Copper Lab free essay sample

The purpose of washing a precipitate is to remove any other chemicals lingering in the solution after decanting. This eliminates the chemicals from affecting the reactions with the solution. 8) What is decanting? What was the purpose of decanting in this experiment? Decanting is a process where one pours a precipitate away from a solution. Decanting was used in this experiment to separate the precipitate so that it may be used in another reaction. a) If you were careless while decanting, what is likely to happen to your precipitate? The precipitate could have fallen out of the beaker and be lost from the experiment. b) How would that carelessness affect your percent recovery? By losing precipitate, there would be a lower percent recovery. c) Identify which chemicals were decanted away at any point during the experiment. The following chemicals were decanted: water (H20) and zinc sulfate. 9) Why was your percent recovery less than 100%? Sight specifics relating to various parts of the experiment that may have impacted your recovery. We will write a custom essay sample on Copper Lab or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page On a chemical level, copper may have been lost by not fully reacting with a given reactant, such as sodium hydroxide which required vigorous stirring in order to form copper hydroxide or any other reaction where a catalyst was required, such as heat or ice. On a scientific lever, copper may have been lost in decanting as loss of some precipitate is virtually unavoidable. a) Is it possible have more copper at the end than you had at the beginning? Unless someone actually put it there , then no. b) What is the law of conservation of mass? Mass cannot be created or destroyed in ordinary chemical or physical changes. This means that the reactions of this experiment would not have created any new copper, or any other element involved in the reactions. 10) Which copper compound was the least stable. Copper (II) Sulfate was the least stable because it reacted the most violently. 11) Today we hear a lot in the news about recycling, including recycling of metals. How does this experiment relate to this topic? This experiment proves how chemical reactions can be used to renew metals or extract them from an environmentally-tolling product to be used again in something else.