Electrolytic Determination Of Copper

Submitted By OgdenFalcon
Words: 612
Pages: 3

Electrolytic Determination of Copper
First thing I did right away was clean my electrodes with 1:3 nitric acid. It took a few minutes, but while cleaning turned the nitric acid a bluish green and it was pretty cool to watch. After 5 minutes I took the electrodes out carefully and placed them into the oven to dry at 110oC for an hour. After allowing them to dry I took them out and placed them into the desiccator to cool. After cooling I made sure to weight my electrodes. The large piece weighed 12.8grams and the small piece weighed 3.17 grams. I then dissolved 2.4290grams of Cu in35ml of 6M HNO3. I made sure to do this in the hood to keep any dangerous fumes away from myself and other lab members. When the copper was dissolving the solution started to turn a deep blue giving off copper colored smoke. I then warmed to digest for 30 minutes. After that I evaporated the solution until there was about 5ml left in the beaker. I then added 100ml of deionized water, 1ml of HNO3, and 2ml of H2SO4. I then set up my experiment making sure that my electrodes were properly to the apparatus. I set a heat plate underneath then used wire mesh and a steel ring on a stand to hold my beaker off the stir plate. I place a stir bar inside then placed my electrodes inside of my beaker making sure they weren’t touching each other because that would turn off the machine. I did this by attaching my alligator clips to the electrodes and then clamping the wires with clamps attached to the ring stand. I made sure most of my electrode was about ¼ inch from the bottom of the beaker, but allowing a little above the solution still. The gauze cylinder should be on the outside and then placed the spiral anode inside of it. I then started my stir bar and then closed the circuit to start the electrolysis. Only a small current flowed, but I had my wires mixed up so instead of switching off of my set up I just switched them at the machine, which is much easier. So the bubbles were now coming off of the anode in the center. I then lowered the resistance until the current was 2 to 4 A and so the voltage is below 4V. After