Investigating the Law of Conservation of Mass

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2.

A) Part B of the Lab does follow the Law of conservation of mass but because of the lack of equipment we received when proceeding to do the lab, the results were slightly off making it look like the lab was a fail and that the Law of conservation of mass was not applicable.

B) Part B would have been designed to safely collect all the products if we were given a device that could trap all the gas within the cup so that the results of the mass could be accurate and people would not have different masses.

3.

A) You know your results are accurate when the reactants mass is equal to the products mass at the end of the experiment. If the masses are different then you know your results are not accurate and that you made a mistake.

B) The benefits of performing the same experiment multiple of times is that if you did the experiment wrong the first time or second time you could always do it again and correct yourself. Performing many trials makes a person more confident about their results because they have done it so many times and probably have corrected errors throughout each trail.

4.

Word equation: Sodium Hydroxide + Iron(III) Nitrate → Iron(III) Hydroxide + Sodium Nitrate.

Unbalanced/Skeleton Equation: NaOH + Fe(NO3)3 → FeOH3 + NaNO

Discussion:

The main purpose of this lab was to show that the mass of the reactants and products would stay the same. The law of conservation of mass was proven by the 2 experiments done in the lab because both of the masses stayed the nearly the same unless lack of equipment was given. The first experiment was done when 5ml of Sodium Hydroxide was mixed with 3ml of iron (III) nitrate and the masses for before the reaction and after the reaction remained the same. The second experiment was done when 50ml of tap water was mixed with ¼ of an antacid tablet and the masses for before the reaction and after reaction were really close. My results supported my hypothesis because I said that both experiments will end up following the law of conservation of mass and that is what happened. Sodium Hydroxide and Iron (III) nitrate began with the total mass of 166.25grams and ended up with the total mass of 166.25grams after the reaction. Tap water and the Antacid tablet total mass began with 170.1grams and ended up with 169.89grams, the masses are slightly different because proper equipment were not handed to us for that lab and so that effected the mass after the reaction slightly. The problems we faced in the second experiment was all blamed on the fact we were lacking the appropriate and required equipment for the experiment. The lab equipment given to us was not capable of keeping all the gas from the water and antacid tablet chemical reaction and therefore that effected our results a lot because, by the end of the experiment the total mass after the reaction was different and not the same as It was supposed to be. We were also given old equipment to use and that effected the reactions. So in this lab sources of experimental errors would be lack of equipment, and use of old equipment.

Conclusion:

To conclude, the results of the experiments proved that the law of conservation of mass which states that reactants masses will always equal the products mass in a chemical reaction, is correct because both experiments ended with the products having the same mass as the reactants.

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