Find out the compounds that would get formed when heating copper carbonate.

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  In this experiment, I’ll try to find out the compounds that would get formed

  when heating copper carbonate.

       

The colour of CuO and Cu2O are black and red respectively. Heating copper carbonate strongly will produce copper (ll) oxide and carbon dioxide that will be given off so basically the equation that results from this is:

                      CuCO3 (s) → CuO (s) + CO2 (g).

By heating for about 3g of the green powder of copper carbonate, I should obtain a new compound with the black colour proving the presence of copper (ll) oxide.

The volume of the carbon dioxide that will result from heating copper carbonate depends on the mass of copper carbonate. Actually, it is proportional to it: the bigger the mass of copper carbonate the bigger the volume of gas given off and the bigger the mass of the product formed. The time of heating is very important as well because the copper carbonate isn’t completely burnt, it will affect the quantity of gas and the mass of the compound formed.

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In the preliminary experiment, I just identified which compound that was formed knowing the colours. Using the same apparatus as in the proper experiment, I heated 1.00gram of a green powder of copper carbonate and obtained 0.30gram of copper (ll) oxide. That experiment was limited in the fact that I couldn’t measure directly the volume of gas that was given of in the reaction and, considering the accuracy of the chemical balance used, that mass used was small providing an error of ± 1% in the mass of copper carbonate. So, to improve this I used a ...

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