NOTE All students should wear suitable eye / face protection while carrying out

this experiment as 2M sodium hydroxide is considered to be corrosive and harmful

and 2M HCL is considered to be an irritant. Teaching staff should seek guidance
from the latest CLEAPSS Hazcards (47A and 91A) or Student Safety Sheets (20
and 41) to prepare a suitable risk assessment before commencing work.

AQA Chemistry Required Practical

Heat of Neutralisation
Introduction
A variation of this experiment that uses an insulated plastic centrifuge tube to mix
the reactants, uses less chemicals, enables the gradual addition of one reactant to
the other without removing the lid and thermometer with the intention of making the
experiment safer and quicker to do.

Procedure
Pour 15 cm3 of 2M HCL into a clean 50 cm 3 plastic centrifuge tube, screw the lid on
and slide the tube into a short length of pipe insulation.
Stand the insulated tube in a suitable beaker, insert the thermometer (ideally -10 to
50°C) through the hole in the lid, after a short time note the temperature of the HCL.
Use a clean 3 cm3 plastic dropping pipette to add 3 cm3 of 2M sodium hydroxide to
the HCL through hole in the tube lid, gently swirl the beaker, allow the temperature
to stabilise and record it.
Make further 3 cm3 additions of sodium hydroxide and record temperature of the
reaction mixture after each addition.
The centrifuge tube has sufficient volume to make a maximum of nine 3 cm3
additions of sodium hydroxide. In practice eight additions should suffice to achieve
acceptable results.
The reaction mixture will be an alkaline solution of sodium chloride which should be
considered to be an irritant, if local regulations allow it should be diluted with five
times the volume of water and poured down the foul water drain or neutralised with
dilute ethanoic acid then poured down the foul water drain, consult the latest version
of CLEAPSS GL120 for guidance.

Typical Results

Heat of Neutralisation
2M NaOH added to 15cm3 2M HCL
30
29
28
27
26
25
Temperature (°C)

24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Cumulative Volume 2M NaOH added (cm3)

Temperature (°C) Temperature (°C)