Gunpowder Reaction Lab Report

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Name: Ben Tanke, Brooke Binkley, and Hailey Fenn
Block: 3rd
Title: Gunpowder QPOEE

Question:
Which amount of Sulfur(.25 grams, .5 grams, .75 grams, and 1 gram) creates the closest reaction with fire as the store bought gunpowder in terms of size of flame and the time duration of the flame?

Knowledge Probe:
The equation for the reaction of our gunpowder is 10Na NO3 + 8C + 3S → 2 Na2 CO3 + 3Na2SO4 + 6CO2 + 5N2. This shows that Sodium Nitrate is reacting with Carbon/Charcoal and Sulfur to form Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide, Sodium Carbonate, and Sodium Sulfate. In gunpowder, the Sodium Nitrate is decomposed at a high temperature to produce oxygen for the gunpowder reaction. Since the Sodium Nitrate is able to
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Piggott gave us a starting amount of .5 grams of Sulfur. Using this amount and the balanced equation we are able to find out how much of the other reactants we need. Using this equation, x grams x molesx gramsy molesx moles y grams y moles=y,
We are able to plug in the molar masses and mole to mole ratios to find that we need 4.4 grams of Sodium Nitrate as well as .5 grams of Charcoal to complete the equation. During our experiment, we kept the 4.4 grams of Sodium Nitrate and .5 grams of Charcoal the same and changed the amount of charcoal to see how it would affect the outcome of the reaction. Gunpowder most commonly in the past has been used for weapons such as guns and artillery shells. Today, it is no longer used that often as we have found cheaper and better alternatives. It is mostly found in fireworks and blank-shots for the military. The powder was used so often back in the day because it was able to ignite very easily in the confined space of the chamber of a gun. When gunpowder is lit on fire, it releases a large amount of gas into the air which is why it is able create enough pressure to fire a bullet from a
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The .5 grams test had a medium sized flame that burned somewhat slow.
The .75 gram tests all were very similar with smaller flames that burned at a steady rate of speed until burned completely.
The 1 gram test all caught on fire very quickly and easily produced the largest flame. This gunpowder also burned thoroughly in the shortest amount of time.
This table shows the descriptions of all of the trials for each specific test telling how fast it burned and what the size of the fire was.

Data Analysis: The data we collected was actually somewhat precise as the outcomes for each trial was close each test. There were few trends that we were able to find in our data but one that we noticed was that all of the 1 gram of Sulfur tests burned completely faster and had larger flames than those in all other tests.

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