Ted Vo

Per 1
1/28/14
Mr.Cain
Brass/Spectrophotometer Lab Report
Purpose- To find the relationship between color, wavelength, absorbance, and molar
concentration and to find the mass percent of copper in brass with color and wavelength.
Materials-Spectrophotometer, Concentrated 15.8 M Nitric Acid (HNO3), 10 mL of 0.400
M Copper II Nitrate (Cu(NO3)2), Distilled Water, Brass sample, Pipettes, Graduated Cylinder,
Balance for the Brass Sample, Cuvette (1 cm diameter), Beakers, Volumetric Flask.
Prelab-

Procedures1) Retrieve a sample of brass and measure with a balance

2) Calculate the amount of Concentrated 15.8 M Nitric Acid needed to react with brass
(Assume that brass sample is 100% copper by mass)
3) Have the reaction occur under a fume hood; supervise by Mr.Cain or teacher.
4) After metal dissolves in Concentrated 15.8 M Nitric Acid, add 50 mL of distilled water
and transfer remained solution into volumetric flask
5) Obtain 10 mL of 0.400 M Cu(NO3)2 and created diluted solution of 0.200 M, 0.100
M, 0.050 M, and 0.025 M Cu(NO3)2 with distilled water
6) Test each diluted solutions created in Step 5, along with a sample of the Unknown

Molarity of the Copper II Nitrate created in Step 4 for Abs. value

7) Use the Abs. value found from Step 6 to create a graph between Abs. value to Molarity
to find the Molarity of the Unknown Copper II Nitrate
Part 1) Extension questions Q1: We want to use a particular wavelength when determining the absorption of a
particular chemical species because the highest absorption rate is found at the highest peak of a
graph between Wavelength vs. Abs (See Prelab graphs). It is important to measure the
absorbance for all wavelengths from 400-700 nm as a graph can be created from the data for a
visual comparison to find the highest peak (thus the high absorption rate) or Beer's Law (Abs. =
Molar Absorptivity * Diameter * Molarity) if Diameter, Molarity, and a certain absorption rate is
given.
Q2: If the molar absorptivity of copper sulfate is given at 630 nm, we can determine a
wavelength where the molar absorptivity is half by examining the absorption spectrum. Beer's
law states that Absorption = Molar Absorptivity * Diameter * Molarity thus Beer's law can be
rewritten as Molar Absorptivity = Absorption / (Diameter * Molarity). To find half of Molar
Absorptivity, we need half of Absorption or double the Molarity. As Absorption and Wavelength
is given on the absorption spectrum (See Prelab Graphs: Copper Sulfate). From the graph
(Copper Sulfate), wavelength is 630 nm and Absorption value is 0.14 (Average between 0.12 and
0.16). With the Absorption value as 0.14, half of 0.14 is 0.07. The wavelength with 0.07 is
between 580 and 600 nm, thus the wavelength is roughly 590 nm.
Part 2)

Part 3)

Part 4)

To find the Unknown Molarity, plug in the

"Regression Line Equation" into Desmos Graphing
Calculator and the y point should be around 0.4 as
%Abs. is the y-axis.

ConclusionThe purpose of this lab is to find the relationship between color, wavelength, absorbance,
and molar concentration of a solution and to find the mass percent of copper in brass with color
and wavelength percentages. We first had to get the nitric acid and the brass sample react under
the fume hood, because the gas it produces is toxic to our health. Going back to part 2, we
needed 4.5 ml of 15.8 M HNO3 to fully react with our 1.7 grams of brass. In part 3 and 4, we

took the Cu(NO3)2 and made our dilutions of it, so that later we can place it in the
spectrophotometer and find our percent transmission. I chose to graph and use trial 2, because in
trial 1 we had incomplete data, giving us incomplete graphs, which in turn makes our lab
inconsistent. We made .4, .2, .1, .05, and .025 molarity solutions of Cu(NO3)2 we then graphed
our data points, as shown in part 4. by visually looking at the samples, we found that the
unknown solution of Cu(NO3)2 is close to the .200M Cu(NO3)2 with 82.4% of copper in the
brass sample. Over all this lab was relatively faster than I anticipated and not much work was
needed to complete this lab, such as doing multiple trials or calculations. In this lab, I thought
that the gas produced, was pretty cool, with the brownish color it gave of, too bad it was toxic to
our health, otherwise I would of asked to take a whiff of it.