Hydration Lab Essay

The tendency of this research research laboratoryoratory is to determine the piddle of hydration of a complicated (CuSO4) by heating it and hence find its chemical formula. It was determined that the compound contained 4 moles of H2O for every 1 mole of CuSO4, hence had the formula CuSO4 4H2O and blur II Sulfate Tetrahydrate. However, the literary works value was 5 moles of oxygen for every 1 mole of CuSO4 (Copper II Sulfate Pentahydrate CuSO4 5H2O).As calculated above in entropy Processing, this means that the percentage deviation from the literature value was 20%. This is significantly less than the percentage indistinctty, which was 37%. This should indicate that the random error was high than systematic error, because while there was a high level of uncertainty, the literature value still f exclusivelys within that value, meaning that the measurements were close enough.In reality, though, this high level of uncertainty says lots slightly the inaccuracy of the measur ing equipment than it does about the inwardness of systematic error. For example, it is possible that merely not all of the water was removed from the compound. On the contrary, the lab procedure instructed to continue trials of heating the compound and weighing it until the bargain values were within 0.05g of each other. Those in this lab were only 0.01g apart a difference which would not book revision the outcome of the lab. This means it is unlikely that there was a significant amount of water remaining in the compound.Evaluation of ProcedureIt cannot honestly be said that this lab was executed successfully. This is for two main reasons1. the false chair2. the high degree of uncertaintyThe first of these is surely the most all important(p) this lab did not achieve the desired result. While the compound had a water of hydration of 5, the lab results said that this value should be 4. In somewhat circumstances, such error could be tolerated indeed, 20% is not terrible. H owever, the very purpose of the lab was to determine the compound, and this goal was not achieved.The second point is how uncertain the data really was. Based on the percentage of uncertainty, the water of hydration could shit been anywhere from 2.5 to 5.5. This does contain the literature value, but has a range of to a greater extent than half of that value (3/5). If the water of hydration could nearly have been 2 or 6, does this lab truly reveal anything? It gives a vague estimate of how much water there is, but little to a greater extent.Much of the uncertainty was caused by an imprecise scale used in the initial measurements. Only afterward the procedure requested precision to two decimal places was a more precise scale used, and the initial measurements were still only accurate to 0.1g. Also, if the mass of compound used had been higher, the percentage error would have been less simply because it would be a smaller portion of the measured value.Improving the investigationThi s lab did not meet its goal, hence definitely should be improved. The simplest change that could be made is to use the more precise scale from the source of the experiment. This would reduce the percentage error down to 6.7%, a much more reasonable value. This, however, does not solve the problem of the inaccurate value determined, because it is unlikely that this scale would have been any more accurate, despite being more precise.It is hard to pinpoint, therefore, exactly where the experiment went wrong, as it seems that the scales were not at shortcoming but that a sufficient amount of water had been removed. There was sure enough some kind of systematic error.One way that this error cleverness be reduced, even without understanding its source, is to increase the amount of substance measured. Because the lab is about obtaining a ratio, this would not affect the result at all except hopefully to decrease the effect of any systematic error. This would, however, have the disadvan tage of making the lab take longer, and steps might pauperization to be added to ensure that all of the compound has a chance to dehydrate.