With a significant importance to the world economy, the human body, and the environment, copper has been studied and manipulated to explore its uses and properties. In the experiment performed, the copper cycle was observed by placing copper through a series of chemical reactions to demonstrate the different reaction types.
Materials and Methods To begin the experiment, a 50 mL beaker was placed on a hot plate with a ring stand along with a fume hood made out of a funnel, rubber tubing, and an aspirator. Before advancing through the experiment, the aspirator was turned on. To begin Cycle Step 1, 250 mg of copper turnings were weighed on an analytical balance, using a tared weigh boat, and were recorded to the nearest 0.0001 mg. Next …show more content…
Though, unlike the reactions in steps 1 and 2, the reaction above does not give off gas or precipitate a solid, which is common in metathesis reactions. An example of a double displacement reaction is:
NaS2(aq) + HCl(aq) → H2S(g) + NaCl(aq)
Which also shows a double displacement, as indicated by switching the sulfur and the chlorine in the reaction. Cycle Step 5 went through the chemical reaction:
CuSO4(aq) + Zn(s) → Cu(s) + ZnSO4(aq)
Which can be identified as a single displacement reaction by the transfer of the sulfate anion from copper to zinc. In the experiment, the transfer was identified by the dissolving zinc and the precipitating copper. An example of a single displacement reaction …show more content…
As stated before, at the end of the experiment a 20.04% yield was calculated for the returned copper, indicating 79.96% or 0.1999 grams of copper was lost during the experiment. Many errors could have contributed to the low yield of returned copper. One error is when the water was decanted out of the beaker at the end of step 3. The water was removed via pipette, however some of the CuO solid was also removed in the process. Another source of error occurred in copper recovery, where the recovered copper was rinsed and run through the Büchner funnel. After the contents of the beaker was poured into the funnel, the copper stuck to the moistened filter paper and made it difficult to transfer all the copper to the watch glass to be weighed. In the end, there was still copper on the filter paper, regardless of what tool was used in attempt to remove the copper from the funnel. Because of these errors, a majority of the original mass of copper was lost throughout the