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EXPERIMENT 2: ACID AND BASE TITRATIONS

OBJECTIVE: Calculate pH from [H+] or the [OH-] of a solution

INTRODUCTION:
Titration is a common method of determining the amount or concentration of an
unknown substance. The method is easy to use if the quantitative relationship between two
reacting solutions is known. The method is particularly well-suited to acid-base and oxidation-
reduction reactions. Titrations are routinely used in industry to analyze products to be sold. Many
manufacturers are under strict standards of quality control because their products are sold for
public consumption.
In a titration one reagent, the titrant, is added to another slowly. As it is added a chemical
stoichiometric reaction occurs until one of the reagents is exhausted, and some process or device
signals that this has occurred. The purpose of a titration is generally to determine the quantity or
concentration of one of the reagents, that of the other being known beforehand. In any titration,
there must be a rapid quantitative reaction taking place as the titrant is added, and in acid-base
titrations this is a stoichiometric neutralization. The type of titration is simply the type of
chemical reaction taking place, so in this section we consider acid-base titrations.
Acid-Base Titration Reactions
All acid-base titration reactions, as all acid-base reactions, are simply exchanges of
protons. The reaction could be strong acid + strong base (neutral) salt, as in the case of:
HCl + NaOH NaCl + H2O,
Although, the reaction would be correctly written as:
H3O+ + OH- H2O

Since, strong acids and strong bases are totally dissociated to protons and hydroxide ions in
water. For reactions which are strong acid + weak base (acidic) salt, such as the example:
HCl + CH3NH2 CH3NH3+Cl-,
or
strong base + weak acid (basic) salt such as the example:
NaOH + CH3COOH Na+CH3COO- + H2O,
The cations and anions could be omitted as they do not actually participate in the reaction. For
this statement, some chemists call these bystander ions.
Virtually all acid-base titrations are carried out using a strong acid or strong base. In most
cases the strong acid or strong base is used as the titrant. It is less common, but equally feasible,
to place the strong acid or strong base in the titration vessel and use the weak acid or weak base
as the titrant. A weak acid-weak base titration would have only a small pH change at the
equivalence point. This small change is difficult to detect, and for this reason weak acid-weak
base titrations are uncommon.
Conclusion:

The purpose of this lab was to determine the molar concentration of a strong acid solution
by titrating measured volumes with a strong base of known concentration.
During this lab, the concentration of HCl solution was calculated. An automatic titrator and data
collection system were used to generate titration curves, and thus calculate
concentration. The titration curves of three separate HCl solutions were plotted on a graph of pH
vs. volume, and the equivalence points of each curve were used to determine the concentration of
the HCl solution.

During this lab, as in any lab, the possibility for error was inevitable. As demonstrated by
the calculated average concentration, the calculated concentrations in each of the individual trials
did not equal the expected value of 0.1 M, indicating the presence of error. For example, the
HCl used to prepare the HCl solution may have been exposed to air or other substances, altering
the results of the titration. Since the HCl was left out in an open container throughout the course
of the lab, it may have become contaminated, causing error and inaccurate results. Also, if the
data collection system was not set-up properly, an inaccurate titration curve would be generated,
resulting in the incorrect calculation of concentration. Since the automatic titrator was new to
many students within the lab, set-up took longer than expected, resulting in rushed and possibly
error-filled titrations. In future labs, I would emphasize the importance of keeping all chemicals
in closed containers, and the proper set-up of data collection systems, in order to ensure accurate
results. I would also increase the number of trials for this lab, in order to achieve more plentiful
and accurate data

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