Investigation to find out how temperature affects the rate of reaction between Hydrochloric Acid

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Investigation to find out how temperature affects the rate of reaction between Hydrochloric Acid

I am going to conduct an investigation to find out how temperature affects the between Hydrochloric Acid and Sodium Thiosulphate. The rate of reaction is the rate of loss of a reactant or the rate of formation of a product during a chemical reaction. There are five factors which affect the rate of a reaction, according to the collision theory of reacting particles: temperature, concentration (of solution), pressure (in gases), surface are (of solid reactants), and catalysts. I have chosen to investigate the effect of temperature on a reaction.
Aim: How does temperature affects the rate of reaction between Sodium Thiosulphate and Hydrochloric acid. The symbol and word equation of this reaction is shown below.
Sodium Thiosulphate + Hydrochloric Acid Sodium Chloride + Water Sulphur Na²S²O³ (aq) + 2HCl (aq) Dioxide
2NaCl (aq) + H2O (l) + SO2 (g)


Preliminary Work

The variable for this experiment is the temperature of the hydrochloric acid. To make sure my experiment was a fair test, I kept the following things the same; the concentration of reactants and the amount of reactant I will use. Before conducting the investigation I experimented with different amounts of concentration in order to give me a suitable working time for my reaction to take place in. I chose to use 0.1 molar for the concentration of Sodium Thiosulphate and 0.5 molar for the concentration of the Hydrochloric Acid.
To insure my results were accurate, I decided to repeat my experiment three times for each temperature. I then chose three different temperatures; 30, 40 and 50 degrees Celsius which I would use to carry out my experiment. There were a number of ways of carrying out this experiment, these included; measuring the time taken for the bubbles produced to stop, measuring the amount of gas given off, measuring the mass change before and after the experiment and finally measuring the time taken for the magnesium to completely dissolve. I chose to measure the time taken for the sodium thiosulphate to react with the hydrochloric acid, I chose this method because it was less sophisticated than the other methods therefore it also reduced the chance of errors during the experiment.

I noticed a few problems within my preliminary work. I noticed that if any of the test tubes containing the reactants became contaminated, it would affect and disarray my results. Therefore I made sure that the test tubes were washed out thoroughly each time to a high degree of cleanliness. Another dilemma is that it was very tedious to keep the temperature constant to overcome this problem I used a water bath.


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Method

1) Set-up equipment as shown in the Diagram.
2) Place the two reactants into a beaker.
3) Measure the time it takes for the “X” to disappear under the beaker.
4) Repeat this experiment three times each for the remaining temperatures. 20° 30° 40° 50° 60° 70°.

Repeat results and averages will be taken to improve the credibility of the findings, and present solid grounding for the final conclusion. The repeat results will help to iron out any anomalies and the average will give a good summary of the results of the experiment. However if one set of results is entirely different to ...

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