Description
- In the discussion you should make a conclusion and then explain how your experimental results and observations support your conclusion. The points below should help you identify the information you have available from this experiment to support your conclusion. Submit completed lab report by due date. you should be able to make a claim about which buffer system is most effective and support this claim with both theoretical calculations and experimental evidence. Be sure to include the following:
- a. Introduction. Find one instance of the importance of buffers to life or to the environment and write a SHORT paragraph about the chemistry, referencing all sources.
- b. Purpose. Based upon the introduction in your lab manual, what are you trying to find with your experiment?
- c. Claim. Based upon the purpose of your experiment, what claim can you make using your experimental evidence?
- d. Table(s) of your results. Include expected, experimental, and % error as appropriate.
- e. Discussion of your results.
- Which buffer had the highest capacity for added acid? Is this consistent with your expected results? Use a graph and a table of your experimental results to support your conclusion.
- Which buffer had the highest capacity for added base? Is this consistent with your expected results? Use a graph and a table of your experimental results to support your conclusion.
- f. Uncertainty and Error in measurements.
- Identify possible sources of uncertainty and error in your measurements
- Comment on the relevance for each possible source of error. Based on the magnitude and direction of the error source and evidence from your laboratory notebook, determine if each source of error is relevant for your results.
- g. Supporting references.
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Explanation & Answer
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Introduction
Buffers are used in our daily life whenever it is important to maintain the pH of a given solution. In this
regard, a sample industrial application of a buffer solution would be the alcoholic fermentation of beer.
In this sense, an acetic acid / sodium acetate buffer is used as reaction medium to enable the yeast to
survive in its optimal pH range, such that it can ferment sugar into ethanol during the alcoholic
fermentation process, essential in the beer production (Torija et al., 2003). On the other hand, buffers
are essential for life since we would die if the pH of our blood was lower than 6.8 or higher than 7.8 as
all the enzymatic systems in our body would stop working outside this pH range. The pH of the blood is
maintained constant through the carbonic acid / bicarbonate buffering system (Casiday & Frey, n.d.).
Purpose
The purpose of this experiment is to examine how buffers work by maintaining the pH constant despite
the addition of different amounts of acid (HCl) or base (NaOH).
Claim
If buffers are able of keeping the pH of the solution constant, then the pH of the solution will not vary
unless a very big amount of a strong acid (such as HCl) or a strong base (such as NaOH) are added to the
solution.
Results
Table 1. Buffer solutions prepared
Solution
1
2
3
4
5
6
Concentration of acetic acid, M
0.050
0.025
0.050
0.050
0.000
0.000
Concentration of sodium acetate, M
0.0619
0.0514
0.0259
0.0000
0.0507
0.0000
Table 1 presents the concentrations of both acetic acid and sodium acetate in the prepared buffer
solutions. These solutions were prepared by adequately diluting different volumes of a 0.05 M acetic
acid solution and solving specific amounts of sodium acetate. The final volume of all the solutions was of
50.0 mL.
The significant figures in this table have been established by considering the significant figures of the
methodology used in the preparation of the diffe...