Making da salts

For our last experiment for the Acids and Bases, we are going to be making salts.

Aim: 
To produce copper sulfate salt by reacting copper oxide with an acid.

Equipment:

•  Copper oxide powder
•  Dilute sulfuric acid
• 50ml measuring cylinder 
• 2 100mL beakers 
• Bunsen burner
• Tripod
• Gauze mat 
• Funnel
• Filter paper
• Thermometer
• Spatula 
• Evaporating Basin
• Stirring rod

Method:
1. Add 20mL of Sulfuric acid to a 100mL beaker. Heat the acid until it reaches 70degrees celsius. Turn off your bunsen burner. 

2. Once heated, use a spatula to add a pea-sized portion of copper oxide to the beaker. Stir the mixture for 30seconds. 

3. Repeat step 2 until no more will dissolve. Allow beaker to cool.

4. Fold the filter paper and place it into the funnel. Place the filter funnel into the second beaker. 

5. Make sure the beaker is cool enough to hold at the top. The contents should still be hot. 

6. Gently swirl the contents of the beaker to mix and then pour into the filter paper in the funnel. Allow filtering through. 

7. Rinse the beaker you used to heat the mixture previously, and place it back to the top of the tripod filled with 50-60mLs of water. 

8. Place the evaporating basin on top of the beaker and carefully pour some of the solutions from the beaker into the evaporating basin. 

9. Gently heat the beaker until the solution in the evaporating basin has reduced by half.

10. Leave the evaporating basin to cool, once cool, move the evaporating basin to a warm place where it will not be disturbed, and observe over the next few days. Blue copper Sulfate crystals should form. 

Results:
We were able to create the kinda create the salt we desired.  Our experiment was destroyed by another classes student, this is the results of their experiment. 

However, on Monday this should be redone with the experiment that is being recreated. 

Discussion:

During the experiment, we were able to recreate the original. The acid in the sulfuric acid was combined with the copper oxide powder and triggered a chemical reaction which created the copper sulfate salt. While in the earlier parts in the experiment, if you did it yourself, you would have noticed that it was a complete liquid until when you next checked up on it after some time. By when you looked at it, it would have crystalized. This is simply because after evaporating the water molecules only the copper sulfate salt was left.

Conclusion:

We don't currently have a conclusion of whether the experiment worked or not. However, we can report that we followed all the instructions to a tee. This post and my other classmates will be later on updated with the results of the experiments.