Spec 20 Lab Results

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This whole lab was centered on using the Spec 20, performing dilutions, constructing tables and graphs to help us determine the concentrations of phosphate in colas. The Spec 20 is a device that shoots a beam of light through a sample of liquid and measures the amount of light that gets transmitted. How the Spec 20 works is that there is a lamp inside the machine that produces a light through a lens and a slit which forms a narrow beam of light to which this light is directed to a diffraction grating. A diffraction grating is a piece of plastic or glass that can break up light into its different colors. Also, when we change the wavelength, we are basically changing the angle of the diffraction grating. After the light is separated into its …show more content…

These results basically indicated that different colors have different %T and absorbance at different wavelengths. The results for the KMnO4 is also shown in Table 1. Looking at the Chart 3, we determined the analytical wavelength to be 420 nm for KMnO4. With that wavelength in mind, we performed dilutions on 2 x 10-3 M KMnO4 to get %T values between 15 and 85. The concentrations of KMnO4 that gave us %T values between 15 and 85 were 2x10-3 M, 8x10-4 M, 1.6x10-4 M, and 3.2x10-5 M. The purpose of experimenting with the colored solutions and KMnO4 in week one of this experiment was to figure out the relationship between color and wavelength of absorbance. This helped us figure out that the analytical wavelength which is where the absorbance is maximized. We chose the analytical wavelength to be 420 nm because that was where the colors’ absorbance was at its maximum. [Our data does not exactly show 420 nm as the maximum probably due to human error but we were told to use that wavelength since the rest of the class was using that value.] The analytical wavelength is where the absorbance is maximized because that is the place where there is less variability in the values therefore making it more accurate and precise to measure our solution at that wavelength to perform dilutions to get our desired %T …show more content…

We were given 3 samples of colas, Dr. Thunder, Diet Sam’s Cola, and Mountain Dew Code Red. First, the colas had to be decarbonized by heating the colas, carefully, making sure to not bring it to a boil as that would affect the concentration. The CO2 had to be removed because it can also affect the concentration. Then, AVM had to be added to the colas because we added it to the phosphate solution in week two. The AVM diluted the concentration of the phosphate solution, so we must add it to the colas also to accurately measure the phosphate content since we are using the analytical wavelength of 380 nm from the phosphate in week 2 to measure the %T of the colas. Dr. Thunder had a %T of 45.29, Diet Sam’s Cola had a %T of 61.09, and Mountain Dew Code Red had a %T of 64.7. Then, the concentration of phosphate was determined in the cola using the calibration curve which is basically a graph of concentration vs %T with a regression equation as shown in Chart 6. The regression

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