On the wednesday that just passed, we did a lab regarding a flame test of 2 reactants and the substance that is created when they are mixed. These 2 reactants were: Strontium Chloride and Sodium Carbonate.
What was the purpose of this lab:
The purpose was to observe chemicals being created by a chemical reaction and hypothesize what the resulting products will be.
Procedure:
The first thing that we did was gather all our required equipment and make sure that we have everything that we need. Following that, we started to get our reactants by pouring them into a graduated cylinder at 10 ml. At the start of this lab, it was originally 25 ml but it was changed to 10 ml. These were not the original reactants that we were going to use, it changed before the lab started by Ms. Yorke.
Equipment used in the lab ( Excluding Bunsen Burner)
Next step was to mix these 2 reactants with one another where we ended up with a white cloudy and powdery substance in the small beaker. Following the instructions, we poured this substance through a paper filter that would catch all the powder from the substance for the next part of the lab.
We then went over to our Bunsen burner to conduct flame tests involving all this substances and to observe the final results. For this part, we were going to use wooden sticks soaked in the substances but we changed that to inoculation loops because its not as flammable or dangerous. I personally wouldn’t give students any flammable objects for obvious reason but hey, if its fun, its worth it.
Flame tests/ Flame test results
Probably the most interesting part of the project because burning things is always fun. I swear I am not a pyromaniac. Anyways, we started off by burning the separate reactants by themselves, in this case we burned the Sodium Carbonate and then the Strontium Chloride. Both were in a powder like form. After which we burned the powdery substance that we had created from mixing them both and logged what colors the flames were. Strontium Chloride was a red color , Sodium Carbonate and the unknown substance were both orange. After that, we can deduce that the unknown substance possibly has more Sodium than Strontium, hence the color Orange instead of Red.
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Sodium Carbonate===========Strontium Chloride==========Unknown Substance from mix
We saw that both the powder and the Sodium Carbonate had burned Orange, however, the Strontium Chloride burned Red which was a very interesting sight to see. The reason I believe it burned red was because Strontium is much more reactive with water and air than the other substances because of how far down it is in the Akali Earth metals so when it was exposed to the flame, we saw its reactivity. As for the other 2 , I stated before what we can deduce from the results to determine something about our unknown substance.
Mixing of solutions results
Going back in time to earlier in this post where when I mentioned the 2 reactants that we were using, I am going to talk about the proprieties that were in both of the reactants. I am also going to compare them.
Reactant A SrCl2: This is was Strontium Chloride
Color: None
Form: Liquid
Transparent?: Yes
Reactant B NaCO3 : This was Sodium Carbonate
Color: None
Form: Liquid
Transparent?: Yes
They basically are the same in this situation but obviously there are different elements involved in each one.
Observations when mixing
After mixing both the substances together, we created a very cloudy or powdery substance as the reactant comes in contact with the other. We created one new property so we can say that this is evident that there was a chemical change because we ended up with something that wasn’t there in the first place.
Analysis
To elaborate EVEN FURTHER, yes I know there is a lot of elaborating on this but its the simplest way to learn so just bear with me here. The substance that we made from the 2 different reactants was a powdery substance and we filtered the powder out via filter. Based on our flame results and tests, I feel confident saying that the unknown substance was mostly just Sodium because of the fact that Sodium on its own makes a orange flame and the Unknown Substance did the exact same thing. We can see that they both have similar properties so I think its safe to say that the Unknown Substance was Sodium.
For the liquid that came through the filter, there is a chance that it could be chlorine because of one, the small and two, I feel that the Chlorine is the stronger substance and that there is more chlorine than there is Carbonate therefore the liquid result from the filter should just be Chlorine.
The moment the substances got in contact with each other, we can see that it mixed very quickly inferring that all the particles and elements got thrown around there being mixed up. Based on that there could be a chance that maybe Strontium Chloride Became Strontium Carbonate and Sodium Carbonate became Sodium Chloride.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think we did fulfill the purpose of the lab by observing and documenting what we saw and deducing our own ideas and thoughts based on the experience. I am going to make an educated hypothesis by saying I believe the powder that was made is (Na) Sodium and that the liquid that came out in the end from that was (Cl) Chlorine based on the evidence.
I really enjoyed this lab. I found it super interesting because we got to feel like real scientists doing an experiment to find out something that we never even knew could happen. For me at least it was a load of new concepts and experiences that I haven’t done before at all. I look forward to our next lab!
