Chemistry Laboratory Activity 1

CHEMICAL REACTION
( A Copper Cycle Reaction)

October 31, 2021

Submitted to:
Ms. Lynlee Ross Cuesta

Submitted by:
Ariane C. Dumangas
BSCE-1C
 I. INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Chemical reactions are the most powerful of all-natural occurrences. When two or more
chemicals combine to form new substances, it's called a chemical reaction. One of the first on
record was when French chemist Antoine Lavoisier put sulfuric acid and chlorine gas in contact
with each other, which caused them to react and produce hydrogen chloride gas. This
demonstrates how chemical reactions can cause many unexpected outcomes that are not
desired, such as explosions. Understanding chemical reactions is a key concept in chemistry. It's
also a difficult concept to tackle at first because many of these reactions aren't intuitive to most
of us, and they don't make much sense when we first encounter them.
Copper is an important and well-known element. Copper is important in many areas of
life, including industry, the environment, and even the human body. The conservation of
copper and the various reactions it undergoes will be the focus of this experiment. Students will
learn how to identify different sorts of reactions as well as how to compose balanced
equations. Copper yield will also be calculated as a percentage. To have a better knowledge of
the copper cycle, the attributes of the products will be examined.

Objective
a. This experiment aims to determine whether there is or no reaction;
b. To observe various types of chemical reactions and relate observations to these
reactions and;
c. Record the observations

II. PROCEDURE

a. Equipment and Materials

 Hot plate
 Thermal gloves
 Wire gauze
 Stir rods
 Beakers
 Evaporating dish
 Scoopula
 Graduated cylinders
b. Chemicals
 Nitric acid
 Methanol
 Sulfuric Acid
 Acetone
 Sodium Hydroxide
 Zinc
 Copper

c. Experimental Procedures (step by step as seen in the video)

Step 1: Record the mass of evaporating dish and weigh out the copper wire and add it to
250 ml beaker
Step 2: Pour a 5 ml concentrated nitric acid (HNO₃)
Step 3: Deliver 5 ml of concentrated nitric acid (HNO₃) to the beaker containing the
copper wire
Step 4: Afterwards, add 100 ml of DI water and 30 ml of 3m sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to
the reaction beaker
Step 5: Add two boiling chips and gently heat the solution to the boiling point
Step 6: After heating, allow the beaker to cool to room temperature and then transfer to
an ice bath
Step 7: Remove the liquid portion from the dark solid and add 15 ml of sulfuric acid
(H2SO4)
Step 8: Add 2.005 g of solid zinc metal to the reaction beaker and smash solid with stir
rod to speed reaction
Step 9: Placed to beaker to the hot plate and heat gently until all zinc has reacted and
then cool to room temperature
Step 10: Decant liquid solution into waste beaker and then transfer the solid to
evaporating dish with scoopula
Step 11: Rinse solid twice with 5 ml of DI water
Step 12: Rinse with 5 ml of methanol and decant into waste beaker
Step 13: Rinse with 5 ml of acetone and decant into waste beaker
Step 14: Dry solid over a water bath and remove boiling chips from dry solid and allow
dish to cool to room temperature before placing it into the balance
Step 15: Record the mass of the solid plus the evaporating dish to get the final mass of
solid
 III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Reaction 1 is a redox reaction from Cu to Cu2, reaction 2 is a precipitation reaction from
Cu2 to (Cu(OH)2, reaction 3 uses heat in the form of an iron plate to decompose the (Cu(OH)2
solution into CuO, reaction 4 is an acid-base reaction that turns CuO into Cu2, and reaction 5 is
a redox reaction from Cu2 to Cu2. After drying solid over a water bath and remove boiling chips
from dry solid, the final product was collected. There was some heat produced at the bottom of
the beaker during the experiment, indicating chemical processes. This occurs because chemical
reactions require the breaking and creation of chemical bonds, which requires energy, which is
released through heat. The distinct physical qualities they all exhibited when introducing a
different chemical was another evidence of a chemical reaction. Some went to slime (reaction
2), while others changed the color of the solution (reaction 1). There was a discrepancy
between the original mass of the beaker and the mass of the beaker with the copper when
determining the mass of the retrieved copper. The instructions indicated to decant three times
near the end of reaction 5, and there was a loss of copper throughout these sessions.

IV. CONCLUSION

The experiment of the copper cycle reaction where copper was cycled through a series of
five aqueous phase chemical reaction. Throughout the experiment, copper was reacted to
different chemicals such as nitric acid, sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide and was rinse with DI
water, methanol and acetone and zinc was also added to the solution. In this experiment, I can
conclude that elements / substances can never be destroyed or created. The copper cycle is
evidence of the law of conservation of mass, stating that elements and substances are never
created or destroyed, only changed.