C105 Analysis of Bleach Post-Lab

Write your answers to these in a new Word document. Include a heading with your name, date, and
section number at the top of the page. Number your answers with the corresponding question number.
Save your document as a PDF and upload to Blackboard in the Pre-lab assignment area for this
experiment.

Don’t re-write the questions when you go to answer these. Just make sure your answers have numbers
that match up to the original questions’ numbers.

Calculations
1. Perform the calculations needed to determine the concentration of your sodium thiosulfate
solution. You will do this three times (once for each “good” set of data you collected) and you
must show your work for the first set of calculations you perform. Use Word’s equation editor;
you can’t hand-write your calculations and attach a picture of them.

2. Average the three sodium thiosulfate concentrations you just calculated. Use this average
thiosulfate concentration when you perform your next calculation(s).

3. Perform the calculations needed to determine the mass percent sodium hypochlorite in the
bleach you analyzed. You will do this three times (once for each “good” set of data you collected)
and you must show your work for the first set of calculations you perform. Use Word’s equation
editor; you can’t hand-write your calculations and attach a picture of them.

4. Average the mass percents you just calculated and calculate their standard deviation.

5. Calculate the range your standard deviation falls around the average.

Discussion
1. Write a brief summary of your experiment. As part of this, you have to describe:

a. What you were (or would have been) trying to accomplish

b. What your experimental approach was (or how you would have done it)

2. Compare your calculated sodium hypochlorite concentration to the concentration on a bottle of

commercial bleach (look on the label on a bottle you have around the house, or search for one
online). Are they significantly different?

3. A good piece of advice you may have heard about cleaning products is that you should never mix
them. This is because, if you mix the wrong ones, something bad will happen. You can probably
guess (from the topic of this lab) that one of the “wrong” ones is bleach. What is the other? What
will happen if you mix them?

4. Chlorine bleach can ruin the dyes added to fabrics and make them lose their color. How does it do
this (what reaction does it perform with them)?

Lecture Callback
Earlier this semester, you learned something about the different kinds of reactions that can occur,
including ones that involve a transfer of electrons from one thing to another. If you don’t remember,
see the notes from lecture 10 (7 February).

1. The part of the lab in which you titrated the bleach involved two reactions. Describe both of these
reactions. Include how the oxidation state of iodine/iodide changes in them and how you know
(other than “the text said so”).