Brittany Amerson Chem 105-38 Experiment 9: The Density of Air Results and Discussion As a summary of my experimental procedure, I started

by grabbing a piece of aluminum foil, poking a small hole in it with a pin, and wrapping it around the opening of my flask. I then weighed the flask. Nick then put a piece of dry ice into my flask, I covered the flask with the foil and I then started to wait for the ice to sublime. Once the ice finally sublimed I weighed the flask. I did this two more times. After the three trials I entered my values into the computer and received my standard deviation. We used carbon dioxide in this experiment because it is a constantthe density and the mass is known. Other gases could have been used if we knew these values. I dont think this could have been eliminated for the procedure because we need a control in order to calculate the density of air in further steps. My literature value that I found for the density of air was 1.29 g/L at 0 . I think my source is fairly credible as the author holds a doctorate degree. However I know there are more credible sources out there. When comparing my literature value, my pre-lab value and my calculated value for the density of air I realized that my calculated value is way off from the other two values, as I calculated the density of air to be 5.67 g/mL and my pre-lab value was 1.178 g/L. Even though my value does not come close to the other two values, my prelab value is substantially closer to the literature value than my calculated value was. I believe my calculated density differed from the literature and pre-lab value so much due to experimenter error mostly. Looking back at my calculations I realize that my number was so outlandish because I used milliters as my unit rather than liters so that made comparison a little difficult. An experimental error that could have also played a role is that the elevation and pressure in the lab is not the same as the theoretical elevation and pressure under STP conditions so that could have affected my results. To fix these problems I should have caught my mistake during calculations and used liters rather than milliters because it made my calculations way off from the literature and prelab values. Helmenstine, A. About.com. About.com Chemistry. http://www.chemistry.about.com/od/gases/f/What-Is-The-Density-ofAir-Stp.htm (accessed October 16,2012).