Copper Recycling Lab

Technical: The purpose of this lab is to learn all of the technical procedures for different types of chemical reactions.
Educational: We intend to demonstrate our knowledge of chemical equations and the reactions that take place in more than just a piece of paper, so we can have experience in real life as well as knowing how it all works on paper.

Hypothesis

After doing some research on other peoples results from a similar lab I noted a few yields, and came out to and average of 95% yield. I think that if we take attention to detail and use the utmost carefulness when measuring and taking proper notes we can achieve a yield of 90%. I think this because most procedures I read with a low effort put into it were often lower yield, but the ones with good yield often were very tediously done and very carefully attended to. As we are never going to be perfect I don't want to hypothesize a 100% yield and because I believe we can do a good job I don't want put my expectations to low by hypothesizing 85% so I went not in the middle and rather at 90% as there will be errors on the way.

Pre Lab Questions

1. Concentrated strong acids, such as hydrochloric and sulfuric acid, are severely corrosive to skin and eyes. What additional hazard arises in this experiment when working with nitric acid? What safety precaution will protect you against this hazard?

An additional hazard to be aware of when performing the experiment is the toxic fumes released when mixing the copper with the nitric acid. The gas is called "Nitrogen Dioxide Gas" or "NO₂" it is a red/brown gas with many harmful effect if ingested (breathed) some of which include, irritation of the lungs, and if you breathe enough of it it could even cause "Pulmonary Edema" which causes extra fluid in the lungs making breathing difficult.
To avoid this hazard while working on the lab we will be using the "Fume Hood" in the classroom. The fume hood is a place to set chemicals during a chemical reaction that will release toxic gases (fumes). The fume hood has a button to turn on to filter out all of the gasses, in the case of not having a fume hood another way to avoid breathing the gasses is to perform the reaction outside then get inside a quickly as possible and wait until the reaction finishes to go back outside and retrieve the finished product. One thing to consider if you place your chemical outside is that its outside, if its windy or any sort of inclement weather then keep that in mind, maybe put a box over it to avoid dust from the air or other things floating around outside from getting into your solution and messing up further reactions down the line.

2. The four-reaction copper cycle featured in this experiment is summarized to the right. Fill in the blanks to show the reagents that will be used in each step.

Copy of image_2024-03-01_163904715.pdf

3. The amount of copper obtained at the end of the experiment provides a good test of laboratory technique—each operation must be carried out without losing any copper. In Part B, aqueous copper(II) nitrate will be converted to solid copper(II) phosphate, and the resulting mixture will be filtered. How will you be able to tell that no copper is being “lost” during this step?
The filtered solution should be completely clear, the reason that this would tell us that the copper was completely filtered is quite simple. The reason why a clear substance would tell us that all the copper has been filtered is because if the substance had color that would mean there are is still copper in the solution because at this point in the experiment copper is the only thing giving the solution color so after you filter the copper it should all be on the filter paper and not in the solution and you could tell if there was still color.

Lab:

Materials:

Hot plate
50 Ml Graduated Cylinder: 2
250 Ml Beaker: 1
Scale: 1
Pipet: 2
Filter paper: 1
250 Ml Erlenmeyer Flask: 1
Stir Stick: 1
Waste beaker
Watch Glass
Copper Powder: .30 Grams
Nitric Acid: 6 Ml
Distilled Water: 5 Ml
Sodium Hydroxide: 6 Ml
PH Strips: 1 Strip
.50M Sodium Phosphate: 10 Ml
Hydrochloric Acid: 20 Ml
Water: 275 Ml
Boiling Stones: 10
Magnesium: 0.51g
3M hydrochloric acid: 3 Ml
Acetone: 5 Ml
Acetone: 5 Ml
Paper towel: 1

Procedure:

Measured out .30 grams of copper
Put Copper powder in the fume hood
Measured out 6 ML of Nitric Acid
Added Nitric Acid to Copper powder and stirred, the powder didn't dissolve
Added one more pipet of Nitric Acid
Add concentrated Nitric Acid
Had to restart because the reaction did not occur
Measured out .30 grams of copper powder
Put copper powder in the fume hood
Measure out 6 ML of Nitric Acid
Added 6 Ml of Nitric Acid and stirred until the powder dissolved
Remove the solution from the fume hood
Diluted the solution with 5 ML of distilled water
Added 6 Ml of Sodium Hydroxide to the solution
Stirred constantly until the solution was cloudy
Tested the PH level
Result: PH=5-6
Measured out 10 ML of .5M Sodium Phosphate
Added 10 Ml of .5M Sodium Phosphate to the solution and stir thoroughly
Cleaned the sides of the beaker with distilled water
Created a filter apparatus
Filtered the solution through the paper
Waited until completely filtered
Rinsed solid with 5mL of distilled water
Poured out the filtered solution
Measured out 20 Ml of hydrochloric Acid into a graduated cylinder
Made another filter apparatus
Use the previous filter paper and funnel that still has the solid on it
Add the Hydrochloric Acid to the filter the solid
Waited for all of the solids to dissolve
Used distilled water to rinse the filter paper
Added more Hydrochloric Acid to dissolve all of our material
Added more distilled water to rinse the filter paper
Removed the filter apparatus
Put the Erlenmeyer Flask with the solution in the fume hood to store overnight
Disposed of the filter paper
Cleaned all equipment
Cleaned the table
Plugged in the hot plate
Filled the beaker 3/4th of the way with water
Added 3 boiling stones to the beaker with the water
Placed the beaker on the hot plate
Measured out .51g of magnesium filings
Added magnesium filings to the solution
Measured out 3 ML of 3M hydrochloric acid
Added it to the solution to dissolve the leftover magnesium
Put the liquid from the solution into a waste beaker
Washed out the leftover solid with distilled water
Put the solid on a watch glass
Poured out able copper with a pipet
Put the watch glass with all of the solids onto the beaker with boiling water that's over the hot plate
Waited until all the distilled water on the watch glass evaporated leaving only copper
Used a pipet to help remove excess water
Measured out 5 Ml of Acetone
Added Acetone to the boiling copper after all of the water is evaporated
Wait until all the Acetone evaporates
Turned off the hotplate
Removed the watching glass from the boiling water beaker
Removed and emptied the boiling water beaker safely
Weighed the watch glass with the copper
Weighed the watch glass without the copper
Subtracted the difference
Math came out wrong, we didn't tear the scale during the first weigh
Weight without copper properly, fixed issue with the scale
Subtracted the difference
Copper yield = .27g
Net loss of .03g of copper
%Yield = 90%

Procedure Photos

Observations:

Copper is brownish and very dusty
The fume hood is very bright
Nitric acid looks clean despite its toxicity
A chemical reaction is happening, a blue liquid forms after bubbling for a couple of minutes
There seems to be little heat produced from this reaction
Water is added to the mixture no interesting results
The solution seems to be having another chemical reaction
The solution seems to be more cloudy than before
Our PH level is lower than most groups
The solution seems to be changing shades of color again, to a greenish shade
HCL acid turned our green solution back to bright blue
Boiling stones looked like white pieces of chalk
A chemical reaction occurs, and the color changes to clear, copper is visible, heat is produced
Barely any reaction occurs
Evaporation took around 10 minutes
Acetone smells like nail polish remover, it evaporates quickly

Observation Videos

IMG_2026.MOV

IMG_2041.MOV

IMG_2042.MOV

Skills Needed

Filtration Technique

DATA:

Left over copper:
Failed measure:
53.08 - 51.5 = 1.58g

Redone measure:

.27g

Post Lab Questions:

1. Write a balanced chemical equation for each reaction in Parts A-D. Classify each reaction as a single replacement, double replacement, and/or oxidation-reduction reaction.

Cu + 2HNO₃ = H2 + Cu(NO3)2 (Single Replacement, Oxidation-Reduction Reaction)

3Cu(NO3)2 + 2Na3PO4 = 6NaNO3 + Cu3(PO4)2 (Double Replacement Reaction)

Cu3(PO4)2 + 6HCl = 2H3PO4 + 3CuCl2 (Double Replacement Reaction)

CuCl2 + Mg = MgCl2 + Cu (Single Replacement, Oxidation-Reduction Reaction)

2. Determine the mass of copper recovered at the end of the “four-reaction copper cycle” and calculate the percent recovery.
.27g/.30g = 0.9
0.9 * 100 = 90

90% copper recovery

3. List at least three sources of experimental error that might lead to a mass of recovered copper less than that originally used.
Adding too little of a chemical, inaccurately measuring the copper, mistakes during the final measurement.

4. List at least three sources of experimental error that might lead to a mass of recovered copper greater than that originally used.
Adding too much of the magnesium, inaccurately measuring substances, mistakes during the final measurement.

CONCLUSION:

We learned that the procedures for chemical reaction in a lab are straight forward and easy to do, but not easy to do perfect. We learned that making a perfect chemical reaction take place that doesn't lose anything is incredibly difficult.

Our group took great pride in our speed and integrity of our experiment however, along the way we made some mistakes, some were human, some were experimental and unavoidable. One of these mistakes was unavoidable, when you transfer a solution from different container to a new one you are introducing room for some solution to be left behind meaning you will lose some copper, we had lots of transfers of materials from one container to a new one including filtering, transferring from container to a new one, and evaporating substances that might contain some copper. Throughout the experiment we made near zero human errors, but that was all in vain when we forgot to measure the weight of our watching glass before we put substance in it, so we had to take our powdered copper off of the seeing glass and that is where we lost the most copper because it is not easy to move a powdered substance without losing some or leaving some behind.

PERSONAL REFLECTION/DISCUSSION:

I learned about basics of chemistry labs that I have forgotten since last year, I relearned the precision you need to make sure everything comes out right in the end. The experiment was really fun to me because I got to deal with a bunch of chemicals in a safe manner, I also got to see a bunch of reaction that produced different results and that was cool to me. I don't remember seeing as many visible reaction as there was during this in our last chemistry lab, it was really surprising to me that there were so many different types of reactions and they were more than just letters changing places on a piece of paper.

COLLABORATING PARTNERS:

Ayla Doolen:
Robert Katakowski:
Jack Ceo:

Lab Sheet:

Copy of Recycling Copper STUDENT.pdf

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