Crystal Violet Lab Conclusion

During the calibration section the goal was to find the absorbance values for 5

concentrations of Crystal Violet. This was done in order to create a line whose slope can be

used to determine the concentration of Crystal Violet (in the reaction of Crystal Violet with

NaOH) based on absorbance values from the reaction.

These 5 absorbance values were put into Google Sheets and a line of best fit was

created around them. However, due to the way Sheets works, the line of best fit did not

actually start at 0, so the given slope was slightly incorrect. The margin for this error was

−5
extremely minute; the difference being that the true slope was 5.4545 ∗ 10 greater than the

original.

Calculation of the new slope was done by calculating how far the absorbance values

deviated from the line of best fit and then adjusting those points to add 0 and calculating the

new slope based off of that. (example given in calculation section).

During the calibration, a diluted sample of Crystal Violet (25 μM) was used to

determine absorbance values. However, due the the concentration being so low the light in the

room both degraded the samples as well as limited the effectiveness of the spectrophotometer.

(more in the errors section).

The next major section of the experiment was collecting absorbances based on the

reaction of Crystal Violet with NaOH. This data was eventually used to determine the order of

said reactions.

The main limitation of the data collection was that the low concentration made the

spectrophotometer unable to detect the reactions absorbance past 200 seconds instead of the full

785 seconds.
 Based on the data collected, the order of the reaction between Crystal Violet and NaOH

is most likely second order.

2
The main evidence driving this conclusion is that the graph of 1/[ ] has the 𝑟 value

closest to 1. This means that the data points for 1/[ ] (second order) match the line of best fit

better than any of the other graphs. Having the best match means that the values are closest to

forming a line and therefore 1/[ ] works the best.

Additionally,

Finally,

Note: I need to add to this section, however I am not sure what I should talk

about.

The sources of error in the lab consist of three main problems: First, the degradation of

the different Crystal violet solutions. The light in the room coupled with the ultra low

concentrations of Crystal Violet caused a change in the concentration of the solutions. This

affected the results because it skewed the calibration curve which in turn changed the

calculations for the rest of the lab. Second, due to the low concentration of our Crystal violet

solution, the ambient light in the room made it too difficult for the spectrophotometer to collect

data. Our solution to this problem was simply to add a cover to the spectrophotometer,

however in future labs it would probably be best to keep all chemicals in addition to the

detection setup in the dark. Finally, the largest problem was the measuring of the absorbance

for the reaction between Crystal Violet and NaOH. When creating the solution, too much time
passed before the reaction was put into the spectrophotometer. This resulted in the steeper

starting change in absorbance being completely missed by the spectrophotometer. Missing

those initial values are imperative in creating the line of best fit, and without them, accurately

discerning the order of reactions is probably not possible.

When comparing the results of this experiment to a similar lab published in the Nature

science journal the order of this reaction is actually 1st order rather than 2nd. In addition, data

from our classmates who also completed the lab, without adding the reaction into the

spectrophotometer late, we also see that this lab is indeed first order. Our differing conclusion

is therefore likely due to said timing error.