Metal Reaction Lab

Hypothesis: Some metals will be more reactive than other metals, due to their atomic configuration.

Materials: Copper (II) nitrate, magnesium nitrate, zinc nitrate, silver nitrate, copper grains, magnesium ribbon, zinc granules, pipets, and a 24 well plate.

Procedure: First, we added small amounts of copper (II) nitrate, magnesium nitrate, zinc nitrate, and silver nitrate to 3 seperate wells each in the 24 well plate. Thats 3 wells for each mixture. For each of the 3 wells that we gave the separate mixtures, we mixed in one with copper grains, one with a small piece of magnesium ribbon, and one with zinc granules. After each of the metals was mixed with the 3 separate solutions, we waited about 5 minutes to observe any reactions.

Copper on reacted with the silver nitrate; producing a precipitate. All of the other solutions had little to no visible reaction with the copper grains.
Magnesium had almost the opposite effect, which reacted with every solution except for the magnesium nitrate.
Zinc reacted with the copper (II) nitrate and silver nitrate solutions, but not with the zinc nitrate nor the magnesium nitrate.

Conclusion: Our hypothesis was correct to an extent. We were right in the aspect that some metals are more reactive than others. Magneium was very reactive to the solutions while copper (II) was not so very reactive. We didn't specify which metals would react more, but we got our results. In reactivity (from most to least), the metals used ranked magnesium, zinc, then copper (II).

Periodic Table

The periodic table of elements is a way of organizing the chemical elements in periods and groups according to their properties. For example: a highly reactive element can be found on the table next to another highly reactive element. These are called halogens, but we'll get to those later. The periodic table goes from left to right in periods according to the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom of that element. As you move from left to right in a period, the number of protons from element to element increases.
This is all well and good, but what about conductivity or reactivity? Well, as you reach the end of a period, the number of valence electrons (electrons in the outer electron shell of that element's atom" increases.What does this mean? Well, when an atom's outer electron shell is full, that means that is not very reactive. When the outer shell of an atom is filled all the way, it is called a noble gas. These are the least reactive of the elements. Right to the left of those are the halogens, highly reactive elements. They are so reactive due to the fact that their outer electron shells are not filled to the maximum, but by just barely. This means that another element's atom with an electron to fill that gap in the halogen's electron cloud can react with it so easily.

Spectra Lab

Using spectrascopes, we looked at different light filters and what lights they emit. When we looked through these special devices through the right angle, we could see the different colors in the visible light spectrum emitted by different properties.

This artist's representation of what was viewed through the spectrascope show what colors are given off. The first of this set was a normal, white light which showed each of the 7 colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet). But, as the lights change, different colors are emitted. When a red fluid is placed in front of the light bulb and viewed through the spectrascope, the red part of the spectrum is larger. When a light blue fluid is put in front of the light instead, there is no orange light reflected. When gasses and other materials were put into a bulb and shown, we examined each of them with the spectrascopes. When examining a bulb with hydrogen in it, the only colors that were shown were red, blue and violet. When we used a mercury bulb, only orange, green and violet were visible. When argon was used, red and orange were very faint when viewed through the spectrascope. However, green and violet (the only other 2 colors present) were clearly seen. When a neon bulb was observed, there was a black line in between orang and green, replacing yellow. There was also little to no indigo or violet light seen. When a nitrogen bulb was observed, the full spectrum of colors was visible. The only odd thing was the two black lines in the green area of the spectrum. When observing iodine, all colors were very faint and there were black lines on both sides of the blue area. Helium reflected all of the colors except for violet and had black lines before and after the orange area.

This experiment shows that different gasses and elements reflect and absorb different parts of the visible light spectrum. It gives us better understanding of the energies emitted by what colors are absorbed or reflected.

Atomic Structure

An atom, the smallest particle of an element that still retains the properties of that element, can be split up into smaller particles. Even long ago, they conceived that the atom could be divided into smaller parts. The problem was that they did not know exactly how they were split up. The ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus, thought that atoms were the smallest form of matter and were , therefore, indivisible. A man named John Dalton also believed atoms to be indivisible. Dalton also believed that atoms could not be created or destroyed.

As the question of how atoms are composed has ben risen many many times; so much that people have tried to explain how atoms look. A man named J.J. Thomson made a "plum pudding" model of what an atom looks like:

As you can see, the positive particles (protons) and the negative particles (electrons) are randomly spread out in the atomic space. Thomson was on the right track, but no cigar. A more accurate model was produced by a man named Ernest Rutherford:

Rutherford proposed that the negatively charged electrons orbited around a positively charged nucleus. While this is very very close, what's missing from this picture? Figure it out? That's right; there are not neutrons in the nucleus.

That's better. The orange, uncharged particles in the nucleus that are with the protons are the neutrons. They have no charge, but they add to the atomic mass of the atom. An atom of an element is characterized by its mass number and its atomic number. The mass number is the average mass of the most commonly found isotopes of an element found in nature. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with a different amount of neutrons. The atomic number is the number of the number of protons in the atom of that element. If two atoms have a different number of protons, they are atoms of different elements. If they have the same amount of protons, but different amount of neutrons, they're isotopes.

Separation of Mixtures Lab

Steven and I produced a mixture composed of plastic boiling stones, iron filings, and calcium chloride. After putting each of the ingredients into a small, plastic tray and weighed each of them. We then mixed them all into a beaker and passed them on to another group to be analyzed. The iron filings weighed 4.23 grams; the plastic weighed 10.01 grams; and the calcium chloride weighed 10.57 grams. Once we poured each of the substances into the glass beaker, we stirred them together with a spatula.

After we passed our beaker mixture to another group, we took another groups mixture and tried to analyze what contents they had included into it. Once we got their mixture, we did our best to separate the plastic boiling stones from the sand. The beaker was wet, so it was difficult to know whether or not they used sugar in their mixture. If they had, it had dissolved in the water. The sand that they had put in their beaker was also wet, so we were unable to properly weigh the sand by itself. Once we had separated the ingredients of their mixture, we weighed the plastic at 3.87 grams and the wet sand at 13.21 grams. Once we separated the sand from the sugar using a paper filter and running water, we estimated the weight of the sugar to total at 0.12 grams.

By going through the process of separating each of the individual components of the other groups mixture, we were able to understand how different ingredients can add up to a different weight. While there were larger pieces of plastic, the smaller wet sand weighed more. We also learned that we can separate a small granular ingredients (like sugar) from larger granular ingredients (like sand) using a sort of filter.

Part II
In the second part of this lab, we learned the effects of water on solution when spreading across a paper filter. Before we did anything with the water, we drew different patterns on our pieces of filter paper with different colors of ink. Then, we poked a small hole through the center of the filter and put a small, rolled up pice of paper towel through the hole. After our filter papers were good to go, we filled a small dish halfway with water. Once there's water in the dish, we put our filter papers on top of the dishes, face up, with the small piece of paper towel in the water. As the small piece of paper towel sat in the water, the water slowly made its way up the paper towel and through the filter. As the water spread across the filter, so did the ink. Colors like green broke into yellow and blue as the water spread across. As this went on, the darker colors spread toward the edge with the water while the lighter colors stayed toward the center. This example of chromatography shows that the darker colors on the filter paper are more proved to be carried away by water than the lighter colors. It also showed how colors of ink break apart when water runs through the paper that it's drawn on.