Copper and Silver Nitrate Lab Write-Up

Purpose} The purpose of this lab was to combine Cu, in the form of copper wire, with Ag N!"# to form pure silver and Cu N!"#$% &n doing this we observed, too' notes on the process, weighed the different substances, which was also part of the purpose% We are loo'ing to discover whether silver has a higher reactivit( rate than copper or if copper is the element with a higher reactivit( rate% Hypothesis} &f copper wire is added to silver nitrate, then a single replacement reaction will ta'e place creating silver and copper nitrate if there is enough copper% Materials} Copper wire cut and scrubbed till the coating was removed and the surface was scoured% )**ml bea'er with )"%"g of silver nitrate% Safet( goggles% Triple beam balance, to find the amount of Cu and Ag N!"# we had% Second )**ml bea'er so that its wait could be found, before measuring the Ag N!"#% +aper and pencil to ta'e down data, also a pencil is used for wrapping the wire into a spring% Wash bottle to remove the silver from the copper wire% Smaller bea'er% ,icroscope so we could see what the individual cr(stals of silver loo' li'e% Procedure} 1: -efore an(thing the chemical e.uation must be balanced% 2: Safet( goggles and the rest of the supplies are gathered% 3/ An empt( )**ml bea'er needs to be measured% 4: The copper and silver nitrate are separatel( massed% 5:After the weight is found the wire is twisted around a pencil then flattened before being added to the Au N!"#% 6/ We 0ust have to wait for the silver to start collecting on the copper% This should not ta'e ver( long. 7: As soon as changes begin to ta'e place it is important to write down all observations possible% 8: After the reaction appears to not be changing and the silver has stopped forming the silver can be washed from the wire with a wash bottle into a separate bea'er from the one containing the, now, copper nitrate. 9: Then the remaining copper is to be weighed and compared to its original mass% 10: After that step the silver cr(stals are observed using the microscope% 11: 1inall( the bea'er with the silver is labeled and placed on the windowsill to dr(% 12: Last step is cleaning up, including washing the Cu N!"#$ from the bea'ers and returning the triple beam balance, and disposing of the copper wire% Data}

First Try/Observations} The clear li.uid of the )"%"g of silver nitrate shows a powdering of gre( at the bottom of the )** ml bea'er% !nl( seconds after placing the scrubbed copper wire in the li.uid small bubbles appear on its surface, and again onl( moments after that, parts of the orange red of the copper become silver white loosing its shine% The new color mostl( forms over the rounded edges of the flattened coils of wire% Again it begins to change, the silver gre( becoming the shape of small beads or grains of sand% The pieces of silver get thic'est first where the coils are close and doubled% The grains become bigger and also the( shimmer% The ver( ends of the copper wire have more silver then most of the other parts of the surface% & thin' that this is because it was cut there, and pure copper is e2posed so it is letting a stronger reaction accrue% 3owever there is also a significant buildup of silver near the center of the wire but more towards the side with less silver at the ends% !nce about half of the wire is covered in copper, which has formed in patches, it seems to stop or slow down% Then we were given another piece of copper wire that had been much better scrubbed, because the reaction did not have enough copper to finish due to the coating% When the bea'er was moved some of the silver easil( came loose falling immediatel( to the bottom% The rest of the silver came off without too much difficult( when the wire was shoo' to dispel the mental% Second Try} This time when the new copper wire, of the same length of 45, was deposited into the Ag N!"# the silver( white began to appear across most of the surface before it reall( even bubbled% 6uic'l( the spar'ling cr(stals became apparent, and bigger, then thic'ened mostl( along the underside of the wire% At this point after ma(be one to two minutes the water almost instantl( turned from clear to light blue and continued till it was fairl( dar' but still a somewhat a.ua color% This signified that the reaction had ta'en place and it was now a Cu N!"#$ copper nitrate# solution instead of Ag N!"# silver nitrate#% We removed the wire with the silver clinging to it, to observe it under the microscope% &t loo'ed li'e snow that was silver% 7ach cr(stal had a round shape and the( were ver( shin(, almost glowing white, due partiall( to the sunlight coming through the window% The silver that was e2tracted from the nitrate came out to be *%8g% Equation and Stoichiometry} Cu 9 $Ag N!"# : $Ag 9 Cu N!"#$ which is the balanced reaction of copper and silver nitrate becoming silver and copper nitrate shows a single replacement reaction% After calculating the molar masses of the reactants Cu being ;"%4<g and Ag N!"# being $=4%=$g we could determine from that b( deviding the weight in grams we has of each m( their molar mass, what percentage of the recipe we used% Cu was %4g>;"%4<g : %=? and Ag N!"# was )"%"g>$=4%=$g : <%@?% These fractions also tell us another important bit of information, the limiting reagent, b( giving us the smaller fraction which is copper% Data nalysis} The powder( gre( at the bottom of the silver nitrate was probabl( the silver whose mass or densit( must be greater then that of nitrate% When the copper wire was first put into the bea'er and began to bubble, that was an indication that the reaction had begun, and momentum pic'ed up as the silver white color formed across the copper surface% At the ends of the wire where silver formation was heav( & thin' was because it was cut there, and pure copper is e2posed so it is letting a stronger reaction accrue% Wh(

the reaction stopped and the solution did not turn blue with the first piece of wire was probabl( because the copper was not well enough scrubbed so there was ultimatel( not enough cupper for a complete single replacement reaction to ta'e place% The coating on the wire also e2plains wh( the formation was so patch( and noticeabl( slower with the first wire% We 'now that the water turned blue because the copper reacted with the nitrate, the stronger the bleu the more copper there was in the nitrate, also meaning that there was more silver coming out% The *%8g of pure silver that we had measured in the end was slightl( more then most peoples because of using two pieces of silver% After reacting the two compounds we ended with %<? of the silver that would have come out of a full recipe, this comes from *%8g>$)4%=$g% 1or the copper we do not 'now the amount we ended with because it was never measured% The molar mass of the nitrate was larger as reactant even though it doubled as a product because the mass of silver out weighs that of the copper enough that Ag N!"# with a molar mass of $=4%=$g is almost twice that of Cu N!"#$ which is )@=%4<g% -ut in the balanced e.uation it is $Ag N!"# meaning that $=4%=$g : $ moles% To use all %4g of copper we would need $%8)g of Ag N!"#% Error nalysis} There were several errors in our lab, including our first piece of copper wire% -efore adding another piece of copper we thought that the error might have been in the silver nitrate, so we added a small amount more of the compound, which did nothing% So we had to add another piece of wire after our first piece did not allow for enough copper to be drawn out into the nitrate% This was easil( fi2ed b( using a different 45 piece of wire that had been better scrubbed to rid it of its coating% This affected the lab b( not turning the li.uid blue and allowing onl( a limited amount of silver to form% Another error we e2perienced was not getting the opportunit( to measure out the remaining copper wire after the reaction was completed and the silver removed% -ecause of this mista'e we did not have the information to tell us how much copper was in the copper nitrate% -( ta'ing the data of the measurements we had for the silver and silver nitrate could solve this, but we would also need the weight of the copper nitrate, which we do not have% 3owever we could estimate the weight to be around *%"g or somewhere in that range% !onclusion} When enough copper could be ta'en from the wire and single replacement reaction occurred and we got pure silver% We discovered this where our first piece of copper still had too much coating on it and did not allow the entire reaction to ta'e place% 3owever some silver did still form% 1rom the e2periment it was learned that the coating manufacturers put onto the wire reall( can effect a chemical reaction, but more then that we learned that from a li.uid solution (ou can e2tract silver cr(stals with a single replacement reaction%

Silver !rystals}

QuickTime and a decompressor are needed to see this picture.