Calcium Carbonate Lab Report

The objective of this lab is to is to make 5.00 grams of calcium carbonate. In order to
accomplish the objective, we chose to use calcium chloride and sodium carbonate. We used these
reactants to perform this double displacement reaction: CaCl2 (aq) + Na2CO3 (aq) = CaCO3 (s) +
2NaCl (aq). Sadly we didn’t achieve the attended results in this lab

Calcium chloride, 5.54 g, was added to a beaker and dissolved in 25.00 mL of water.
Then sodium carbonate, 5.29 g, was added to a beaker and dissolved in 25.00 mL of water.
When this was completed the two solutions were combined into one beaker and left to react over
the weekend. After the weekend the solution was filtered, using a vacuum filtration method, to
extract the calcium carbonate, which was left out in a weigh boat (0.18g) to dry overnight. The
next day the calcium carbonate was weighed to see is the objective was accomplished. It was
found to weigh 3.91g and after subtracting the weight of the weigh boat it was found to weigh
3.73g.

Data

1 2 3

Measurements Calculations (for work Observations

see attached sheet
paper)

a 25 mL of water (2x) Need 5.54g calcium Calcium chloride

chloride looks like a white
powder

b 5.54g calcium chloride Need 5.29g sodium Sodium carbonate

carbonate looks like a salt

c 5.29g sodium carbonate 3.73g CaCo3 Calcium carbonate

is very clay like
when wet

d Weigh boat .18g 75% yield Calcium carbonate

us very powdery
when dry

e 3.91g CaCo3 + weigh 1.27g too little CaCo3

boat

f
In conclusion, we began this lab with the objective to make 5.00 grams of calcium carbonate. We
used calcium chloride and sodium carbonate to achieve this. Sadly, our objective was not met
and we made the only 3.73g of calcium carbonate. This was 1.27g short of our goal. Next time
we would use a little extra of each reactant instead of exactly enough. This would eliminate the
threat of human error or the reactants/precipitate reacting with the environment. It would do this
by making more than enough, that way we would be guaranteed enough to meet the objective.