In this experiment, we sought to determine what type of iron was used in the nails which we utilized in our reaction. In order to determine this, we added the said nails into a mixture of H2O and CuCl2 with the intention of reacting the two to create copper. Because of the law of conservation of mass, the creation of copper had to take mass from one of the reactants, in this case, iron. We observed the mass of the iron nails decrease between the start and the end of the lab, and we then converted that mass in grams into moles of iron and did the same with the amount of copper that we recorded after the decanting process. We used these two measurements to calculate the mole ratio between iron and copper. By doing this, we were able to share our table’s ratios …show more content…
This type of lab heavily utilizes the concepts of stoichiometry. Stoichiometry looks into the relationship between the relative amounts of substances that are part of a reaction. You can also use stoichiometry for unit conversions, in this case, moles. Moles are a vital unit of measurement that is used to calculate and compare large quantities of small things. Chemists use moles rather than mass when determining relationships between multiple substances because they work with extremely small particles, so using the mass wouldn’t be productive. They created the mole so they could more accurately compare relationships between multiple substances. Our class average for the mole ratio of Fe:Cu was 0.80 mol Fe/mol Cu, while my table’s mole ratio was 0.94 mol Fe/mol Cu. Due to my use of the former mole ratio in my calculations, I determined that my table’s nails were primarily made up of Iron III. I recorded several qualitative observations, and they can be used as justification for a chemical reaction occurring in the first place. For example, I found that the beaker began to warm soon after we added the nails into the CuCl2