Creating Solutions of Standard Molarity Bradley Barbee Chem 1251-013 October 4, 2013

Introduction
In this experiment, solid copper sulfate pentahydrate was used to create solutions of standard molarity. Standard solutions are solutions where you know the amount of a certain thing that is in a solution. This is helpful in the sense that certain other experiments need a certain concentration of a solution that may not come stock to be bought. Being able to standardize a solution is how to find these concentrations. A spec 20 was used to find the absorptivity of the Cu2+ ions. From that, the Beer-Lambert law could be used to determine the concentration of a solution with an unknown concentration. Concentration is a property that describes the ratio of one substance to another. Things with higher concentrations have a large amount of solute, or dissolved substance, in the solvent, the dissolving substance. In this experiment, molarity is used to measure concentration. Molarity is the number of moles of solute per liter of solution.

Procedure
First, the maximum absorbance wavelength was found using distilled water and the .200M solution. After cleaning ten test tubes, the spec 20 was calibrated by closing the empty well and setting the percent transmittance to 0 with the left adjustment knob while the wavelength was set to 580nm. Then, after placing a blank (distilled water) inside of a clean test tube into the well the pointer was set to 100 percent transmittance using the right adjustment knob. Another test tube was then used to find the maximum absorbance wavelength. The test tube was filled with .200M CuSO4 and the percent transmittance was recorded with the

wavelength set to 580nm, then 590nm, and last 600nm. Then the absorbance was found for each of the three recorded transmittances. Next, the absorbance was found for the standard copper solutions. The spec 20 was set to the maximum absorbance wavelength. Four test tubes were filled with .500 M, .200M, .100M and .050M CuSO4 standard solutions. Each of the four test tubes were then placed into the spec 20 to measure their percent transmittance. The calibration curve was then created by plotted the concentrations (x-axis) versus the absorbance values (y- axis). Finally, solutions were created from a solid copper sulfate pentahydrate. 20.0 mL of a .500M solution was made from a calculated amount of the solid. The water was then added to the solid and mixed until it had all dissolved. After that, the 20.0mL solution was diluted by putting a calculated amount of the solution in a beaker and adding water until it reached 20.0mL. This was done to create .200M, .100M, and .050M solutions. Then an unknown concentration of CuSO4 was collected and the percent transmittance of this was recorded for the unknown.

Results and Discussion

To find the maximum absorbance wavelength, the absorbance had to be calculated from the percent transmittance shown in Eq. 1 (1) = From Eq. 1 the absorbance (A) was found from the negative log of the percent transmittance (T). The data obtained by Eq. 1 can be found in Table 1 and Table 2.

Table 1 M (mol/L) Wavelength, (nm) % Transmittance Maximum Absorbance (A) .2 .2 .2 580 590 600 71 66 61 .149 .180 .215

Table 2 Concentration of Standards (M) .05 .1 .2 .5 90 80 61 35 .046 .097 .215 .456 %T Absorbance

Using the data from table 2, a graph was created in figure 1. Figure 1

Absorbance of Standard Solutions

0.5

Absorbance

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 y = 0.9028x + 0.0117 R = 0.9929

Concentration

This graph shows that the relation of absorbance and concentration are linear. Next the amount of solid copper sulfate needed to create a .5M solution that is 20mL was found using the molarity equation, Eq. 2 and multiplying the moles needed by the molar mass of copper sulfate pentahydrate. (2) =

or =

In this equation, mol is the number of moles of solute, L is the liters of solution, and M is the molarity. Then using Eq. 3, the .5M solution was diluted to make 20mL of .2M, .1M, and .05M solutions. (3) 1 1 = 2 2 In Eq. 3, 1 is the molarity of the first solution, 1 is the volume of the first solution, 2 is the molarity of the second solution, and 2 is the volume of the second solution. From these solutions, a table was created shown as table 3. Table 3 Concentrations of Made Solutions .05 .1 .2 .5 95 83 65 37 .022 .081 .187 .423 %T Absorbance

Using the absorbances found in table three, the actual concentrations were found using the equation of the line of best fit found in figure 1 and plugging in the values to Beers Law.

The equation of a line is shown as Eq. 4 and Beers Law as Eq. 5 with the actual concentrations in table 4. (4) = + (5) = In Eq. 4, m is the slope, b is the y-intercept, and x and y are variables. In Eq. 5, A is absorbance, epsilon is the molar absorptivity, l is the path length, and c is the concentration of the compound in solution. So Beers law was plugged into the Eq. 4 making y=A, Epsilon and l= the slope (m), and c=x. (The b is not included because the intercept is at the origin.) Table 4 Concentrations of the Made Solutions (M) .05 .1 .2 .5 .022 .081 .187 .432 .024 .09 .21 .48 Absorbance Actual Concentration

The unknowns concentration was then found from its absorbance using Eq. 4 and Eq. 5 shown in table 5. Table 5 Solution Unknown %T 53 Absorbance .276 Concentration (M) .31

Lastly, percent error of the made solutions concentrations and absorbances were found using Eq. 6. and put it tables 6 and 7. (6) % = Table 6 Solution # 1 2 3 4 Concentration of Standard Solution .05 .1 .2 .5 Concentration of Made Solution .024 .09 .21 .48 108.33 11.11 4.76 4.17 %Error
| |

100%

Table 7 Solution # Absorbance of Standard Solution 1 2 3 4 .046 .097 .215 .456 .022 .081 .187 .432 109.1 19.75 14.97 5.56 Absorbance of Made Solution %Error

Conclusion
Creating the solutions to have an exact concentration turned out to be less simple than expected. The percent error for both the absorbance and concentration started out to be small when making the solutions, but exponentially became more skewed as the solutions were diluted. The initial .5M solution that was made had only a 5% error, but once the solution was diluted more, the error surpassed 100% with the final .05M solution. This shows us that the accuracy of this technique becomes more unreliable as you create more compounded dilutions. Some of these errors may have come from the following: reading the spec 20 incorrectly, not calibrating the spec 20, using the wrong amount of solute or solvent, not mixing the solute enough, or possibly not cleaning the test tubes properly before putting the solution in them or putting the test tubes in the spec 20. Although the error of this experiment was large, it did show that the absorbance and the concentration are directly related. The errors of both the concentration and absorbance started around five percent and ended around 110 percent.

Sample Calculations
(1) A=-log T A=-log(.9) A=.046 (2) M=mol/L M*L=mol mol= .5(mol/L) * .020(L) mol=.01 (3) 1 1 = 2 2 .5(M)* 1 = .2(M)*.020(L) 1 = (.2(M)*.020(L))/.5(M) 1 = .008(L) (4) & (5) y(A)=m()*x(c) + b(0) .187=.9028*c .187/.9028=c c= .21 (6) % =
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100%

%error = (|(.2-.21)|/.21)/.21 *100% %error = 4.76%