Savini Ranaweera AI: Matt Yang Lab Partner: Taylor Ritter Section: C117 Thursday, 2:30pm Determining an Equilibrium

Constant Introduction The purpose of this experiment is to find equilibrium constant, set up an equilibrium equation and understanding the effects of manipulating the products and reactants. Equilibrium is dynamic, which means that the reaction does not stop once the reaction reaches equilibrium. The reaction keeps moving between products and reactants at a constant rate. For this lab, the following equilibrium reaction will be used: ( ) ( ) ( )
( )

This equation is then used to find the equilibrium constant, K, which follows the format of products over reactants.
( )

K=

To determine the equilibrium constant, spectrophotometry and Beers law will be used. Recall from previous labs that Beers law is A=lcc, where A equals the absorptivity, l equals one and c is the concentration. This equation can only be applied if the concentration of Fe(SCN)2+ is known, which it is not. In order to find the concentration of Fe(SCN)2+, one reactant will be

overloaded in excess mixed with a known amount of the other reactant. When this is done, the reverse reaction becomes negligible and the new products absorbency can be measured using a spectrophotometer. Then this data can be plugged into Beers law and an ICE table can be made to find the concentrations. After this process is done, the K value can be found. If the K value is greater than 1 then the reaction is product favored. If the K is negative, the reaction is reactant heavy. If the value is equal to 1 then reaction is neither product nor reactant favored. Results Vol. of 1*10-4 M Test Tube Fe(NO3)3 1 2 3 4 5 1.0 mL 2.0 mL 3.0 mL 4.0 mL 5.0 mL KSCN 5.0 mL 5.0 mL 5.0 mL 5.0 mL 5.0 mL HNO3 4.0 mL 3.0 mL 2.0 mL 1.0 mL 0.0 mL [FeSCN2+] 1* 10-5 2* 10-5 3* 10-5 4* 10-5 5* 10-5 at 450 nm 0.1157 0.1329 0.2476 0.2508 0.3254 Vol. of 1 M Vol. of 0.1 M Final Absorbance

The table above shows the Absorbance Volume of 5 test tubes with varying concentration of Fe(NO3)3, KSCN and HNO3 Below is a sample calculation for test tube 1 showing how to find the final concentration of FeSCN2+ ( ) ( )

[FeSCN2+] vs. Absorbance

0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 0 2 4 6

Absorbnce

y = 0.0537x + 0.045 R = 0.97 Series1 Linear (Series1)

[FeSCN2+]
From the slope of the line, its concluded that the molar absorbativity constant () is .0537. Then, the initial concentrations of the reactants are determined by the following equation. Here is an example for iron nitrate in test tube 6:

)(

)(

Then Beers law can be used to find the final concentration

( )

Test Tube 6 7 8 9 10

Initial [Fe(NO3)3] 3.57*10-4 M 3.57*10-4 M 3.57*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M

Initial [KSCN] 3.57*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M 1.07*10-3 M 3.57*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M

Absorbance 0.1859 0.353 0.295 0.247 0.4279

Equilibrium [FeSCN2+] 3.462 M 6.57M 5.49M 4.6 M 7.97 M

The next step is to figure out the final concentrations of the reactants. This is accomplished by creating an ICE table Test Tubes 6 7 Initial 8 9 10 6 7 Change 8 9 10 Equilibri 6 um 7 [Fe(NO3)3] 3.57*10-4 M 3.57*10-4 M 3.57*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M -3.462 M -6.75 M -5.49 M -4.6 M -7.97 M -3.46M -6.74M [KSCN] 3.57*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M 1.07*10-3 M 3.57*10-4 M 7.14*10-4 M -3.462 M -6.75 M -5.49 M -4.6 M -7.97 M -3.46M -6.74M [FeSCN2+] 0.0 M 0.0 M 0.0 M 0.0 M 0.0 M +3.462 M +6.75 M +5.49 M +4.6 M +7.97 M 3.462 M 6.75 M

8 9 10

-5.49M -4.60M -6.74M

-5.48M -4.599M -6.74M

5.49 M 4.6 M 7.97 M

Using this, the K can be calculated by replacing the values in the equilibrium expression. Below is a sample calculation used to find the K of test tube 10

K=

Test Tube 6 7 8 9 10 Average Standard Deviation

K .289 .149 .182 .217 .173 .184 .0625

This is a table showing the K value for each test tube as well as an average and Standard Deviation value.

Discussion The purpose of this lab was to determine the equilibrium constant of FeSCN2+ by using Le Chteliers principle, spectrophotometry, and Beers Law. This was accomplished through the results above. Graph 1 showed the method with which to take experimental data and make it easily accessible to find the molar absorptivity constant (), which is essentially the slope of the graph of the concentration of FeSCN2+ versus the absorptivity. After finding this, all that was needed was to plug in the numbers into Beers Law to find the final concentration of FeSCN2+ and then set up an ICE table in order to find the equilibrium concentrations of the reactants as well. After the equilibrium concentrations were known they could be plugged into the equilibrium expression to find K. However, there were serious errors in this experiment. To start, our values from test tubes 1-5 were probably off. This would then lead to an equation of a line that was incorrect. If the equation of the line is incorrect, then the entire calculations for the rest of the lab are wrong. The first clue that there was a mistake was the unusually high concentrations. The errors were probably due to the anxiety of wanting the last C117 lab to be over. In previous problems that had been done in class, concentrations were always in exponential form with a negative exponent. The values found in this lab were large two digit numbers. Then when the equilibrium value was found, the numbers turned out to be negative on the reactant side. The equilibrium value turned out to be .184 .063. This means that the reaction is reactant favored because the constant is less than 1.

Overall this experiment was very interesting. Seeing with our own eyes the effects of le Chanteliers principle is helpful when thinking about doing problems in chemistry class. The experiment would have been more helpful if we did not haste our way through it.