Chemical Reaction Lab Report Essay

Purpose: The purpose of this experiment is to: determine the limiting reactant of a chemical reaction that involves iron filings and a copper sulfate solution. Second, to determine the mole ratios between iron and copper and to show that a single replacement reaction occurs when iron and copper sulfate react with each other. And lastly, to determine/calculate the percent yield to better analyze the chemical reaction between iron and copper sulfate to produce copper and iron sulfate.

The method used to perform this lab will be to combine a metal with a solution to produce a chemical reaction causing one element to eplace another element and isolating the product from the liquid to determine its mass. Background: A chemical equation shows all substances that are involved in a chemical reaction. It shows the chemical formulas of substances that react (reactants) with each other and the substances that are produced (products) because of this reaction. This means that when a chemical reaction occurs, the number of moles of the reactants should equal the number of moles of the products.

When this occurs, this chemical equation is balanced and these number of moles of each substance are eeded in order to complete the reaction. If the coefficients of the equation are not balanced, there may not be enough reactant to fully complete the reaction, or there may be too much of the reactant so that there will be some remaining substance at the end. In this experiment, for example, iron metal was added to an aqueous solution of copper sulfate. This experiment demonstrates a single replacement reaction, which is a chemical reaction in which one element replaces another element of a compound that is in the solution.

Here, the iron metal (Fe) will replace the copper (Cu) in the copper sulfate olution thereby, creating iron sulfate. This occurs because the iron is more active than the copper. In other words, the iron is higher than copper on the Activity Series. This chemical reaction results in the following balanced chemical equation, which shows a one to one mole ratio: In this experiment, I will start out with predetermined masses of iron filings and copper sulfate to determine the mass of copper formed during this chemical reaction.

I will be using 200 mL of 1 M copper sulfate and 10g of iron filings. During the chemical reaction, one of these substances (iron or copper sulfate) will get ompletely used up. This is called the limiting reactant. In this case, iron is the limiting reactant. The other chemical (copper sulfate) will not get completely used up and there will be some left over. It is the limiting reactant that determines the total amount of product that can be produced in the experiment. In other words, it is the iron that determines how much copper can be produced during the experiment.

I expect 11. 38g of copper (theoretical yield) to be produced from 10g iron after the chemical reaction has been completed. I will collect the copper y filtering it out from the iron sulfate with the use of a filtration apparatus. In order to determine how much copper product was actually produced, I will subtract the mass of the filter paper from the mass of the filter paper and product. This experiment helps to understand balanced equations and single replacement reactions.

During this experiment, I combined 10g iron filings and 200 ml 1 M copper sulfate to see how they would react with each other. During the reaction, the blue copper sulfate solution began to turn green. This is because the iron was reacting with the solution. The iron began o turn a copper color because the iron was reacting with the copper sulfate solution. This demonstrates a single replacement reaction. Because iron is more active than copper, the iron displaced the copper from the copper sulfate solution.

Therefore, iron and copper sulfate are the reactants while copper and iron sulfate are the products. Then, I set up a filtration apparatus consisting of a piece of filter paper to separate the copper from the iron sulfate. Finally, the copper was left to dry in an oven for a couple of days. Calculations were then performed to determine the efficiency of the reaction percent yield) and to determine the results of the experiment. First, the theoretical yield, which is the maximum amount of product that can possibly be produced from a given amount of reactant, is determined.

From my calculations, I can expect 11. 38 g of Cu to be produced from 10 g Fe after the chemical reaction has been completed. Next, the actual yield was determined. The actual yield is the amount of copper product actually produced as a result of my chemical reaction. After leaving the copper to dry for a couple of days in the oven, this experiment yielded 10. 77g Cu. Finally, the percent yield was calculated. Percent yield is the percentage of the theoretical yield that has actually been obtained. According to the percent yield calculation, my chemical reaction was 94. 4% successful. This means that the actual yield was fairly close to the theoretical yield. Based on the results of this experiment, the moles of Fe (0. 1797) and molarity of Fe (0. 8986 M) were very close to the moles of Cu (0. 1695) and molarity of Cu (0. 8475 M) showing almost a 1 to 1 mole and molarity ratio.

This can be interpreted as a close to perfect balanced reaction. Looking at the percent yield, the chemical reaction was 94. 64% successful in producing the theoretical amount of copper product. Perhaps the reason why it wasn’t more than 94. 4% successful is because most times chemical reactions are never completely successful in achieving the expected amount (or theoretical yield). In my lab, iron was 0. 1797 mol while the copper sulfate was 0. 2000 mol. Therefore, iron was determined to be the limiting reactant because it had the least amount of moles of the two reactants and it was completely used up while it reacted with the copper sulfate.

In ddition, my limiting reactant calculations again prove that iron was the limiting reactant because iron could only produce 11. 2g Cu while the copper sulfate could produce 12. 71g Cu. Because the copper sulfate could produce more product than the iron, there was an excessive amount of copper sulfate (179. 8 mL) used in the reaction to ensure that all of the iron would be used up. There are a few things that could have affected the results of this experiment and may have led to a less than perfectly balanced chemical equation. First, I may have inaccurately weighed the iron filings (scale may not have been calibrated) nd inaccurately measured the copper sulfate solution.

These inaccurate measurements could have affected the results of my experiment. Second, I may not have allowed enough time for the iron to react with the copper sulfate. Third, all of the copper sulfate crystals may not have dissolved in the distilled water, creating a less than 1 M copper sulfate solution. Next, the purity of the chemicals may not have been as expected. Finally, small amounts of copper could have emptied out with the iron sulfate when it was being decanted. All of these may have led to a less than 100% percent yield for my experiment.