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Time Required
Materials Required
None of the chemicals used for this experiment need to be particularly pure. Use the
cheapest source you can find. For the buffer compounds, it does not matter if you use
the acid form or the basic form, as the students will adjust the pH anyway when
making up the buffer. Sigma and VWR offer good sources of these compounds. For
convenience, the Sigma materials are listed below:
This is a fast lab that usually only slows down due to the logistics of acquiring the
materials and using the balances and pH meters.
• Make sure all available pH meters and balances are ready to go.
• Dispense the dry buffer powders so that there are several locations or several
containers students can use to avoid a big line of students waiting to get started.
• Dispense unknowns in large test tubes with about 10 mL each.
Waste Disposal
All unknowns can be dumped down the sink at the week’s end. Save the HCl and
NaOH for future labs. Discard or save dry buffers depending on quality and quantity.
1. Calculate the weight of buffer you would use to make the buffer for part
A for the six possibilities:
0.1 mol/liter x 0.1 liters = 0.01 moles. You need 0.01 moles of the buffer. Moles
x MW = grams.
2. If we give you HEPES in the basic form and ask you to make a buffer of
pH 8.0, will you add HCl or NaOH to adjust the pH? Why?
Calculate what would be the initial pH of a solution of HEPES base. Using the
formula:
pH = (pKa + 14 + log[base])/2 = (7.55 + 14 + log[0.1])/2 = 10.28
We can see that the pH will be more basic than the desired 8.0. Therefore, we
will have to add acid. In general, anytime you make up a buffer in its basic
form, you will need to add acid to get to a useable buffer pH. This question
could be answered philosophically as well. A buffer always needs to be a
combination of the acid and basic form of the buffer. If we start with just the
basic form of a buffer, we will always need to create the acidic form, so we
would need to add HCl.
Data
Part A
8.75
7.95
Part C
Distilled water pH: 5-9 (depending on water source and cleanliness of beakers
Part D
pH of 50 mL of water: 7.0
Calculations
1. (a)What is the ratio of A-/HA in your buffer after you adjusted its pH to
the required value?
This will depend on which buffer you used and at what pH. A good buffer was
defined as one with a pH that was at most 1 pH unit away from the pKa.
Using two equations in two unknowns, we can solve for the moles of HA and
A-.
HA = 0.0039 moles
(c) If you now add 3 mL of 1M NaOH, will you still have a valid buffer?
You then add 3 ml of 1 M NaOH, which is 0.003 moles. For every mole of OH-
you add, the following reaction will occur:
HA + OH- ➔ A-, which uses up the OH- until one of the reagents runs out.
Since you have 0.003 moles of OH- and 0.0039 moles of HA, the OH- will run
out first. You will be left with 0.0009 moles of HA and will have created 0.003
more moles of A-, so it will now be 0.0091 moles.
The final step is to run this new ratio through the Henderson Hasselbalch
equation:
Since the new pH is 1 unit from the pKa, you are right on the border. In
this case, you would still have a valid buffer, but just barely.
Using TRIS at pH 8.0, the change in pKa with temperature is -.031 per degree
C. Going from 22 degrees down to 0 degrees is a -22 degree change.
-22 x -.031 = 0.682. If the original pH were 8.0, lowering the temperature would
change the pH to 8.7.
Since 8.5 is on the basic side of the pKa of 7.55, you would start with HEPES
in the basic form and add HCl to bring the pH down to 8.5.
The pKa for acetic acid is 4.76. Thus, a buffer using acetic acid and acetate as
its buffering species would only be effective at a pH of 3.76-5.76. By making
up a solution of sodium acetate at pH 8.0, the solution was not a buffer at all,
rather just a weak base solution.
5. If you make up a solution of 50 ml 0.1M TRIS in the acid form, what will
be the pH?
“‘Even now,’ he adds, ‘after waiting for the Cafila, which will be
immense, near 400 men, and, they say, 2,000 camels, I am not even
going with it. I should, by all accounts, as a Christian and a doctor,
be worried to death. I go straight from this to Arowan, never touching
the Cafila route at all; we shall not see a single tent. There are some
wells, known only to two or three of the guides. We take five naggas
(she camels) for milk, the five men, and Mohammed El Abd, some
zimēta (barley meal). I take the biscuit for Abou and self; each
carries a skin of water, to be touched only if the milk fails: thirty days
to bring us to Arowan, and five more to Timbuctoo.’
“I have made the above extracts to assure you that the
arrangements were made, and Mr. Davidson ready to start at a
moment’s notice, and that in the course of two or three days I hope
to have the pleasure to acquaint you of his having proceeded on his
journey. Once away from Wád Nún, and I have every and the fullest
confidence of his efforts being crowned with success.
“I have the honour to be, Sir,
“Your most obedient servant,
“Wm. Willshire.”
“P.S.—I open this letter to add, I have received a letter from Mr.
Davidson, dated Saturday, the 5th inst., who appears in high spirits,
and writes,—
“‘The start is to be on Monday, although I do not go on that day;
everything is now packed up, and placed ready to be put on the
camels, with which Abou starts at day-break on Monday. I am to be
left here, as if having sent him on. Mohammed El Abd remains
behind. On Wednesday or Thursday, according to the distance made
by the camels on the first day, we start on horseback, accompanied
by Beyrock and about six horsemen, and are to make Yeisst, if
possible, in one day. Here I leave the district of Wadnoon. And to this
place is three days’ journey for loaded camels. I here leave my horse
and mount my camel, and we push on to the tents.’
“Mr. Davidson did not start on a sudden, on the 3d inst., as stated
to me by a courier, who brought me a letter from him of that date,
and which I reported in a letter I had the honour to address to his
Majesty’s secretary of state, Viscount Palmerston, on the 8th inst.,
and which you will oblige me by correcting and making known to his
lordship.
“Your most obedient servant,
“W. W.”
The following extracts from Mr. Willshire’s letters will give all the
intelligence received respecting the sequel of Mr. Davidson’s
expedition:—
Society of London:—
“To the Noble Prince, exalted by the Lord, Mulai Abd Errachnan ben
Hussein, whom God protect.
“An English gentleman having arrived at Gibraltar within a few
days past, as bearer of a letter, which he is charged to deliver to his
Imperial Majesty, from the King my most gracious sovereign, may it
please your Imperial Majesty to deign to cause me to be informed
when and where it may be convenient for your Imperial Majesty to
receive the bearer of the royal letter.
“Peace—this 20th day of September, in the year of Christ 1835
(26th Joomad the 1st, 1251).
“Edw. Drummond Hay,
“H. B. M.’s Agent and Consul-General in Morocco.”
“In the name of the merciful God, and there is no power or
strength but in God the high and excellent.
“To the faithful employed Drummond Hay, Consul for the English
nation—this premised—
“Your letter has reached our presence, exalted of God, regarding
the gentleman who arrived at Gibraltar with a letter from the Pre-
eminent of your nation; in consequence whereof, if he please to
deliver the letter to our employed, the kaid ............[202] Essedy, for the
purpose of being forwarded to our presence, exalted of God, he may
do so; but if he wish to bear it himself, he is to proceed to Swerrah
by sea, and thence he may come to our high presence, since the
voyage by sea is more convenient than that by land, and the journey
from the said port to our presence is short.
“Peace—11th Joomad the 2d, 1251 (4th October, 1835).
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by J. L. Cox and Sons, 75, Great Queen Street,
Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.
FOOTNOTES: