The Relationship Between Surface Area and the Rate of Reaction

Hypothesis: As the surface area increases, the rate of reaction will increase. Aim: To determine that if the surface area of a substance increases, whether then the rate of reaction will increase. Equipment: Marble Chips Crushed marble chips Triple beam balance 1M H2SO4 Medium test tubes Rubber hosing Delivery tube Lime water Test tube rack Rubber stopper Stopwatch Risk Assessment: Identify: Acid. Glass. Calcium chloride (Marble). Limewater. Asses: Acid may irritate hands or eyes if in contact. Broken glass may cut if handled improperly. Marble may cause harm if ingested. Limewater may cause harm if ingested. Control: Wear goggles and wash hands if acid comes in contact with skin or eyes. Use a broom and dustpan to handle broken glass. Do not ingest any chemicals or products in the science lab, and wash hands after use of them. Method: 1. Collect and set up equipment as per diagram and place in test tube rack. placed under the delivery tube. 3. Collect 1g of crushed marble chips and place in the side arm test tube. 4. Measure, using a measuring cylinder, 10mL of sulfuric acid. 5. Pour the sulfuric acid into the side arm test tube then quickly place a stopper on the side arm test tube. 6. Start timing using the stopwatch for 10 minutes. 7. Record the results of visibility of the test tube containing the limewater after the 10 minutes are over. 8. Repeat the experiment using the same weight of whole marble chips as was used with crushed marble chips. 9. Repeat the whole experiment at least three times. 2. Measure 10mL of limewater in a measuring cylinder and then place in the test tube

Results: When the marble chips were placed in the sulfuric adic, there was no visible reaction of the CO2 produced with the limewater. There was slight bubbling of the marble reacting with the acid. When the crushed marble was placed in the acid, there was no visible reaction of the CO 2 produced with the limewater. However, immediately after the acid was placed with the marble, it started bubbling and foaming until it foamed all the way up and out of the side arm test tube, and even travelled through the tube and a little bit went into the limewater. Discussion: 1. Describe using an example, how this relationship between surface area and rate of reaction is important to living organisms. The relationship between surface area and the rate of reaction can be important to many living organisms. One example of this would be the ability for unicellular organisms such as amoeba and algae to obtain oxygen due to the large surface area, thin cell width, and faster rate of reaction. However, if a multicellular organism tried to breath using the same process, they could not and instead use other systems (such as lungs) to breath. With this in mind, even organisms that have lungs to breath use thin cells to exchange gases (e.g. airsacs). 2. State the independent variable, dependent variable and other variables that you controlled. The dependent variable was the rate of the reaction and the independent variable was the surface area of the marble chips. Some controlled variables would have been using the same mass of marble every time as well as the same volume of sulfuric acid and limewater. Conclusion: It was found that increasing the surface area of the marble increased the rate of reaction because when large marble chips were used, there were only a few bubbles forming in the reaction whereas with the crushed marble, the reaction resulted in foam spewing out of the test tube. The use of the limewater was not valuable since in both cases there looked to be no visible reaction.