Crystal formation lab

This lab procedure was slightly trickier than the others in that it required a tid bit more finesse in going through the steps. Some of the smallest mistakes make the steps leading up to it all for nothing.
First, we needed to add a large amount of Aluminun Potassium Sulfate to a glass beaker of distilled water (the experiment will only work with distilled water). I did not use an exact measurement of Aluminum Potassium Sulfate due to lack of time, so all that I can say is that I added a good sized amount to about 250mL of distilled water. Then, we stirred the water until the Aluminum Potassium Sulfate had fully dissolved and made the water cloudy white. Then, we put our glass beakers on top of hot plates (basically safer, more portable stove tops) and continued to stir. After stirring for about 15 minutes, the solution inside the beaker had turned clear, signifying that it was time for the next step. We took our beakers off of the hot plates to let them cool and form seed crystals at the bottom. Then, we chipped away at the newly formed seed crystals until we a had a respectable-sized chunk that we could tie on a piece of string for the second main part of the experiment. (Note: if the seed crystal is not properly tied to the string, it will fall and ruin the experiment; as what happened to me)
Next, we repeat step one, except we don't let seed crystals form at the bottom. Instead, when we tied a seed crystal with the string, we tied the other end to a small wooden stick (much like a tongue-depresser). The reason for this is to suspend the seed crystal so that it sits in the middle of the glass beaker full of solution. (Note: wait until the beaker has cooled enough to be held or the seed crystal will dissipate) This caused the cooling to make the Aluminum Potassium Sulfate in the water solidify around the seed crystal instead of just the bottom of the beaker. So, basically, we covered the seed crystal in another layer of crystal. The result was this:

This lab lead us to learn two important lessons: 1. Solutions can have predictable reactions when solids of that solution are introduced to the experiment that produced the solutions. By dissolving a solute and making it a part of a solution, it can solidify around a solid in the water in which it was made. 2. Some experiments need careful attention to procedure to produce the right end product.

Flash Memory

View my Prezi presentation about my research on the subject of flash memory and how it works. The presentation includes a short history of companies who utilize and distribute flash memory-related devices such as USB memory units and SD cards.Some questions to review said presentation include:
1.What company is credited with first utilizing flash memory in the 1980's? (Toshiba)
2. What part of USB devices store information? (storage chip)
3. What are common types of devices utilize flash memory?(Memory cards, memory sticks, SD cards, USB drives)

Silver nitrate precipitate lab

Purpose: Find how much silver is produced from 1g of silver nitrate.
Hypothesis: If silver nitrate is mixed with copper wire, then one gram of silver precipitate will form on the wire.
Materials: Silver nitrate solution, copper wire, distilled water, test tube, beaker, filter paper and small funnel.
Procedure: Pour 1g of silver nitrate solution into the test tube, leaving enough room left for the copper wire. Carefully put on 30cm of copper wire into the test tube and tape over the opening of the tube. Let the wire sit in the solution for 24 hours. Upon return, position the funnel over the opening of the beaker and roll the filter paper to create a cone to catch any precipitate that may have formed from the reaction. Next, carefully remove the tape from the test tube and pour out the excess solution into the filter paper cone. Then, lightly spray the copper wire with distilled water, getting off any precipitate from the wire and into the paper cone. Once all remaining precipitate is in the filter paper, weigh the wire and the precipitate separately.
Conclusions: 0.35g of silver was produced from the reaction and 0.247g of copper was lost. Our original hypothesis was proven wrong, due to a miscalculation in stoichiometric equations which led us to the aproximate result of 1g of precipitate.

Molar calculations

One mole is equal to 6.02 times 10^23. This number was introduced by Amedeo Avogadro to simplify a unit of atoms. An element's atomic weight is how many grams of weight are present in one mole of that atom. Percentages of elements present in a molecule of a substance, such as aluminum chloride, can be found by going through some simple mathematical steps; as shown below:

Popcorn lab

Purpose: find out how much of unpopped popcorn kernals' mass is made up of water.
Hypothesis: When popcorn kernals are popped, atleast one third of the total mass of the kernals will be lost due to loss of water caused by high temperature.
Materials: Glass beaker, vegetable oil, unpopped popcorn kernals, Bunsen burner, and foil.
Procedure: First, weigh the popcorn kernals and record the total weight befor reaction takes place. Next, fill the glass beaker with a small amount of oil to pop the kernals in. Put kernals in the beaker and cover the top with aluminum foil to keep heat inside the beaker. Poke holes in the foil to let pressure from the heated air escape. Then, place the beaker above a bunsen burner so that the flame heats the beaker evenly. Light the flame and wait for the kernals to pop. Then, remove the popped kernals and weigh them and record the difference in weight.
Results: One gram of weight was missing from the kernals.
Conclusion: The original hypothesis of one third of weight being lost from the reaction proved false. Though only a small amount of weight was lost from the lost water from the kernals, it was still apparant that the weight difference was caused by evaporated water trapped in the kernals. Based on the original weight of 6.5g of the kernals and the loss of 1g from teh experiment, it can be calculated that about 15.38% of the unpopped kernals' weight comprised of water.

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.