To investigate the amount of silver nitrate deposited on the cathode and anode when dipped in silver nitrate solution and weighed at two-minute intervals.

“The mass of any element deposited during electrolysis is directly proportional to the number of coulombs of electricity passed” 

Faraday’s Second Law of electrolysis states that:

“The mass of an element deposited by one Faraday of electricity is equal to the atomic mass in grams of the element divided by the number of electrons required to discharge one ion of the element.”

By looking at Faradays current we could tell that the time is directly proportional to the current, so any changes in the time would cause changes to the current.         

Apparatus

• Battery Pack
• Stop watch
• Silver nitrate solution
• Beaker
• Crocodile clips
• Weighing scale
• Ampmeter
• Stopwatch

Method:

(1st Experiment)

• We prepared 50 cm3 of Silver nitrate Solution (Aq) in a beaker.
• We then connected the power pack to the 2 metals, we had initially weighed them before connecting them using crocodile clips

• We sipped the two copper electrodes into the silver nitrate solution and we used the two minute intervals. We then removed the two pieces from the solution and wiped them dry with the tissues
• We weighed them and recorded our results.
• We then continued the experiment after the 2min interval and continued repeating the same procedures.
• We did this for a range of 2 – 20 minutes.
• We than had to record our results in a graph and table.

     

(2nd Experiment)

• In this experiment we weighed the anode and the cathode first yet this time we were changing the amps
• We prepared 50 cm3 of Silver nitrate Solution (Aq) in a beaker.
• We then connected the power pack to the two pieces of copper electrodes, which we had weighed. The connection was made using crocodile clips.
• We inserted the two copper electrodes into the silver nitrate solution and used a current of 0.2 amps. We then wiped them dry using the tissues.
• Once we had dried them we weighed them to see if there was a deposit of any silver nitrate on the cathode or anode.
• After recording our results we continued with the experiment but this time adding another two minutes on to the experiment time.
• We did this for a range of 0.2 – 0.8 Amps.
• Once we had finished recording our results we drew a table and graph to show what we had done.

Results:

(1st Experiment)

(2nd Experiment)

Conclusion:

My Preliminary experiment procedure went well, we did not face any problems, the experiment was fair and relatively safe except a minor incident occurred involving a certain member from my team dropping a cup of silver nitrate solution yet this did not alter any of the results. So overall everything went well. Except the results did not turn up as well as I thought, I think this was due to the lack of time available for experimental disposal and not being able to repeat the experiment. Yet the theory below summed up the whole of the experiment.

“The mass of any element deposited during electrolysis is directly proportional to the number of coulombs of electricity passed”