact Sodium Sulfate it would produce a white precipitate and it did. The second reaction was first between Sodium Sulfate and Hydrochloric Acid, and then Silver Nitrate was added. For the compound to be confirmed, a white precipitate should form again, and it did. The next reaction started with the combination of Sodium Sulfate and Ammonia Hydroxide and
then involved the addition of Barium Chloride.
This reaction also produced a white precipitate and confirmed the compound’s identity. The last precipitate reaction combined Sodium Sulfate and Potassium Hydroxide and then added Barium Chloride again. This reaction also produced a white precipitate as it should. Our last reaction contained Sodium Sulfate and Nitric Acid and then added Iron (II) Sulfate to hopefully produce a brown ring. The reaction did produce a brown ring and further confirmed our unknown substance as Sodium Sulfate. Not only did these reaction equations confirm that our ionic compound was Sodium Sulfate, but they also allowed us to see how the salt would react with different compounds and show us some of the chemical properties of Sodium Sulfate. The last goal of this project was to use gravimetric analysis to find quantitative data to use when comparing our unknown compound to Sodium Sulfate. To do this
we conducted the same precipitate reaction three times for accuracy. The reaction was the same one that we used in both part one as the anion test and part two to confirm the identity. We started by weighing each piece of filter paper for future purposes. To begin the reaction, we first combined 0.5 g of the Sodium Sulfate with enough water to dissolve all of the salt. We then combined this solution with 1 mL of Hydrochloric acid and 1 mL Barium Chlorate which produced a milky white precipitate. Because of this we needed to use the centrifuge to separate the precipitate from the rest of the solution. Next, we used the filter paper and a vacuum to separate the precipitate fully and then dried out each piece of filter paper in the oven. We then subtracted the paper weights to determine the official weight of the Barium Sulfate (BaSO4) precipitate. Our three tests were very similar and therefore accurate. The average weight was 0.153 grams. To convert grams of Barium Sulfate to moles of Sodium Sulfate (our unknown) we used stoichiometry. Then we divided the found 6.56 x 10-4 moles of Sodium Sulfate by the original 0.5 g of sodium sulfate to find the experimental molar mass which was 762 g/mol. Then using the periodic table, we calculated the actual molar mass of Sodium Sulfate to be 142 g/mol. By dividing the experimental molar mass by the actual molar mass, we found the percent yield (18.6%) which showed that we had a large loss of weight during the experiment. This is likely because of imperfect conditions and human error. According to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) the LD50 of Sodium Sulfate is 5989 mg/kg which is the median lethal dose of our compound. This means that you would have to ingest a fairly large amount of Sodium Sulfate for it to kill you, however the compound should not be ingested. Given the information on the MSDS it can be inferred that it is a stable compound and is safe for landfills, however you should consult federal, state and local environmental control regulations depending on where the landfill resides.