ADI Lab: Stoichiometry and Chemical Reactions The guiding question of this ADI lab was, “Which balanced equation best represents the thermal decomposition of sodium bicarbonate?” The goal of this lab was to use our knowledge of stoichiometry with the mole ratio to identify the correct chemical equation for the decomposition of sodium bicarbonate. Information that was given going into this investigation was the definition of the law of conservation of mass and the atomic theory which states that no atoms can be created nor destroyed during a chemical reaction. Also the mole ratio which is used to determine how much of a product will be produced in a chemical reaction using the given chemical equation. To conduct the lab, information regarding …show more content…
Before decomposing the sodium bicarbonate, the crucible mass was measured as well as the mass of the crucible with two grams of sodium bicarbonate in it. Two grams of sodium bicarbonate was used because it seemed like a reasonable amount for the size of the crucible and is an easy number to work with in stoichiometry. The sodium bicarbonate was cooked in the crucible for 14 minutes and then the gas was turned off and the crucible was left to cool for 5-10 minutes. Since no information on how long to cook the sodium bicarbonate was given we used our best estimate of how long the substance needed to decompose based off how much was placed in the crucible. Once the crucible was cooled, it was placed on a balance to measure the mass and then subtracted by the mass of the crucible to get the solid product’s mass. Then dimensional analysis was used to find the theoretical yield for the solid substance of each given equation. Starting with 2.0 gram of sodium bicarbonate, the molar ratio from each equation was used to convert from moles of sodium bicarbonate to moles of the solid product in that equation and then molar mass was used to convert the answer back into grams. Once this step was repeated with all four equations the theoretical yield of each was compared with the actual yield found by decomposing the