Synthesis of Copper Compounds Lab Report

Synthesis of Copper Compounds

Formal Conclusion

The purpose of this experiment is to recover the original mass of copper that is measured in the form of a wire at the end of a series of reactions that combines copper into compounds with many other elements. After the experiment, the mass of copper is recorded as 2.0815g despite the original mass of copper wire being 1.2910g resulting in a percent recovery of 161.23% thus demonstrating that although the purpose is to recover the same mass, the purpose in this lab is not achieved. However, there is much difficulty in doing so due to factors that could affect the increase in percent recovery.

One factor that could result in a greater mass is that some of the excess of Zinc used to precipitate copper out of solution in the last few steps could have still been with the copper. This would result in finding the mass of the original copper and a bit of zinc as well despite using HCl(aq) to dissolve the excess zinc. In order to account for this limitation, the amount of zinc used should only be enough to react with copper completely plus a very small amount in excess. In addition, the final step of drying the copper solid in the evaporating dish, it is difficult to tell when to stop heating the copper, which may leave some water in the solid also resulting in a greater percent recovery. To account for this limitation, heating should be continued until thee is absolutely no sign of water in the solid.

Therefore, the original purpose of this lab cannot be achieved due to the few limitations that the experiment poses.