• Wash your hand after the experiment.
• When you have finish using the Bunsen burner change the flame to a safety flame
• Fold sleeves up and be careful not to put your arm over the Bunsen flame.
Materials
The material for the flame test is:
• Bunsen burner
• Googols
• Hydrochloric acid
• Metal loop
• five containers labelled A-E each containing a metal salt.
• Bunsen Mattress
• Beaker
Methods
1)I first put a mattress on the table and put a Bunsen burner on it and connected it to the gas vales
2)Then I turned the gas valves on a put a fire under the Bunsen burner so the fire can start on top of the Bunsen burner.
3)I then cleaned a metal loop under the roaring Bunsen flame to get rid of all the other substance on it.
4) I then dipped the metal loop into a beaker of hydrochloric acid.
5)I then placed it into one of the unknown salt, then places it into the roaring Bunsen burner flame, and noted the colour.
6)For each of the other five solution I repeated step two but with a different metal salt and a different metal loop for each metal salts.
Results
My results were:
• The colour of test compound A was golden yellow which means the metal is sodium
• The colour of test compound B was intense red which means the metal is Lithium.
• The colour of test compound C was lilac which means the metal is Potassium.
• The colour of test compound D was brick red which means the metal is calcium.
• The colour of test compound E was green which means the metal is copper.
Evaluation
The problems encountered was that the colour of the metal salt on the metal loop was all different kinds of colour from substances before the test so I had to clean it under a roaring flame which took quite a long time. The human error that could have occurred is when the metal loop is used twice on two different salts. This could results in cross-contamination which would mean I would get bad results. If I had more time I would make improvements by doing the experiment by myself because there were lots of people doing this test the same time, using the metal loops at the same time, and they may think that the metal loop they are using have not been used, then they used it and cause cross-contamination which would mean I would could get bad results.
