Chemistry

Internal Assessment (IA)

Experiment-5

RQ:
To what extent does the change in concentration of
Na2S2O3 will effect the rate of reaction when Na2S2O3 is
reacted with hydrochloric acid at a constant concentration
of HCl.

Introduction:
In this I did three trials for every concentration of Na2S2O3
solution, in total I did 15 trials. In this experiment I used
two chemicals Sodium thiosulphate (Na2S2O3) and
Hydrochloric acid (HCl). Also the apparatus which I used in
this experiment were a burette, funnel, conical flask, two
beakers, pipette, measuring cylinder, stop watch, and a
paper with an X mark on it, I also used distilled water
which was a crucial part of the experiment. So when I
started the experiment some parts of the experiment were
a bit challenging, like first problem which I faced was that
pouring the required amount of Na2S2O3 solution in the
burette till the 0cm3 mark till its lower meniscus, because
in the first time you cannot fill it accurately. Then I faced a
problem of taking the acid(HCl) solution in the pipette
because it’s not easy to take the solution in the pipette and
then take that filled pipette to a conical flask and pour that
liquid in it because if you don’t do it carefully the liquid
might spill out. Then after doing three trials for a particular
concentration of Na2S2O3 solution I moved for the next
trial, increasing the concentration of Na2S2O3 solution.
During this another problem arise, which was to take the
required amount of Na2S2O3 solution from the burette to
the conical flask because it exactly be stopped when it
lower meniscus touches the reading not the upper
meniscus and if one drop extra is added to the conical flask
the rate of reaction would be affected for that trial.
However, still apart from these quite a few difficulties it
helped me build up my knowledge about this topic and
solved all my problems and questions about the
concentration and it’s effect on the rate of reaction.

Background Information:
Rate of reaction is the speed at which a chemical reaction
proceeds. It is often expressed in terms of either the
concentration (amount per unit volume) of a product that
is formed in a unit of time or the concentration of a
reactant that is consumed in a unit of time. So it is defined
as, the amounts of the reactants consumed or products
formed in a unit of time. So if more reactants or products
are consumed or produced in a less amount of time than
the rate of reaction is said to be fast. There are number of
factors which affects the rate of reaction like temperature
of solution, surface area of the system (the place where
the reaction is taking place), pressure, concentration etc.
Moreover their are number of methods which are used in
determining the rate of reaction such as unit of
K(constant), initial rate, integrated rate law, half life etc.

Variables:
1)Independent- Concentration of sodium thiosulphate.

2)Dependent- Sodium Thiosulphate (Na2S2O3) solution.

3)Controlled- Hydrochloric Acid (HCL).

4)Uncontrolled- Temperature

Apparatus list:
1)Burette
2)Pipette

3)Pipette pump

4)Funnel

5)Stop watch- This apparatus was used to record the

time in each trial, to know that how much time it
takes for the X mark to completely get invisible, hence
the time it takes for the reaction to get completed.

6) Beaker (25ml and 250ml) - This apparatus comes in

many different sizes each one holding a different
amount of quantity. The range of beakers starts from
the smallest 25ml to the largest 2000ml. The inventor
or maker of beaker is Jöns Jacob Berzeliu. He is also
known to be the founder of modern chemistry. Every
beaker has their own uncertainty depending on their
 size so the beaker which is most commonly used
250ml beaker has an uncertainty of 2.5ml.

8) Measuring Cylinder- measuring cylinder, also known as

graduated cylinder or mixing cylinder is common
laboratory apparatus used to measure the volume of a
liquid. In this case the measuring cylinder was used to
measure the volume of distilled water which we added in
the Na2S2O3 solution.

Chemical list:
1)Sodium Thiosulphate (Na2S2O3)- Sodium
thiosulphate is an inorganic sodium salt composed
of sodium and thiosulphate ions in a 2:1 ratio. It has a
role as an antidote to cyanide poisoning, a
nephroprotective agent and an anti-fungal drug.

2)Hydrochloric acid (HCl)- The quantity of hydrochloric

acid was also not fixed when taken. But in the
experiment 20ml of it was poured in the conical flask.
3) Distilled water

Safety Precautions:
Always wear safety goggles and a lab apron to protect your
eyes and clothing. If you get a chemical in your eyes,
immediately flush the chemical out at the eyewash station
while calling to your teacher. Know the location of the
emergency lab shower and the eyewash station and the
procedure for using them. Do not touch any chemicals. If
you get a chemical on your skin or clothing, wash the
chemical off at the sink while calling to your teacher. Make
sure you carefully read the labels and follow the
precautions on all containers of chemicals that you use. If
there are no precautions stated on the label, ask your
teacher what precautions you should follow. Do not taste
any chemicals or items used in the laboratory. Never
return leftovers to their original containers; take only small
amounts to avoid wasting supplies. Call your teacher in the
event of a spill. Spills should be cleaned up promptly,
according to your teacher’s directions. Never put broken
glass into a regular waste container. Broken glass should
be disposed of properly.
Methodology:
First I collected all my apparatus, required to conduct the
experiment, then I started off with the experiment by
firstly washing my all apparatus with distilled water and
the properly cleaning them with a cloth. Then I filled the
burette with Na2S2O3 solution, which was kept in a 500ml
beaker, by keeping a funnel on the top opening of the
burette, then I observed the level of solution in the burette
to see that the lower meniscus is till the zero mark of the
burette not the upper meniscus, avoiding the parallax
error. Now because my first three trials were for the
lowest concentration of Na2S2O3 solution I poured 10 ml of
Na2S2O3 solution in a conical flask from a burette and then I
took a measuring cylinder and by using that I poured 40ml
of distilled water in the conical flask containing Na2S2O3
solution so that the total volume of solution in ml becomes
50ml. Then I used a pipette to add 10ml of HCl solution in
the flask, making sure that the acid does not touch the
walls of the flask. After adding the HCl solution I started
the stop watch without making any delays. I shaked the
contents in the conical flask and placed it on the white
coloured sheet of paper with an X mark on it in black
colour. Then I watched the conical flask from the top
opening of it. Then as the X mark goes completely invisible
I stoped the stop watch and noted down the reading in a
data table. Then I cleaned the conical flask with distilled
water and cloth for the next trial, then I repeated this for
two more times. After doing all the three trials with the
10ml Na2S2O3 solution, I repeated the experiment but this
time taking 20ml of Na2S2O3 solution and 30ml of distilled
water and did three trials with that keeping the amount of
HCl same as before 10ml. After this I again did three more
trials with 30ml of Na2S2O3 solution and 20ml of distilled
water in the conical flask with same 10ml of HCl. Then the
fourth time with 40ml of Na2S2O3 solution and 10ml of
distilled water and 10ml of HCl, and then in the last
experiment I only took 50ml of Na2S2O3 solution and 10ml
of HCl, in this I didn’t added the distilled water as the
solution of Na2S2O3 is already 50ml. After completing my
experiment and making a raw data table including all the
15 readings (time in minutes and seconds, conc. of Na2S2O3
solution, volume in ml of Na2S2O3 solution etc.) I made
another data table consisting the conc. of Na2S2O3
solution/M and average of all the three timings, taken for
each concentration, in seconds. Then using the data table
and its values I plotted a graph taking conc. of Na2S2O3
solution on the x-axis and all the timings calculated in the
second data table on the y-axis.
Data Collection and Analysis:

Raw Data Tables-

Table 1-

Conc. of HCl/ml Na2S2O3/ Distille Time/m Trial

Na2S2O3 ml d in:sec
solution water/
ml
10 10 40 4:15 1
0.02M 10 10 40 4:20 2
10 10 40 4:32 3
10 20 30 1:59 1
0.04M 10 20 30 2:02 2
10 20 30 2:00 3
10 30 20 1:06 1
 Conc. of HCl/ml Na2S2O3/ Distille Time/m Trial
Na2S2O3 ml d in:sec
solution water/
ml
10 30 20 1:05 2
0.06M 10 30 20 1:14 3
10 40 10 0:46 1
0.08M
10 40 10 0:46 2
10 40 10 0:50 3
10 50 0 0:37 1
0.10M 10 50 0 0:35 2
10 50 0 0:36 3

Table 2-

Conc. of Na2S2O3 solution 1/t (s^-1) a

0.02 3.81*10^-3
0.04 8.31*10^-3
0.06 14.6*10^-3
0.08 21.1*10^-3
0.10 27.7*10^-3
Graphical Analysis-

Limitations and Improvements-

The readings which are noted down in the table could be
improved by taking HCl solution in the 10ml pipette up till
the marking shown on it, avoiding the parallax error, to
make it more precise. Also the reading could have been
more accurate if the burette could be closed at the perfect
point when the required amount of Na2S2O3 solution
comes in the conical flask observing the solution from the
lower meniscus, avoiding the parallax error, because if one
drop extra or less than one drop falls in the conical flask
than it can cause a major affect in the final reading.
Moreover, while observing the visibility of the ‘X’ mark the
stop watch could have been stopped at the perfect timing
when the mark goes completely invisible, not one second
after that or before that. Keeping the room temperature
constant and the temperature of the solutions same is also
an important factor because like concentration
temperature is also a factor that affects temperature so if
we don’t take that measure in account then the
experiment and the readings obtained might go wrong as
because then their will be two variables (concentration
and temperature) so to avoid that error temperature
should be kept constant throughout the experiment.

Conclusion-
At last I would say that this experiment helped me allot in
clearing up and improving my concepts on the topic rate of
reaction and how it is affected with the change in
temperature. By doing this practical on rate of reaction I
got both a theoretical approach and a practical approach
on this topic and it helped me solve all my problems and
also answered all my questions on this topic, like what
measures should be taken to calculate the rate of reaction,
in both ways practically and theoretically. And as it was a
long experiment it also helped me in improving my speed
of doing the experiment.