Dean Doneen

CHEM 1061
Identification of a Substance Using Density and Refractive
Index
Abstract
We calculated the density and measured the refractive index of
an unknown substance. Our calculation of the density certainly
contained an error in measurement and was not relied on heavily in
our identification of the substance. Largely relying on the refractive
index, our substance was identified as toluene.
Introduction
Each substance has a specific density, which is how tightly
packed the molecules are. It is determined by taking the substances
mass and dividing it by volume, often being measured in g/mL.
Regardless of how much of a substance you have, the density will stay
the same. Different substances have different densities, so it would be
possible to measure the density of a substance and use that to
determine the substances identity.
Another property of matter is the refractive index. This is a
unique property determined by the atomic arrangement. Basically, this
is the measure of how light passes through a substance. It is measured
using a refractometer. Like density, the refractive index should stay the
same regardless of amount of a substance, so it can also be used to
help identify an unknown substance.
Methods
First, we used a Bunsen burner to heat a Pasteur pipet and pulled
it apart to create a micropycnometer and used the rest of it as our
Pasteur pipet. We then had to determine the volume of the
pycnometer, which we could do by taking the mass of a pycnometer
filled with water and subtracting the mass of the empty pycnometer.
Once we had the mass, we were able to take the temperature of the
water and look up the density in our lab guide. Now that we had both
the mass and the density, we simply rearranged the equation for
density and solved for volume. We repeated this 4 times and used the
average.
Now that we knew the volume of the pycnometer, we could go
on to testing our substance #10. We filled the pycnometer with our
unknown substance and took the mass 4 times, again by subtracting
the mass of the empty pycnometer from the mass of the filled
pycnometer. We then calculated the density now that we had mass and
volume. We used the average of the 4 calculations.

Dean Doneen
CHEM 1061
To determine the refractive index, we got help from our professor
in using a refractometer. We placed the substance in the
refractometer, aligned it properly, and looked at the scale below to
determine its refractive index.
To identify our substance, we looked at the table in the lab guide
of various substances density and refractive index and found the one
that matched the closest.
Results

Table 1
Trial

Mass of
water (g)

Density

Volume
(cm3)

Mass
(unknown)
(g)

Density

Refractiv
e Index

1
2
3
4
Average

0.23
0.42
0.44
0.4

0.99777
0.99777
0.99777
0.99777

0.23
0.42
0.44
0.40
0.37

0.56
0.53
0.56
0.52

1.50
1.42
1.50
1.39
1.45

1.4952
1.4952
1.4952
1.4952

Discussion and Conclusion

Our final results told us that the density of the substance was
1.45 g/mL and the refractive index was 1.4952.
The density we got was much larger than anything on the table
in the lab guide. It is quite possible that we did not measure our
volume correctly, which would cause the density to be much higher
than it actually was. I do not believe that we entirely filled the
pycnometer with water so we got a mass too small, which would result
in a volume too small. If our volume was too small, we would be
dividing by a number smaller than it should be for our calculations of
the density of our unknown substance; we would see that there was
more mass in a smaller area.
There did not appear to be any real error with the measurement
of the refractive index. This seems to be a much more reliable
measurement as it only relied on a single measurement, rather than
various trials and calculations to come up with one answer. We both
looked in the refractometer and got basically the same reading of
1.4952. Because this seems like a much more reliable measurement, it
was weighted more than the density was in the determination of the
unknown substance.

Dean Doneen
CHEM 1061
Using the table in the lab guide, it is most likely that our
substance #10 is Toluene. Toluene has a density of .8669 g/mL and a
refractive index of 1.4961. As mentioned previously, our measurement
of refractive index seems much more reliable than our measurement of
density, where something obviously went wrong. However, toluene is
one of the substances with a higher density, so there may be some
comfort in that. But the main reason I believe our substance to be
toluene is the refractive index, which is very close to 1.4952. A little
under, but still close enough to be confident in.
References
Anoka Ramsey Community College Microscale Density and
Refractometry