mg + HCl reation help

[doinghscchem]

hay every one im doing a research task for chem about the effects of temp, concentration of hcl, surface area of the mg and the presence of a catalyst

 

i have a cupel of questions

 

1) if there is a catalyst what is it?

 

2)any general hints and tips?

 

thanx all

 

nb; also any suggestions for a simple method and safety risks for this prac.

[UC]

Capitalization, punctuation, and the use of complete (and correct) words would be appreciated.

 

How do you plan to measure surface area? How do you plan to measure the "effect?"

 

HCl reacts pretty violently with magnesium, especially as turnings or powder. The hydrogen gas you generate will carry acidic mist with it.

[doinghscchem]

sorry about the gramma im not the best at it

 

powdered Mg has more surface area then Mg ribbon, the "effect" will be observed visually and recorded

 

hmm thanx for the tips

[hermanntrude]

I' not sure if there is a catalyst for this reaction, but in general it doesn't need one.

 

My advice is to think of a standard experiment, one which uses medium concentration HCl, medium surface area of Mg, medium temperature, and then try to think of a way of measuring the rate of the reaction quantitatively (using numbers). Then once you've performed the standard experiment a few times and found out how repeatable it is (does it always give the same results?), then try altering one thing at a time. When you alter the temperature, keep the concentration and the surface area the same, and so on...

 

the most important part is designing your experiment so you can change it easily and safely, and so that it always gives the same results when you use the same conditions.

[doinghscchem]

would timing the reaction be a plasibil way measure the rate of reaction? HCl consontration is like .5, 1, 1.5 mol/L

 

any suggestions of safety risks?

[hermanntrude]

timing what, exactly?

 

the safety risks should be fairly clear. The best thing to do in this type of situation is look at all the substances involved and be sure you know the hazards related to them, then look at the actual reaction and the hazards related to that (will it get hot? will it spit? might it explode? will there be any gases given off? etc)

[doinghscchem]

the time it takes the Mg to be desolved

[hermanntrude]

seems like a good idea... the only trouble will be making sure that each sample of magnesium is EXACTLY the same weight.

 

The rate of a reaction can be measured in more than one way... perhaps another way you might want to consider (and you certainly don't have to... your idea will work too) is to measure the products appearing rather than the reactants disappearing. Gases are particularly easy to measure...

[doinghscchem]

ok thats a good i dear how wood i do that?

apparently their is a catalyst or my teacher seams to think so

the collishen theory? whats it got to do with heat/kinetic energy

wood a reaction be faster if it is cold/hot,

[hermanntrude]

there are methods for capturing and measuring gases. I don't want to give you too many answers, since part of your project is undoubtedly supposed to be research. Try looking in your textbook in the kinetics chapter.

 

I really don't know what the catalyst is.

 

There is a link between the temperature of a sample and the kinetic energy of the atoms in a sample, and there is a link between the speed of the atoms and the kinetic energy they have. Find those links and the link between collision theory and temperature will become clear. Once again, your textbook would probably be quite helpful. Also, always remember that google and wikipedia are your friends.

[doinghscchem]

im using this site as a research tool in cojucshen with other sites

ive bean tort that wikipedia is unreliable

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btw who is Armadillo Avocado? lol hehe

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wood i mesure the rate of gas ceration? {i.e mills of gas per second [s.t.p]}

[hermanntrude]

whoever taught you that didn't teach you much in the way of details.

 

Certainly wikipedia can be unreliable. So can textbooks. So can teachers.

 

It's important to realise wikipedia isn't perfect.

 

However, anything you read (particularly in the science sections) in wikipedia is most likely going to be very useful in your search for the truth.

 

For instance, if I wanted to find out what exactly the relationship was between a sample's kinetic energy and the speed at which the molecules in that sample are moving, I'd be prepared to bet that wikipedia would tell me the EXACT truth, perhaps in rather more detail than I needed.

 

I wouldn't ask wikipedia to tell me whether OJ Simpson was really guilty or not, though.

 

Seriously about the avocado armadillo thing... think of a number involved in chemistry. Think of the names of some scientists chemistry.

[doinghscchem]

cool thanx