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CHE 111-009
Chase Noel
Josh Preston
16 November 2015
Experiment 7: Finding an Unknown Concentration
Introduction:
The purpose of experiment 7 is to determine the amount of substance in a solution. In this
experiment, acid-base titrations will be utilized. When an acid reacts with a base, it forms a salt
and a water. These kinds of titrations are known as neutralizations. Neutralizations can help find
the amount of substance in a solution. The lab provides an analyte and a standard solution. An
analyte is the substance with an unknown concentration and a standard solution is the solution
with a known concentration. The unknown solution is titrated with the known solution. With the
use of a pH probe and drop counter, the MeasureNet system can calculate a graph with the x-axis
as mL and the y-axis as pH. The graph will start in a gradual increase and then will dramatically
spike upwards and then level out once more. This spike is known as an equivalence point. The
equivalence point is the point at which the moles of H+ and the moles of OH- are equal. This
also means that the solution has become neutral. The equation: NaOH(aq)
+KHC8H4O4(aq)NaKC8H4O4(aq)+H2O(l) can be used with stoichiometry to find the
concentration of the unknown substances. Another concept used in this experiment is converting
pH and the concentration of H+. This can be converted by the use of the equation: pH= -log[H+].
Concentration is described in molarity. Molarity is the amount of moles in a solution per one liter
of solution. Concentration is calculated by dividing moles solute by the volume of the solvent.

Methods:
No changes (French, 98-101)
Discussion:
In experiment 7, the purpose was to find and calculate the concentration of the unknown
citric acid solution. The mass of the KHP was .7449 grams and was mixed with 100 mL of water.
After finding the moles of KHP used, the molarity of the KHP solution (standard solution) was
calculated to be 0.036M. Then the NaOH solution was titrated into the 100mL of KHP solution.
The equivalence points of the two trials were 10.0 mL and 9.4 mL. The average molarity of the
NaOH solution was calculated to be .372 M and the standard deviation was 0.016.
Once the molarity was found of the NaOH, then the NaOH was titrated into 30 mL of the
unknown citric acid (analyte). The equivalence point of our two trials were 14 mL and 13 mL.
The average molarity was found to be .0558M and the standard deviation was 0.0030. This does
support the purpose of this experiment. Given that the standard deviation is three-thousandths
spread in data, it can be said the molarity of the unknown citric acid solution was accurately and
precisely calculated. However, there are many possible sources of error that could have thrown
off the standard deviation. Some sources of error could be dirty laboratory glassware, faulty
balances, and human error (calculation error, etc). Some ways that these sources of error could be
avoided or reduced would be: sterilizing lab equipment, testing accuracy of balances prior to the
lab, and calculations/data more precisely measured.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, experiment 7 taught many key concepts. Through the use of the
neutralization titrations, it has provided the steps for using the MeasureNet systems as well as
finding the concentration of an unknown solution with the equivalence points. The equivalence

point is then used to find the molarity with the known substance KHP using M1V1=M2V2 and
solving for M2, with M1V1 of KHP and the V2 being the NaOH equivalence point. Once the
molarity of NaOH is found, the unknown concentration of citric acid can be titrated. Now that
the concentration of NaOH is found, the molarity of the unknown citric acid is found through the
same equation, replacing KHP with NaOH and the V2 with the equivalence point of the citric
acid. Some improvements to this experiment would be using larger quantities of substances. By
the end of the lab, it was found that most of the substances volume were very small and was
hard for the MeasureNet systems to sense the substance. Also during our titrations, the graphs
would randomly spike up due to the splash of the drops that would hit the pH probe. An
improvement would be using a bigger size beaker to distance the drops farther away from the pH
probe to reduce the chance of making an error.

Work Cited
French, April N., Allison Soult, Stephen Testa, Pauline Stratman, Meral Savas, Francois Botha,
Carolyn Brock, Charles Griffth, Darla Hood, Robert Kisler, Penny O Connor, William

Plunknett, Donald Sands, Diane Vince, and William Wagner. CHE 111: General
Chemistry Lab Manual. Plymouth, MI: Hayden-McNeil Publishing, 2015-2016. 93-102.