Lab report

Determination of calcium carbonate in an eggshell

Experiment done in 2/11/2020

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 Purpose: Determine the amount of calcium carbonate CaCO3 present in 0.6 grams of
eggshell
Background:
Eggshells and calcium carbonate
Eggshells are made almost entirely of calcium carbonate, with a large percentage of around
94%. Present more than other molecules that make up an eggshell including phosphorus, magnesium,
sodium, potassium, zinc, manganese, iron and copper [1].

calcium carbonate also known as calcite is found in chalk, eggs, snails, pearls and even in
humans. Calcite is also present in pharmacies as a dietary supplement for when calcium intake isn't
enough. The chemical formula for calcium carbonate is CaCO 3 and is neither an acid nor a base but a salt.

Acids and bases

Acids and bases are compounds identified by the ions formed when the compound in added to
water. If H+ ions are formed then it’s an acid, if OH - increases then it’s basic. A reaction of an acid and
base produces a salt and water. How basic is a compound or its acidity is shown on a scale called the pH
scale. Figure [1] shows different solutions on the pH scale.

Figure 1: pH scale

[1] https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vm013

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Titration
Titration is determining the amount of acid or base in a solution through determining what volume is
exactly going to completely react with this solution. The point we call neutralization put or the
equivalence point is where the added base is just enough to neutralize the acid in the flask. This can be
recognized using an indicator that changes in color when it reaches this point. The color differs
depending on the indicator.

Phenolphthalein is an indicator usually used in acid base titrations; its chemical formula is C 20H14O4. It’s
colorless in acidic solutions but pink in basic solutions.

Stoichiometry
Equation [1] is the balanced equation we’ll be using to find the amount of CaCO 3 present in 0.6 grams of
eggshell through titration.

CaCO3 + 2HCl ------> CaCl2 + H2O equation [1]

Equation [2] shows the relation of mass, molar mass and moles

Moles x Molar Mass = Moles equation [2]

Equation [3] shows the conversion of dm to ml

Volume dm3 x 1000 = Volume ml3 (or cm3) equation [3]

Equation [4] shows the relation of concentration, volume and moles

N=CV equation [4]

NaOH and HCL

sodium hydroxide is an inorganic compound solid and white but usually dissolved in water for safety
purposes. Concentration NaOH can cause very serious injuries to tissues, a small amount meeting eye
lids can cause sight difficulties and even permanent blindness

Hydrochloric acid is a colorless inorganic compound and is similarly dangerous to NaOH usually present
in liquid form but can exist as gas, where an inhalation of a large amount can lead to serious injury or
death. It too completely dissociates in an aqueous solution.

Safety:
 Didn’t allow acids or bases to come in contact with skin or eyes
 Peeled of the egg carefully to prevent cuts
 Made sure the stand was stable and the burette was fixed to prevent glass breaks and potential
injuries
 Wore lab coat to prevent solution from coming in contact with skin and keep cloths clean
 Dissolved the NaOH in water to lower the risk and extent of injury

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Materials:
 Burette (adjust to zero)
 Clamp stand and burette stand
 White tile or fine
 10cm3 bulb pipette
 Pipette filter
 100cm3 conical flask
 More than 0.6 grams of eggshell
 Mortal and pistol to crush
 Known concertation of sodium hydroxide (0.10mol dm -3)
 Phenolphthalein indicator
 Distilled water
 20mL of hydrochloric acid

Procedure:

 Rinsed all equipment with distilled water

 Peeled of the eggshell off the egg and made sure the organic membrane between the shell and
the egg was not included
 Crushed the eggshell into a fine powder
 Weighted the powder's mass to be as close to 0.6 grams as possible
 Prepared 20ml of HCL (you can change to molar value by x mol dm -3 )
 Transferred this amount (value of HCL) into a flask of volume 100ml and removed 10ml using a
pipette and placed it in another flask preparing for titration
 Fixed the burette on the stand, filled it with the known concentration of NaOH and adjusted to
zero
 Calculated a rough trial of the titration by running the sodium hydroxide into the flask until the
solution changed (and stayed) light pink and then recorded the final volume
 Repeated the titration for 3 trials now pouring the solution until it’s close to the volume of the
rough trial and then poured drop by drop to measure an accurate titration
 Found the average value of final volume from these three measurements which is the amount
of calcium carbonate in eggshell excluding the rough trial

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Data:
Mass of eggshell is 0.604±0.05 uncertainty [1] page 5

Indicator used is phenolphthalein indicator

Molar mass of CaCO3 is 100.1g/mol

Base added during titration is NaOH 0.10M

Acid in the flask is HCL (20mL)

My hypothesis:
The calculated amount of calcium carbonate would be less than the amount actually present in the
eggshell since the calculation assumes that the entire 0.604 grams of eggshell are only made of CaCO 3
while in reality an egg is made of other organic materials.

Data and Analysis:

Uncertainty [1] page 5
The uncertainty of the mass of the eggshell

When weighing the eggshell, we need to consider the uncertainty of weighing scale which for a ±0.05g
alone is excess but we also need to consider the error of the weighted mass not being 100% pure
eggshell. A small amount of the organic layer was maybe present in the pile of eggshell we peeled due
to random error. Another factor is that the egg wasn’t dry so it wasn’t clear to the peeler to make sure
none of the organic layer was stuck to the inner-shell resulting in a small amount of organic membrane
being present in the weighted mass. Concluding to the systematic error of the weighing scale and the
random error of the peeler, which is why an uncertainty of ±0.05g was provided.

Calcualtions of uncertainty [1]

Absolute error = ±0.05g

fractional error = 0.05 ÷ 0.604 = 0.082781

Percentage error = 0.082781 x 100 = 8.27%

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Uncertainty [2] page 7
The uncertainty of titration

The measurements in the table aren’t 100% accurate, there are can be many errors including human
errors from reading the measurements mistakenly or having the solution under-titrated or over titrated
in addition to the systematic error in the burette, but all these errors combined might affect the
numerical value by two decimal point at maximum, we can write this as ±0.05cm 3 which is very extreme
but there to cover all the systematic and random errors mentioned.

Calculation of uncertainty [2]

Absolute error is ±0.05g (0.2g ÷ 4 is still 0.05g)

Fractional error is 0.05 ÷ 9.2833 = 0.17649

Percentage error is 0.17649 x 100 = 17.649%

Uncertainty [3] page 8

The uncertainty of materials of eggshell

Don't confuse this with uncertainty [2], this talks about the molecular composition of the egg while in [2]
we talked about peeling some of the organic material with the eggshell

An eggshell is made of 94% calcium carbonate so we expect the final volume to be 6% more than the
calculated final volume. for more info go to page 8

Calculated volume was 8.2 x 0.06 + 8.2 = 8.692mL rounded up to 9mL

The 94% is a general value for eggs, but it depends on many factors like the species of chicken and what
it eats, the egg used here is a white egg which generally has more calcium, another point is that some
eggshell was lost in the process of crushing and there were bubbles forming in the burette which caused
the final volume to increase. Due to all these factors, we’ll round up the value up to 9mL since all these
uncertainties cause values in to increase (not definitely but probably)

Calculations of uncertainty [3]

Absolute error is ± 0.308mL

Fractional error is ±0.0354

Percentage error is +3.54%

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Experimental Results:
The following table represents the 4 different trials taken, all numerical values are in cm3, the final
volume is the added base (NaOH) when the equivalent point was reached, there might be some errors
and uncertainties limited to ±0.05cm3 uncertainty [2] page 6 but mainly the measurement tends towards
the original value written in the table.

Runs Initial Volume Final Volume Titre

Rough 0 9.50 cm3 ±0.05cm3 10cm3 ±0.05cm3
Trial 1 0 9.25 cm3 ±0.05cm3 10cm3 ±0.05cm3
Trial 2 0 9.30 cm3 ±0.05cm3 10cm3 ±0.05cm3
Trial 3 0 9.30 cm3 ±0.05cm3 10cm3 ±0.05cm3

Table 1: titration results

Now that we have 3 accurate measures, we can add them and get the average so

(Accurate 1 + Accurate 2 + Accurate 3) ÷ 3= 9.2833±0.5cm3

This simply means that we need this amount of Sodium hydroxide (=0.1 M) to completely react with
hydrochloric acid

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Analysis:
We are assuming that the 0.6g eggshell is made of calcium carbonate. Our analyst (the one in the flask
during titration) is hydrochloric acid which is 20mL so we can write the chemical relation of these two
reactants by

CaCO3 (S) + 2HCL (aq) -----> CaCl2 + CO2 (g) (after balancing)

Now that we have the mass of CaCO3 and a balanced chemical equation we can use stoichiometry to find
the excess reactant and its molar amount

0.6g ÷ 101.1gmol-1 = 0.0059mol of CaCO3 using equation [2] to find the number of moles of CaCO 3

20ml x 1mol dm-3 = 0.02mol of HCL which is in excess using equation [3]

HCL is available in excess since 0.02 is more than 0.0059

Given the molar ratio of 1 CaCO3 to 2 HCL we need 0.0059 x 2 moles of HCL to completely react with all
of the calcium carbonate which equals 0.0118 HCL moles

The remainder of the acid is the total amount – the reacted amount which is

0.02mol - 0.0118mol = 0.0082 mol of HCL remaining

After removing a 10mL aliquot the amount of HCL is 1 tenth of the original value

0.0082 x 0.1 = 0.00082 mol of HCL is now in the titrated flask

We know that the NaOH is 0.1 mol dm -3 and the amount of HCL is the flask is 0.00082 mol so we can use
equation [4] to find the volume in mL since

NaOH + HCL ----> NaCl + H2O

0.00082mol ÷ 0.1 mol dm-3 =0.0082 dm3 use equation [3] to convert dm and mL

= 8.2 mL which equals the amount of calcium carbonate

But this amount is assuming an eggshell is made up of complete calcium carbonate while in reality an
eggshell is made up of only 94% calcium carbonate which means that a little less acid will be needed to
neutralize the carbonate and so we can expect more excess HCL concluding the value being a little less
than the actual value, we can cover the entire range of uncertainties by rounding up to 9mL

uncertainty [3] for more info page 6

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Conclusion:
The experimental value of the final amount of calcium carbonate was 9.28mL and the actual amount
was 8.692mL (which we rounded up to 9mL due to uncertainties) giving a percentage error of 6.76%
without the approximation, after approximation is 3.11% which a relatively accurate result.

The total percentage uncertainty of calcium carbonate was 3.5% indicating good precision

My hypothesis was correct, the calculated amount was less than the experimental value

Should have been more delicate with the flask and especially the pipette since they were very fragile
and broke

Next time should pay more attention the bubbles forming in the burette which wasted a lot of time
caused a lot of uncertainty