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Le Chateliers Principle
Description: Le Chateliers principle is demonstrated by either invoking a color
change of anhydrous (blue) CoCl2 or hexahydrate (pink) CoCl26H2O OR by
observing the color change involved with the conversion of the chromate ion to
the dichromate ion by addition of acid or base.
Materials:
CoCl2 (anhydrous to hexahydrate)
0.05 M CoCl2
Conc. HCl
1 M AgNO3
Acetone
Petri dishes
Glass stirring rod
Procedure:
For large lecture halls, project demonstration using a document camera.
CoCl2 (anhydrous to hexahydrate)
1. In an evaporating dish, add 50 mL of CoCl2 solution (pink). To this, add
HCl until the solution turns purple and then blue. The solution can be
converted back to the pink hexahydrate species with the addition of water.
At this point, the blue anhydrous species can again be regenerated by the
addition of acetone. In each case, an equal volume of reagent will be
required to shift the equilibrium.
2. In a separate evaporating dish, generate the blue anhydrous species with
the addition of HCl as described in step 1. Slowly add 1 M AgNO3 with
stirring. AgCl will precipitate out and the solution will turn pink.
Discussion: While the nature of the species in solution during the cobalt
demonstration is not fully known, this experiment serves as an excellent
demonstration of Le Chateliers principle. In dilute aqueous solutions the
dominant cobalt species is Co(H2O)62+. Replacement of the water molecules
with Cl1- ions eventually produces a cobalt species with at least two chloride ions
within the inner coordination sphere. It is believed that the transition from pink to
blue occurs upon changing from the hydrated CoCl1+ species to a hydrated CoCl2
species. The shift from hexahydrate to anhydrous is favored by an increase in
temperature (hence the use of concentrated HCl) as well as the presence of
organic solvents (acetone, 2-propanol, 1-butanol). If a 1:1 mixture of water and
2-propanol is used, less HCl is required to observe a change in color. The
addition of AgNO3 to the anhydrous species results in the formation of the Co2+
hexahydrate species. This is due to the abstraction of Cl1- ions in CoCl42- by Ag1+
and the subsequent precipitation of AgCl. The chemical equation used to
describe this equilibrium is commonly written as:
CoCl42-(aq) + 6 H2O (l)
[Co(H2O)6]2+(aq) + 4 Cl1-(aq)
According to the above chemical equation, the equilibrium will shift to the
right with addition of acid to generate the orange dichromate ion in solution.
Likewise, addition of base to a dichromate solution will shift the equilibrium to the
left, producing the yellow color indicative of a high chromate concentration in
solution.
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS9kIj9n-BU (CoCl2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP9qEiaL4kQ (chromate)