Reactivity Series Investigation Essay Example for Free

Reactivity Series Investigation Essay Experiment on Metals Aim-To find out which of these metals will be most reactive with hydrochloric acid,and plan an investigation to test it out. The Metals given:Calcium,Aluminium,Iron,Magnesium and Zinc. Prediction-I predict that the metal will be the most reactive with hydrocholoric acid is calcium because calcium is in Group 2 which is the alkaline earth metals in the periodic table and because calcium is at the extreme left side of the periodic table and as you go across a period,the element change from reactive metals on the left to non reactive metals on the right. On the extreme right of the periodic table is the noble gases. Also calcium is Group 2 which is the alkaline earth metals and they are part of the reactive metals which is Group 1 and 2. Also out of all of the metals given calcium reacts more faster with air and creates a sparkling sight and can damage your eyes creating calcium oxide in word equation it is Calcium+Oxygen equals calcium oxide. In chemical equation it is 4Ca +O2 equals 2 Ca2o. Calcium also reacts more than zinc,aluminum,iron and magnesium with water and much more violent and quicker creating vapour and moves much faster than the other metal and creates a vigrous sizzling sound and fizzing in water and dissloves much faster than the other metals. The alkaline metals get more reactive as you go down the group and calcium is further down than magnesium so therefore it must be more reactive than magnesium. Calcium is in group 2 in the periodic table which is more reactive than iron and zinc in the transistion metals section of the periodic table which is not very reactive because transisiton metals are the metals they use to build structures or making things since they have high melting points and high densities. Calcium is in group 2 and is the more reactive out of all the metals is because group 2 metals in the periodic table have low melting points than the transition metals which iron and zinc belong to and The poor metals which aluminium belong to and they also have low low densities than the other metals. The next most reactive metal I think will be Magnesium because magnesium is higher in the group 2 than calcium and therefore less reactive than calcium and much more reactive than iron,zinc and aluminium because when magnesium react with oxygen it is more reactive than Iron or zinc or aluminium as we test it out when burning it. The magnesium sparkled producing a white light and turned into another substance which can damage your eyes if you look at it directly without any protective glass whereas the iron and zinc and aluminium didnt react as violent as this because they didnt turn into another sunstance but they did change colour. The end result of the magnesium reacting with oxygen is magnesium oxide that is in word equation magnesium+oxygen equals magnesium oxide. The chemical equation is 4Mg+O2 equals to 2Mg2O. The other reason I think magnesium is more reactive than the other metals apart from calcium is because magnesium reacts more violent than iron, zinc and aluminium in water much faster than them. The word equation for this reaction is Magensium+water equals Magnesium hydroxide+hydrogen gas and the chemical equation is 2Mg+2h2O equals 2MgOH+H2. So if calcium and magnesium acts violently with water and oxygen it will act more violently with dilute hydrocholoric acid. Equipement: -1 Gas syringe -1 Stop clock -5 Conical flask -Delivery tube -Powders 0. 5g -1 Bunsen Burner -1 heat proof mat -1 gauze mat -1 tri-pod -Top pan balance -Hydrocholoric acid -1 Spatula -5 petri-dishes -1 Clamp stand -A box of Matches -A Splint -1 measuring cylinder -Sticky labels -1 thermometer -1 bung Plan-First of all collect all the equipment on the equipement list. Then get all the different powders which aluminium powder,magnesium powder,calcium powder,iron fillings and zinc powder. After getting all the powders get a spatula and the top pan balance. Then plug in the top pan balance and weigh the mass of each powder to 0. 5g using the spatula and the petri dish to put the powder in other wise it will be everywhere. The reason we are using the plastic petri-dish is because they have less mass than beakers which we have to do calculations. The petri-dishs mass is not only 0. 1g whicle beakers will be a lot heavier and therefore we have to take away beakers mass from the powder and beakerss mass. After weighing all the different powders put them in the pertri-dish and put sticky labels on them writing what each metal are so we dont get mixed up with the metals e. g. Suppose to test aluminium but got zinc powder. After putting the labels on the powders we are going get the measuring cylinder and measure hydrocholic acid which is 15cm3 and after we measured it we are going to put it into a conical flask. Repeat the measuring of the hydrocholic acid and putting it into the conical flask till all the 5 conical flasks have 15cm3 of hydrocholic acid. Then get the clamp stand and put the gas syringe in or set up the gas syringe make sure it doesnt fall off. Then bung the delivery tube to one of the conical flask so we can fit the delivery tube onto the top of the syringe where the gas enters the syringe. Then we reset the stop clock if we have to and put the calcium powder in the conical flask and when it is in the conical flask we quickly start the stop clock. Then after 10 seconds we are going to take our reading and record so we will do a reading every 10 seconds. For very powder we are going to test for 2 minutes and so every powder will have 12 readings because there is 12 10 seconds in 2 minutes. So we are going to do calcium poder first and then magnesium.