Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Chemistry Lab Write-Up

The purpose of the lab was to find the identity of an unknown metal by using a calculated density and matching it to a known value. We accomplished this by measuring the volume of the metal and finding its mass. Since it was a cube, we cubed its side to find the volume.
We took our sample of metal and measured its side to be 7.42cm. This means that the volume of the cube was 408.5cm^3. We used a triple beam balance to find the mass to be 1103.g. After we did the multiplication, we found the density to be 2.70g/mL which matched the density of aluminum.

After we added 3 drops of solution A to solution B, we witnessed a drastic color change from clear to pink, meaning that a reaction had taken place. Because our calculated density matched that of aluminum, we determined the identity of the unknown metal to be aluminum.

Personally, I thought the lab was fun and very interesting. I had no knowledge of this before the lab, and I was happy to be a part of it. I can't wait for the next lab!