6.03 Calorimetry Lab

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In a chemical reaction, matter is neither created nor destroyed. This is the law of conservation of mass, which begs the question, does this linearity also apply to volume? One of the goals of this experiment was to see if two pure liquid substances are together, will the volume of the solution be the total sum of each individual substance? Three characteristics must be known about the solution: the mass, volume, and density. Mass can be accurately measured out by a digital scale, volume can be measured using a piece of volumetric glassware, and density is a derived value obtained by dividing the mass of a solution by its volume. Because density is derived, both the mass and volume measurements must be made reliably, that is to say, they must …show more content…
Some water from the 250 mL flask was poured into the wash bottle. The following procedure was used to help determine the most accurate and precise glassware from the three choices available: a 25 mL Erlenmeyer flask, a 10 mL graduated cylinder, and a 10 mL volumetric pipet. First, the glassware and empty container were checked if they were clean of any liquid, and if not, they were dried. Then the mass of the empty container was taken. (Note, the empty contained was the glassware for the case of the Erlenmeyer flash and graduated cylinder. For the volumetric pipet, the empty container was a 25 mL.) Next, the glassware used for the current trial was carefully filled with water up to the 10 mL mark on each piece of volumetric glassware. (Note that the wash bottle was used for the Erlenmeyer Flash and graduated cylinder, and the remaining water in the 250 mL beaker was used for the volumetric pipet.) The volume put into the glassware was the measure visually using the bottom of the meniscus. (Note there is an extra step here of putting the water in an empty 25 mL beaker in the case of the volumetric