Powerful Europe

Purpose: The purpose of this lab was to see how given amounts of sodium bicarbonate reacts with acetic acid and see how it creates different amounts of new compounds.

Procedure: In this lab, we were going to be reacting 12.5g sodium bicarbonate with 7.4mL acetic acid. Before we began, we turned on the hot plate to a medium level, allowing it time to heat up. While the plate was heating, we gathered 1 1/4g sodium bicarbonate onto the balance. Next, we measured 7.4mL acetic acid by pouring it into a 10mL graduated cylinder. Once we had our required amounts, we transferred both these substances into the same evaporating dish and swirled the reactants to mix evenly. Once a consistent mixture was formed, we placed the evaporating dish onto the now hot hot-plate. After allowing all liquid to evaporate, we found the mass of this new substance, which was NaC2H3O2.

Data:

Mass of Evaporating Dish During

Dish Mass
Empty
51.18g
With NaHCO3 and acetic acid
54.36g
After evaporating
52.36g

Mass of Reactants/Products

Mass (g)
NaHCO3
1.25g
NaC2H3O2
1.18g

Calculations:
Reaction Equation:
NaHCO3 (s) + HC2H3O2 (aq) ----> CO2 (g) + H2O (l) + NaC2H3O2 (s)

Theoretical Yield:

1.22 grams NaC2H3O2
Percent Yield:
1.18g/1.22g x 100 = 96.7% yield

Errors: Our biggest error was in heating this newly made compound. We set the heat on the hot-plate extremely high. As a result, our mixture turned into another kind of ionic compound as more substances were becoming evaporated. This left a shiny, metallic residue inside our evaporating dish. This error would lead to a lower percent error, as less mass was remaining in the dish and more had evaporated. A second error we encountered was slight spillage while initially mixing the compound. This would have allowed some substance to pour outside the dish, and making us account a slightly smaller mass. As a result, we would have had a lower percent yield.

Conclusion: The purpose of this lab was to react given amounts of acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate to yield as close to the theoretical amount of NaC2H3O2. In the lab, we achieved this purpose as we had a 96.7% yield, which is fairly accurate. In the procedure, 7.4mL of acetic acid was said to be used. This number was derived from an equation in which a total of 1.25g sodium bicarbonate was to be used. In ideal situations, reacting these amounts of the two compounds would have a perfect yield. To avoid future errors, it is advisable to turn to hot-plate only onto a medium heat. Turning it up all the way caused our solution to burn, liquify, and possibly evaporate. Also, using a larger dish would have been useful in effort to prevent spillage. When confirming the yielded substance was actually sodium acetate, various other tests could have been conducted. These include solubility tests, color test, and a flammability test.