Malachite, one of the several minerals mined to obtain copper is mined primarily in Arizona, the leading copper producing state in the United States. The most important use of copper in the United States is in electrical wiring.
Aim
To produce a sample of metallic copper using the process called electrolysis.
Method
Before I started anything, I put goggles on and a pair of lab gloves. Then I collected all the equipments that I needed in order to complete the first half of the experiment. The first half of the experiment included weighing malachite and hydrochloric acid; therefore I would need a measuring cylinder and scales to weigh the products. I will also need a Bunsen burner, some distilled water, a filter paper and filter funnel, tripod, wire gauze, two 250cm3 beakers, glass rod and heatproof mat. After collecting all this, I then weighed 10.20g of malachite and recorded the actual mass on the report form. The malachite was then transferred into a 250cm3 beakers. As soon as this is over, I weigh out 12.33g of sand and added it to the malachite in the beaker. I mix the two products together thoroughly, and then I measured out 50cm3 of diluted hydrochloric acid using a measuring cylinder. After measuring the hydrochloric acid, I added it to the beaker containing sand and malachite.
As soon as the hydrochloric acid touched the mixture in the beaker the solution bubbled a bit then it stopped, this is because the acid only reacted with the outer of the product at that time. Even though this happened, I knew that once I started to heat the products up, the reaction time and speed will increase.
Have not done this, I put the beaker aside and went back to the Bunsen burner that I had set up earlier with a tripod, wire gauze and a heatproof mat, I lit the Bunsen burner. After this I put the beaker onto the wire gauze on top of the Bunsen burner, and heat the solution for 15minutes. I had to stir the solution throughout the 15minutes using a glass rod, this is so that I could slow down the chance of the solution splashing out of the beaker, and also so that I could increase the speed of reaction. About 2minutes during the heating I noticed that the solution which changed colour slightly after adding the acid, had change colour again. At the end of the heating the mixture that had started up as green changed to light blue (sky blue).
I switched off the Bunsen burner with the beaker on top of the gauze. Been careful I took the Bunsen burner away from underneath the mixture and put it to the side. I then left the mixture to cool down for 1minute. While the mixture was cooling, I set up the funnel- because I wanted the sand and any other unwanted products to be separated from the mixture, I put a filter paper inside the funnel, I put the funnel in the second beaker. After doing this I took the mixture and filtered it down the paper. During the filtering I used some distilled water to wash all the sands that were left around the filter paper. The purpose for this was so that some copper will not be lost
Measurements
Observation
Modifications Made
Sources of error
