This is a list of all the equipment I am going to use!
- Boiling tube
- Powdered chalk= 0.10g each time
- Hydrochloric acid= 10ml each time
- Accurate measuring scales= (0.00)
- Test/boiling tube rack
- Measuring cylinder for the acid
- Stop clock to time the reaction! (most important)
- Small piece of paper to put the chalk on when I measure it!
This is a picture of my experiment.
The only thing that I have to watch in terms of safety is the acid! I have to wear goggles when I am around acid encase the bottle of acid falls over and it goes in my eyes. I also have to be careful when I am around the hot water bath because the temperature can get up to 80oC. That could burn you and cause long-term damage to your skin.
Plan
The first thing I will do is gathering all my apparatus and set it out accordingly. I will then measure the chalk keeping the same amount of powdered chalk! I have to put the piece of paper on first and then put the chalk on top, so when I do put the piece of paper on I will have to put the scales back to zero because the paper has a mass so it will effect my results. I have to do this to make it a fair test.
The next thing I have to do is measure the hydrochloric acid out accurately with a measuring cylinder. I will the heat it in the water bath to get my desired temperature. I will then set the stop clock to zero and put the 0.1g of chalk in the heated acid! I will the start the stop clock when the reaction has stopped. I will repeat this experiment 3 times and increase the temperature by 10oC each time. This is to make my results reliable because one of them might have gone wrong!
These are my results.
I was correct with my prediction! If you increase the temperature of the acid in the experiment, it will speed up the reaction time the faster the reaction rate. This is due to the kinetic theory. As temperature increases, particles speed up, this happens in the acid and so acid particles collide more with the chalk particles and so the reaction happens faster. I was correct with my prediction!!!
This is a graph to show my results for my experiment! They are average results.
This graph had a smooth line but my first result took a lot more time than all the others. There might have been a lump in the chalk but all the times I tried it the results were around the same amount of time!
The experiment went quite well. There weren’t any odd results and nothing went wrong. Although I have some ideas which may gain an even more accurate reading. Firstly, there could have been some lumps in the chalk. That may be why the first result took so long! Secondly, there might have been a slight delay in the time we started the stop clock and when we put the chalk into the acid. It wouldn’t have affected my results by much but that was a thing I could improve.
There are many possible extensions to this experiment. I could try to use other substances and react them with hydrochloric acid. I could also try different acids and see what happens. All these could help me with my knowledge on reaction rates.
By Richard Griffiths 10R
