Determining the Concentration of a

Solution: Beers Law

Name: Dina Elyamany
Partners: Kasey Carlson & Sarah Heesacker
Section: 12
Date: 03/03/2015

Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to find the amount of energy absorbed by a solution;
also to figure out the molar concentration of an unknown solution. In order to find
absorbed energy, Beers Law (A=ELC) will be used. A solution with high concentration
will have high absorbance and a solution with low concentration will have low
absorbance.

Introduction:
Beers law, also known as the Beer Lamberts law, determines the relationship between
absorbance and concentration in a solution. Beers law is used using the A= E l C
equation; where A= Absorbance, E= Epsilon, L=Path length, and C=Concentration. For
this experiment, Lab quest and a colorimeter are used to determine the absorbance of two
solutions. The first solution is called the standard solution, which is CoCl2 * 6H2O. The
second solution is the unknown solution because the number of moles in H2O is not
given. The Equation for the unknown solution is Co(NO3)2 * n H2O. It is known that the
path length for both solutions one and two is 470nm because it was used in the
colorimeter. Also each trial shown below had a concentration in mg/mL that was already
given.
Results:
Data Table 1. Displays Standard Solutions: CoCl2 * 6 H2O
Trial
Concentration Concentration, Absorbance
(mg/ml)
calc. (mol/L)
1
8
0.0336
0.150
2
16
0.0072
0.245
3
24
0.1006
0.360
4
32
0.1345
0.485
5
40
0.1681
0.555
Data Table 2. Displays the Unknown Solutions: Co(NO3)2 * n H2O
Trial
Concentration
Concentration,
(mg/ml)
exp. (mol/L)
1
20
0.0733
2
26
0.0952
3
32
0.1172

Absorbance
0.250
0.310
0.380

Table 3. Displays the Epsilons results obtained from both solutions using the Beers law
equation.
Standard Solution
Unknown Solution
Trial
Epsilon (m-1cm-1)
Trial
Epsilon (m-1cm-1)
1
0.0095
1
0.0073
2
0.0720
2
0.0069
3
0.0076
3
0.0445
4
0.0076
5
0.00702

Absorbance vs. Concentration

0.6
f(x) = 0.01x + 0.04

0.5
0.4
Absorbance

0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Concentration

Figure 1. Displays the standard solution, CoCl2 * 6H2O, in blue dots; and displays the
unknown solutions, Co(NO3)2 * n H2O, in red dots. The shown equation and regression
line are from the standard solution.
Equations: A= E l c
Sample Calculations:
Concentration from mg/ml to mol/l
Concentration mg/ml *(1/molar mass)
8mg/mL*(1/237.93)=0.0336 mol/L
Finding moles of H2O for the unknown
20mg/ml(1g/1000ml)(1000ml/1L)(1L/0.075mol)=266.669mol-182.95=83.71
83.71 Co(NO3)2/18.016H2O=4.66 moles of H2O.
Do for 26mg and 32mg
Then: (4.66mol H2O + 4.62 mol H2O + 5.26 mol H2O)/3 = 4.84 mol H2O
So there was approximately 5 moles of H2O in the unknown solution.
Finding Epsilon:
Absorbance=E*Length*Concentration
0.150= E 0.0336*470
E=0.0095 m-1cm-1
Discussion:
The first solution (standard solution) was done over 5 trials. Each trial had a different
given concentration in mg/mL as shown in table 1. The given concentration was then

converted to mol/L and it was done as shown in the sample calculations. Using the
colorimeter, the absorption of each trial was obtained from the given wavelength of
470nm. Like the first solution, the second solution (Unknown solution) had 3 trials with
given concentration in mg/ml and given wavelength of 470nm. The absorption was
collected using lab quest from the colorimeter, as shown in table 2. The concentration
was not converted into mol/L until n was identified in the given equation. As shown in
the sample section, n was found and used in tables 2 and 3. Using the data collected in
table 1 &2, Epsilon was calculated using the Beers law equation (table 3). As shown in
both tables 1, 2, and 3, the more concentration a solution has, the more light absorbance it
has. This explains the relationship between absorbance and concentration. Figure one
Displays the standard solution, CoCl2 * 6H2O, in blue dots; and displays the unknown
solutions, Co(NO3)2 * 6 H2O, in red dots. The shown equation and regression line are
from the standard solution.
Conclusion:
Beers law studies the relationship between absorbance and concentration in a solution.
Beers law is used using the A= E l c equation; where A= Absorbance, E= Epsilon,
L=Path length, and C=Concentration. The Beers law helps with determining how much
absorption had occurred in a solution. Both the first and second solution had trials that
absorbed more light than other trials. For example in solution one, the 5th trial had a
concentration of 40 mg/mL and it had higher absorbance than the other trials. The second
solution in the 3rd trial, the trial contained 32 mg/mL of concentration and had a high
absorbance rate at 0.380. This should prove the higher the concentration, the higher the
absorption of energy of light. Lastly, this experiment helps civil engineering with
determining what sort of light can effect a soil solution.