Experiment #28

The Copper Cycle

Lara El Said
CHEM 112-500
Experiment performed: March 29th 2015

Introduction

In this experiment a series of reactions involving copper were

performed in order to yield the copper cycle. Copper was used at the
beginning and then undergoes several reactions that recover the copper into
solid copper [3]. Therefore the experiment is a copper cycle since the
reaction starts with copper and ends up with also copper. The best yield is to
have the same amount of copper that the experiment started with which not
to have any copper lost or gained at the end of the experiment. By this, the
experiment would show the law of conservation of mass. Therefore the
percent yield, by using the mass of copper at the beginning and mass of the
copper at the end is calculated, in order to know how much copper was lost.
Tests were performed to test the reaction of copper with four different
compounds as well as the solubility of copper compounds. The properties of
coppers reaction was tested with four solutions which gave four different
copper compounds that are in the copper cycle which are: copper (II) nitrate,
copper (II) hydroxide, copper (II) oxide, and copper (II) sulfate based on the tests performed.
Some of the main techniques applied in this experiment were weighing the masses of copper,
heating the reactions, and filtering.

S
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HNO

Copper
Cycle
NaO

HS
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He
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Procedure
Figure
1: Copper
Cycle

The procedure of the experiment can be split into two parts. The first
part of the experiment was the preliminary tests part where Cu strips were
placed into 4 different test tube. Each test tube was filled with different
solutions. These solutions were 3 M HCl, 6 M NaOH, 6 M HNO3, and 2 M H2SO4.
These solutions were added to the Cu strips and the observations were
recorded. Four other test tubes were obtained but this time the tubes had
the copper salts: CuSO4, Cu(NO3)2, CuO and Cu(OH)2. These salts were used to test
the solubility of the compounds by dissolving these salts with about 10 mL of
distilled water and again observations were recorded.
The second part of the experiment was the copper cycle part. After
calculations were done it was found that 0.2 grams of copper should be placed in a 250 mL
beaker along with 2.1 mL of 6 M HNO3 should be poured into the beaker. After a reaction
between copper and HNO3 occurred, about 1.1 mL of 6 M NaOH was added to the Cu(NO)

solution. Then the solution was tested whether it is acidic or basic by using litmus
paper. Now the Cu(OH)2 solution was heated by using the hot plate stirrer until it started to

boil. Once it started to boil the reaction was put aside to cool down a bit. Then the solution was
filtered in a beaker by using a vacuum filtration in order to separate the solid Cu(O) from the
solution. When filtration was done, the solid Cu(O) that was on the filter paper was removed by
pouring about 1.6 mL of H2SO4 onto the filter paper under a beaker in order to get the CuSO4
solution in the beaker. At the end 0.2 grams of metallic zinc powder was added to the solution.
3M of HCl was added to the solution to avoid any excess of zinc. After the solution was filtered,
solid copper was extracted and weighed to compare it with the original amount of copper used.
[1]

Results
Preliminary Tests:
Metallic Copper
with:
HCl
HNO

Reaction
occurred
No
Yes

NaOH
HSO

No
No

Observations
Nothing
Turned warm, brown gas was formed,
bubbles were released, solution turned
into blue colour
Nothing
Nothing

When copper strips were placed with HCl, NaOH, HSO nothing was observed
therefore it was concluded that a reaction didnt occur, as for HNO there were
changes that occurred which shows that a reaction has occurred.

Solubility Tests:

CuSO
Cu(OH)
Cu(NO)

Soluble (turned into light blue

color)
Insoluble (Dark blue almost
black color)
Soluble (light blue in color)

Copper Cycle:
Procedural Setup

Color Observed

Comments and
Observations

Copper added to HNO

From colorless into

reddish brown
Solution became
dark blue
Color turned to
black
Color turned into
light blue
Turned green

NO gas as well as water

vapor were released
-

NaOH added
Heating solution
After filtering and addition of HSO
Zn was added

Bubbles formed when the

solution started to boil
Bubbles were released

During the copper cycle many reactions occurred and each reaction had
different colors observed at the end the collected mass of metallic copper
was 0.135 grams which shows that copper was lost but the percent yield we
had was 67.5%.

Discussion
All the results that were obtained in this experiment were predictable
according to the tests that were performed at the beginning. For example
when NaOH was added to copper it was predicted that the solution would be
Cu(OH) since a blue color of the solution appeared and that is true since
according to the preliminary tests the Cu(OH) solution turned into a dark

blue which was almost a black color. As for the HSO when added to the
filtered solution, Cu(SO) was obtained which also had a blue color but a light
blue color. All four reactions that are in the copper cycle occurred. The
copper cycle was proved according to the product that was produced which
was metallic copper.
For copper cycle to take place the reactant as well as the product of
the reaction should be copper. But since the percent yield was 100%
therefore the same amount of copper was not conserved instead there was a
67.5% yield [2]. Copper was lost, the reason might be because not all of the
reactions went to completion which have caused the reactions not to obtain
the theoretical amount of copper. If the reactions went to completion then
the percent yield would have been 100%. Some other sources of error were
that while filtration not all copper were filtered or weighing the copper or zinc
accurately. But at the end of the experiment the copper cycle was proved
since we started with copper and ended up with copper.
When HNO, NaOH, Zn were added reaction occurred and changed the
colors of the solution as stated in the results part as well as when filtration
occurred and heating the reaction. All of these actions had to do with
reacting with copper which was extracted at the end.

Conclusion

The objective of this experiment was fulfilled in this experiment since

the copper cycle was proved, by starting with copper and finishing the
experiment with the product copper. According to Figure2. It is shown that
reactions occurred with the solutions Cu(NO), Cu(OH), and CuSO to end
up with the metallic copper product. But the copper wasnt completely
retrieved as mentioned before due to some error such as filtration or even
the equilibrium error as mentioned before the reaction doesnt go to

completion.

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H
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Copper
Cycle

Figure 2: Reactions involved in the

copper cycle

Work Cited:
[1] The Copper Cycle Experiment - A Series of Reactions. Retrieved April 5, 2015, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyrne4AFOvY
[2] Conservation of mass: A cycle of copper reactions. (n.d.). Retrieved April 5, 2015, from
http://archives.evergreen.edu/webpages/curricular/2000-2001/genchem2001/copperlab.html

[3] Copper Cycle. Austin Peay State University Department of Chemistry. Retrieved April 5, 2015,
from
https://www.apsu.edu/files/chemistry/COPPER_CYCLE_S10.pdf