Determination of Ka by Titration Daniel Wentworth and Deion Oakes

Dr. Dixit Wake Technical Community College Northern Campus Building B Room 439 07/20/13

Purpose: The purpose of the experiment was to determine the ionization constant of a weak monoprotic acid by monitoring the change in pH as it was titrated with a strong base. The lab explored the relationship between pH, pKa, and the relative concentrations of weak acids and conjugate bases. Methods: The experimental procedure can be found on pages 60 to 62 of the Wake Technical Community College Chemistry 152 lab notebook. 60 ml of acetic acid and 75 ml of Sodium Hydroxide were obtained and covered with parafilm to prevent contamination. 20 ml of the acetic acid was pipetted into a 250 ml beaker along with 75 ml of deionized water and a drop of phenolphthalein. 50 ml of Sodium hydroxide was added to a buret and the pH was recorded as 1 ml increments of NaOH were titrated. The pH was recorded until it reached a pH of 11.50. The second part of the experiment was identical apart from the substitution of an unknown acid for the acetic acid and implementation of 0.5ml increments in the place of 1ml increments.

Data:
Volume NaOH 0ml 1ml 2ml 3ml 4ml 5ml 6ml 7ml 8ml 9ml 10ml 11ml 12ml 13ml 14ml 15ml 16ml 17ml 18ml 19ml 20ml 21ml 22ml 23ml 24ml 25ml pH 3.75 3.80 3.86 3.92 3.93 4.10 4.25 4.35 4.56 4.56 4.63 4.73 4.83 4.94 5.03 5.13 5.26 5.42 5.90 7.00 10.73 11.08 11.26 11.38 11.46 11.52

Titration
Acetic acid and NaOH
14.00 12.00
pH of solution

Acetic acid

10.00 8.00 6.00 4.00 2.00 0.00 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Volume of NaOH (ml)

pH of Unknown Volume NaOH 3.65 0 3.66 0.5 3.87 1 4.16 1.5 4.83 2 5.57 2.5 9.49 3 10.43 3.5 10.75 4 10.92 4.5 11.04 5 11.14 5.5 11.24 6 11.3 6.5 11.36 7 11.41 7.5 11.46 8 11.5 8.5

Unknown acid
14 12
pH of unknown acid

Unknown

10 8 6 4 2 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Volume NaOH

Calculations: Ka for the unknown is approximately 6.9E-5 because the equivalence point is between 2.5ml and 3ml NaOH, putting Ka at about 1.5ml of NaOH and the pH for the calculation of Ka at 4.16. 10^-4.16 is 6.9E-5. This Ka indicates that it is Benzoic acid with an accepted value for Ka of 6.3E-5. This gives a percent error of 9.52%. Because there were 20ml of unknown acid, and only 3ml of .1M NaOH were used to reach the equivalence point: (3ml * 0.1M)/20ml = 0.015M. For Acetic Acid, using the pH at 11ml of 4.73 give a Ka of 1.86E-5 and a percent error of 3.33%. (10^-4.73 = 1.86E-5). ((1.86E-5)-(1.8E-5))/(1.8E-5) = .0333 (100%) = 3.33% error. Conclusions: The Monoprotic acids were calculated to have arguably high percentages of error when comparing experimental and accepted values. Either the methods or materials could have contributed to these deviations. Using the known concentrations of NaOH and Acetic acid, the unknown's Ka, Identity, and molarity were found. Benzoic acid, the unknown, proved to be equally resistant to a change in pH as acetic acid. The ratio of the volume of NaOH used in titration over the concentrations of the monoprotic acids ended up being 1. ((3 ml/20ml)/(.015M/.1M) = 1. This indicates that an equally

concentrated benzoic acid solution could react at a similar rate to acetic acid in a future experiment. Acetic acid and Benzoic acid, as monprotic acids, produce the same amount of hydrogen protons to react with NaOH.