The Copper Cycle

The Copper Cycle is a well-know experiment that is used to demonstrate the Law of Conservation of Mass. According to this law, mass is conserved during chemical reactions. In other words, the mass of copper in the reactants is supposed to equal the mass of copper in the products.1 The Copper Cycle is a series of 5 reactions over which the mass of copper is ideally conserved. These reactions are various types of reactions, which highlights that mass is conserved in all kinds of chemical reactions. However, due to experimental errors, some percent of copper is usually not recovered in the last step.
Four types of reactions will be performed in this experiment: precipitation reactions, redox reactions, decomposition reactions, and acid base

In this experiment, a balanced chemical equation will be provided for decomposition reactions. A redox reaction is a reaction where one reactant is reduced due to a gain of electrons, and the other is oxidized due to a loss of electrons. The reactant that loses an electron is called the reducing agent, whereas the reactant that gains an electron is called the oxidizing agent. In this experiment, the balanced chemical equation, and the two half equations for the redox reactions will be provided, and the oxidizing and reducing agents will be

A stir bar was also added to the solution. The glass stirring rod from previous steps was used to remove pieces of Cu that formed on the Al wire, so that more Al surface would be exposed. A steam bath was prepared with 50 mL of deionized water, the glass rod was used to remove as much copper from the aluminum wire as possible, and the Al wire was then disposed of in the solid waste container. The mass of an evaporating dish was recorded, and the Cu was transferred on to the evaporating dish. Water was removed from the dish, and the Cu was then washed thrice with 5 mL deionized water, and decanted between washings. It was then similarly washed thrice with 5 mL of ethanol. The evaporating dish was then placed on the steam bath to dry until the Cu had a sand-like texture. The bottom of the dish was dried, it was cooled to room temperature, and then its mass was measured and recorded. All the solutions were disposed of in the liquid waste container, the Cu and Al were disposed of in the solid waste container, and the apparatus was cleaned and put