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Rishi Garg
IB Chemistry, 1st Period
Mr. McQueen
2 December 2008

IB Molar Mass of a Volatile Liquid Lab

Problem: What is the unknown volatile liquid?

Variables:

Independent – What the liquid is

Dependent – Mass of the liquid
Constants – type of liquid, amount of liquid, size of test tube, amount of water, size of beakers,
size of foil, dryness of test tubes
Materials:

 3 13x100-mm test tubes

 Test tube rack
 Test tube holder
 Aluminum foil
 1 push-pin
 2 400-mL glass beakers
 Triple-beam balance
 Water
 Hot plate
 Ice
 2 10-mL glass graduated cylinders
 Computer with Vernier Logger Pro
 Vernier LabPro
 Vernier temperature probe
 Ring stand with 2 clamps
 1 plastic pipette
 1 (size) Erlenmeyer flask
 About 10 mL of liquid
 Paper towels
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Procedure:

1. Collect all materials; obtain and wear goggles.

2. Set up the ring stand by attaching the two clamps and spreading them slightly apart.
3. Connect the temperature probe to the computer and start Logger Pro. Make sure that
Logger Pro is reading the temperature properly.
4. Fill one of the test tubes full with water, and pour all of the water into one of the 10-mL
graduated cylinders. Record the volume of the water. Place the empty test tube away
from the rest of the materials.
5. Note the barometric pressure.
6. Pour the liquid into the dry 10-mL graduated cylinder.
a. The type of liquid will remain constant throughout the lab.
7. Fill each of the two 400-mL glass beakers full with water.
a. The size of the beakers will remain constant throughout the lab.
8. Place one of the beakers on the hot plate and turn the setting to “high”.
9. Place 10 large ice cubes into the other beaker.
10. Cut a 20x20mm piece of aluminum foil, and use it to seal the opening of another
13x100-mL test tube.
a. The size of the test tubes and pieces of foil will remain constant throughout the
lab.
11. Place the test tube and foil into the E. flask and place all three onto the triple-beam
balance. Tare the balance, and record the mass of the three objects. Remove the foil
from the test tube, being careful not to tear the foil.
12. Use the plastic pipette to withdraw 0.3 mL of the liquid from the graduated cylinder,
and drop the liquid into the test tube.
a. The amount of liquid used for each trial will remain constant throughout the lab.
13. Quickly re-seal the opening of the test tube with the piece of foil, and make a small hole
in the center of the foil with the push-pin. The hole should be as small as possible.
14. Attach the temperature probe to the higher clamp on the ring stand, immersing the
bottom of the probe into the heated water. Make sure the bottom of the probe does
not touch the beaker. Start collecting data in Logger Pro.
15. Attach the sealed test tube to the lower clamp, immersing the tube into the heated
water as far as it can go. Make sure all of the foil is above the water level, but try to
place as much of the test tube under the water as possible.
16. Start the stopwatch as soon as all of the liquid in the test tube has vaporized. After three
minutes, stop collecting data in Logger Pro.
17. Use the test tube holder to quickly transfer the test tube to the ice-water bath. Start the
stopwatch as soon as the test tube is submerged into the bath. After one minute,
remove the test tube and dry it completely with a paper towel.
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18. Place the test tube carefully into the E. flask, and place that onto the triple-beam
balance. Record the mass.
19. Remove the test tube, and take off the foil seal. Rinse out the test tube and leave it to
dry in the test tube rack. Pour out the water from the hot-water and ice-water baths.
a. After each trial, the test tube used will be left to dry. For the next trial, a dry test
tube will be used, which is the test tube that was used and dried earlier.
20. Repeat steps 6-19 seven more times.

Equations and Methods for Collecting Relevant Data:

I will be using the Ideal Gas Law to find the number of moles I have in my sample: 𝑃𝑉 = 𝑛𝑅𝑇,
where P=pressure, V=volume, n=number of moles, R=universal gas constant, and
T=temperature. I will find the pressure by looking up barometric pressure on a weather website.
Also, I already know the universal gas constant. Therefore, I need to collect data for volume and
temperature.
I will be collecting volume in mL (step 4). I will be collecting temperature in Celsius
(steps 14-16). I will be conducting 8 trials total, so I will have 8 values for both volume and
temperature at the end of my data collection. I will find the mean of the values for volume and
temperature separately, and then use those mean values along with the barometric pressure
and universal gas constant to solve for the number of moles in the Ideal Gas Law.

Data:
Trial Mass of E. flask, test Mass of E. flask, test tube, Average Temperature
tube, and foil (initial) foil, and liquid after (Kelvin)
procedure (final)

Constants and Givens:

Volume of test tube (initially measured) – 0.022 L
Barometric pressure – 1.0066616327 atm
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Universal Gas Constant - 0.08205746 L*atm*K-1*mol-1

Molar masses of possible liquids:
Methanol – CH3OH – 32.05 g/mol
Ethanol – C2H5OH – 46.08 g/mol
Acetone – C3H6O – 58.09 g/mol
Isopropanol – C3H7OH – 60.11 g/mol

Calculations:
Trial (Final mass – initial mass)

𝑃𝑉 = 𝑛𝑅𝑇

Interpretation/Conclusion:

Because my initial and final masses appeared to be the same on the triple-beam balance, I
cannot calculate the molar mass of the liquid. However, this is a good thing, because I know
that my final mass should have been extremely close to my initial mass. This would mean that
the liquid weighs almost nothing. This is correct, because if I reverse-calculate the mass I should
have gotten if I was using the liquid with even the highest molar mass (isopropanol), I get:
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0.0436 g is a very small mass. In fact, it is so small that the triple-beam balance I used cannot
accurately measure it. The smallest marking on the balance is 0.1 g. This means that I would
have needed to use a much more precise balance to measure the mass of the liquid. Clearly, I
would not have been able to accurately measure such a small mass. Plus, if the liquid I had used
had been any of the other three choices (with smaller molar masses), the mass I should have
measured would have been even smaller. Actually, 0.0436 g falls within the uncertainty of my
calculated mass (+/- 0.1 g). Therefore, since the error is due to equipment, and my results are
reasonable, I think that my procedure is correct and effective.
I did have to make a few adjustments in order to make my procedure effective. In my
original procedure, I filled each of the 400-mL beakers with only 300 mL of water. Even when I
submerged the test tube so far that it touched the bottom of the beaker, the water level only
reached about halfway up the test tube. This caused the liquid to vaporize up until the water
level, and then condense back into liquid form above the water level because of cooler air. This
repeated cycle of vaporizing and condensing led me nowhere. I needed the entirety of the
liquid to vaporize and stay in a gaseous form. So, I changed my procedure so that I filled the
beaker all the way full with water. This way, the water level reached up until the foil on the test
tube, so there was only a very small pocket of cool air in the test tube, and the liquid vaporized
and stayed in a gaseous form. Also in my original procedure, I used 0.5 mL of the liquid. I
changed this amount to 0.3 mL in my final procedure, so that the liquid would vaporize quicker.
In my experiment, I did only one trial of the procedure. This was due to time constraints.
If I were to do this experiment again, I would do at least five trials to make sure that I got
precise results. I would also use a barometer to measure the pressure in the room, as opposed
to finding the barometric pressure for the general area on a weather website. This would
ensure more accurate results.
I do not know what my liquid actually is, but if I did, I would calculate the percent error.
This would help me to determine how accurate my results were. The formula for percent error
𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑 −𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙
is 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 = ∗ 100%. I believe that if I had more precise equipment,
𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙

my percent error would be very low.

I conclude that although my data is inconclusive, I was on the right track.