Salt Lab

Purpose (put into lab book)

• The purpose of this lab is to examine different salts used to melt ice on sidewalks and roadways. You will determine which is most effective.

Hypothesis (answer in a complete sentence in lab book)

• We are testing three different salts you can buy at the store: NaCl, KCl, and CaCl₂

• Which do you think will be most effective?

Materials (read the procedure below and list at least 4 chemicals and 6 different materials you will need)

Procedure (summarize in lab book)

1. Measure out 25g of each salt using a weighing dish and balance: NaCl, KCl, and CaCl₂

2. _{Poke a small hole in the bottom of each of the four cups using your pen or pencil. (One cup is used for each salt, and one will not have any salt to be used as a control in this experiment.)}

3. _{Fill each cup equally with ice.}

4. _{Stagger the cups around the ring stand with rings and align a graduated cylinder underneath the holes of each cup. (See picture below)}

5. _{Pour the salt on each of the cups full of ice and record the volume of water collected every two minutes for 14 minutes.}

Lab Set-up:

Data (put into lab book)

If you were absent for this lab, click here to get your data.

Graph (use a piece of graph paper printed from the internet or graph in your lab notebook by hand)

• Graph:

  • x axis - time (min)

  • y axis - volume (mL)

• Graph all four lines on the one graph! Use different colors for each line and label which line represents which salt (either with a key or legend or directly on each line).

• Don't forget to label your axes and title the graph.

Conclusion (put into lab book - your 3 paragraph conclusion)

Paragraph #1 - Purpose and what was done (details!)

Paragraph #2 - Explain what the graph tells you about these salts. (Which is most effective? Which is least effective?)

Paragraph #3 - Errors and how you would fix them.