Titration Core Practical
Starter
1. Salt and water.
2. Hydrochloric acid + sodium hydroxide  sodium chloride + water
3. HCl + NaOH  NaCl + H2O
Task 1
Equipment list
• Clamp & stand – to hold
the burette
• Burette – to hold the
acid
• Funnel – to safely fill
the burette with acid
• Acid – to neutralise the
alkali
• Alkali – to be
neutralised by the acid
• Indicator – to show the
end point
• White tile – to show the
indicator colour clearly.
• Conical flask – to hold
the alkali
• Pipette and filler – to
measure the alkali
Method
• Use the pipette and pipette filler to add a
measured volume of alkali to a clean conical
flask.
• Add a few drops of indicator and put the
conical flask on a white tile.
• Fill the burette with acid and note the
starting volume.
• Slowly add the acid from the burette to the
alkali in the conical flask, swirling to mix.
• Stop adding the acid when the end-point is
reached (when the indicator first
permanently changes colour). Note the final
volume reading.
• Repeat steps 1 to 5 until you get concordant
titres. More accurate results are obtained if
acid is added drop by drop near to the end-
point.
 TASK 2
1. To ensure that there is nothing
contaminating the burette and only acid
is in there.
2. The white tile means that the indicator
colour can be seen more clearly.
3. The indicator will show the end point –
the exact point when neutralisation has
occurred.
4. Universal indicator has too many colour
changes/graduated colours and it would
be difficult to determine the end point.
5. a) Phenolphthalein turns from pink in
alkali to colourless at neutralisation.
b) Methyl orange turns from yellow
in alkali to orange at neutralisation.
6. The conical flask needs to be swirled to
make sure that the acid and alkali are
evenly mixed.
TASK 3
1. The first titration is a rough one
that you know roughly where
the end point is. This saves time,
as adding the acid drop by drop,
not knowing when the end point
is, would take too long.
2. You need to try and get
concordant results to give you an
accurate measurement. An
average can be taken from the
concordant results.
3. Concordant results are those
that are within 0.2cm3 of each
other. Sometimes scientists look
for results within 0.1cm3 of each
other.
 Titration Calculations
Task 1
STARTER:

HCl + NaOH → NaCl + H2O

Already balanced

Converting
cm3 to dm3
H2SO4 + 2NaOH → Na2SO4 + 2H2O

Converting
cm3 to dm3
 Titration Calculations
Task 2

Converting
cm3 to dm3