Analysis: The ion that causes the color change in flames is because of the cation in a chemical formula. The reason why the cation is the cause of the color change is because when I observed the flame color created by the different salts, there some a couple of similarities and differences that I found in each chemical formula. Two formulas that I were drawn to first were potassium chloride and sodium chloride. They both have the same anions however they have different cations and this is the first clue that I found to try to find out which ion causes the flame color change. The next clue that I found that the anion wasn’t the ion causing the color change was also the chemical formulas. Sodium sulfate and sodium chloride both have similar cations however they have different anions but they produce the same color. …show more content…
Based on the data collected in my data table, I can give an educated guess and say that the cation of this unknown salt is strontium. During the flame test, I observed strontium chloride and strontium nitrate to produce the same color and that color was described as red. This unknown salt was stimulated and it showed similar characteristics as the strontium. The light that is produced by an atom can be simply explained because of an atom being stimulated. When an electron is stimulated the electron gains energy and can jump orbitals in the atoms and this is when the electron emits the light. The electron however cannot emit this light/energy forever so the electron moves back to it’s most basic orbital that it can sustain forever. This is why the salt isn’t always emitting the light whenever we see it. Once this electrons aren’t being stimulated, the salt will lose the color of the cation because of the loss of