The Reactivity Series: What Makes The Most Acid

The reactivity series is the known series of how metals should react. It places Calcium as the most reactive (of the metals being tested in this experiment), followed by Magnesium, Aluminium, Zinc, Iron, Tin and finally, as the least reactive (of the metals being tested in this experiment), Copper. However, the results this experiment produced did not follow this trend. If the metal that produces the most hydrogen gas is considered the most reactive, in this experiment magnesium was most reactive. And, similarly, if the metal that produces the least hydrogen gas is considered the least reactive, in this experiment copper was the least reactive. While this does follow the trend of the Reactivity series roughly, it is not exact. As seen in the graph, the 2nd most reactive metal was calcium, as it produced on average 58.17mL of hydrogen gas (the 2nd largest volume of gas). The 3rd most reactive metal was Aluminium, producing on average 6.17mL of hydrogen
To make the results of the experiment accurate, these two variables have to be controlled. For the metals, the weight was carefully measured using an electronic balance and scissors to cut the metals to size, resulting in precision in the results. While the dependant variable cannot be controlled, how accurate the measurements are can be. To ensure the accuracy of the collection of gas, the equipment was tested beforehand to ensure it was sensitive and could produce accurate results and readings were taking carefully, looking from above directly down. The dependent variable is depends on the independent variable, as the name suggests. The different metals used mean that the volume of hydrogen gas (the dependent variable) differed. For example, the volume of hydrogen gas produced when magnesium reacted with hydrochloric acid was an average of 85, while copper only produced, on average, 1.3ml of hydrogen