Mole Ratio Lab (Oct. 28,2009)

In today's class, we were to do a Mole Ratio Lab. The purpose of this lab was to determine the difference between the holes of Iron and the moles of Copper.
The material's that we used were:

• 250 mL beaker
• wash bottle
• stirring rod
• tongs
• centigram balance
• drying oven
• safety goggles, lab apron, plastic gloves
• copper(II) chloride
• 2 iron nails (approximately 5 cm)
• 1 M of hydrochloric acid
• distilled water

The steps of the procedure follow:

1. Find the mass of an empty 250 mL beaker to the nearest 0.01 G.
2. Add about 8 G of Copper(II) Chloride crystals to the 250 mL beaker, then find and record the mass.
3. Add 50 mL of distilled water to the beaker, stir it until all crystals are dissolved.
4. Get 2 clean dry nails. If they are unclean, use sand paper until shiny, then find the mass of the nails and record it.
5. Put the nails in the solution and leave it in for approx. 20 minutes. (This is where we should see the formation of copper.)
6. Use the tongs to pick up the nails individually. Use distilled water to rinse off the nails, but ensure all the copper is removed from the nails.
7. After the nails are completely dried, determine and record the mass.
8. Detach the liquid from the solids, then move the liquid into a new beaker.
9. Rinse the solid with 25 mL of distilled water. Repeat this 3-4 times.
10. Wash the solid with 25 mL of Hydrochloric acid.
11. After the final wash, put the copper in the drying oven.
12. Find and record the mass of the beaker and the copper.
13. Finally clean up all materials and don't forget to wash your hands.

After recording and answering all questions, our group had a result of being 3% wrong. We discussed that we could've rinsed the nails more, and collected more copper in order for a better result.