Title: Using Four Reactions to Calculate the Percent Yield of Recycled Aluminum Author Information: *Mia Ingram, Tyler Snody (*Primary Author) CHEM 111, Section 511, Experiment 4: The Chemistry of Recycling Introduction Aluminum is a common and crucial metal used in consumer’s everyday lives. It is mainly used in making containers and packaging, car parts, aircrafts and other household items. Recycling aluminum, usually in the form of cans, requires very low energy in order to make a useful product. In this experiment, aluminum is converted into potassium aluminum sulfate, or what the paper will now refer to as “alum” in order to see how much of the can is recyclable. The purpose of the abstract will be to go over the process of producing alum, writing net ionic equations for each step in the production of alum, and calculating the percent yield of alum. Materials and Methods The first step was adding 1.1013 g of aluminum can pieces to a 250. mL beaker. The same beaker was then filled with 50. mL of 1.4 M KOH solution, and the solution was heated by a hot …show more content…
Because the coefficients are the same in the balanced equation, the moles of aluminum equalled the moles of alum. Calculating the theoretical yield of alum required the moles of alum and the molar mass of alum. The molar mass of alum is 474.3884 g/mol. So the theoretical yield of alum was calculated as: (0.04082 mol alum) * (474.3884 g/mol alum) = 19.36 g of alum. Lastly, the percent yield of alum was found by using the percent yield formula: [(Actual Yield) / (Theoretical Yield)] * 100 = Percent Yield The actual yield of alum was found by subtracting the mass of the watch glass itself, 51.8004 g, from the overall mass of the watch glass and alum, 66.2013 g. So the actual yield of alum was 66.2013 g - 51.8004 g = 14.4009 g of alum actually yielded. After plugging in all the calculated values into the percent yield