Freezing Point Lab Report

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Introduction: Certain species of fish are able to survive freezing temperatures in water by lowering the freezing point of water in their bodies by increasing the concentration of the dissolved solutes in their blood plasma and their tissues. Freezing point is a colligative property. The experiment provides students with experience to learn how to find the molecular weight of a solute by using their freezing point.
Materials and Methods: The experiment began by gathering the materials. The materials consisted of a ring stand, test tube clamp, 600 mL beaker, 10 cm watch glass, Vernier temperature probe, alcohol thermometer, 11 dram vial, cork with a slit cut in side, spatula, powder funnel, rubber band, 20 cm wire, top-loading balance, analytical …show more content…

Unknown C was determined to be glucose with a percent error of 58.5%. If tap water was the solvent of the experiment, the results would look different. Tap water has impurities in the solvent. Therefore, it would take longer to freeze. The freezing point would be quite lower.
In northern states, they use salt on the road to lower the freezing point of the road. They want to lower the freezing point so that salt does not form on the road. Thus, preventing car accidents from happening. Salt is a better solute than sucrose because salt has a lower molecular weight causing the freezing point depression to be higher. When the freezing point depression is higher, the freezing point of the solution will be lower.
Conclusion:
All in all, the freezing point was used to determine the molecular weight of the unknown solid. The experiment was successful except to one error in trail two. In trail two, the temperature never plateaued making the calculations for molecular weight not accurate. This caused the percent error to be high. Trail 3 was successful in determining glucose to be the unknown

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