Procedure The first thing that we did to prepare Essays - Chemistry

Procedure: The first thing that we did to prepare for this lab is weigh the weigh boat and get about 4 grams of the combination of iron filings, salt, and sand. After that, we weigh the boat along with the mixture to find out the mass altogether. The last thing to measure before starting the process of separation is the weigh paper which the iron will be put on to. Using a magnet along with a filtration paper, which will prevent the filings to be attached to the magnet, we collected the iron filings from the mixture. We then weigh the mass of both the paper and the iron collected. With the iron separated, the next step is to remove the sand from the mixture. The first thing we did was we poured the mixture and some water into a beaker and mixed it well together. Then, we weigh a filtration paper and placed it into the vacuum filter. It is important to wet the filtration paper so that it sticks to the top of the vacuum filter. To make the sand separates from the salt water faster than using gravity, we connected the nozzle from the flask to the water faucet which will fasten up the process. Next, we poured the mixture from the beaker into the vacuum filter. Note that only add a little bit at a time so the filter does not clog up. There was some sand that stayed in the beaker so we used the distilled water bottle to wash it out. After this filtration process, we used a tweezer to remove the filtration paper with sand collected on top onto a watch glass whose mass needs to be measured. We placed the sand in an oven to dry and measured the mass. And then finally, to separate the salt from the water, we first had to measure the mass of the crucible. Using a Bunsen burner, we heated up the crucible and slowly added salt water to evaporate the water. It is safer to put a watch glass over the crucible so that the sand and hot water do not shoot out. Once all the water has evaporated, let the crucible cool down and then measure the mass of the crucible and remaining sal t. Summary: Through this lab, I learned the different techniques of separation and how it works. While learning how the different techniques of separating components works, my partner and I made some mistakes during the procedure that affected the results. At the beginning of the experiment, we did not separate the iron filings out of the mixture correctly. Due to this carelessness, some of the iron filings got stuck on the magnet leading us to start the lab all over again. With a good amount of time lost, we were unable to evaporate all of the water from the salt water. The excess that we were not able to boil were poured down the drain. This means that some salt in the mixture was lost and was not able to be measured. In addition, more salt was lost as we spilled salt water while pouring it into the crucible. Not only was some lost down the drain and in the fire, some also shoot out of the crucible like fireworks while boiling which cause the mass of salt less than it should be. For t he next lab, we need to be more patient and take the steps slowly to prevent careless mistakes from happening.