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Sodium Bicarbonate And Hydrochloric Acid Airbags

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Scenario:
In this experiment, you have been asked by your teacher, to investigate the design of a small-scale airbag system they want to produce as a child safety device to put into baby strollers. Because of sodium azide’s toxicity (which is used in many vehicular airbags), it is suggested you use the reaction of NaHCO₃ (sodium bicarbonate or baking soda) with an aqueous solution of HCL (stomach acid) to produce CO₂ gas to test your engineering design. The reaction of hydrochloric acid and sodium bicarbonate is: HCL + NaHCO₃, one mole of CO₂ gas is produced. Regarding the other products, NaCl dissolves in the water to create a salt solution which occupies only a small portion of the volume inside the bag.
Pre-Lab:
Grab a one quart zip-lock® …show more content…

Final Measure
{█(5.15 g baking soda@20 mL HCL)}

Air Bag Design:
One Quart Zip-Lock bag and fill it with 20mL of Hydrochloric acid, take a taped off Easter egg and fill it with 5.15g of baking soda. Insert egg in corner of bag and close bag. When ready to deploy flick egg to release baking soda into the acid to create a gas to fill the bag.
Procedure:
Put on all safety equipment (googles, apron) Set up work station by gathering weighing dish and graduated cylinder and One Quart Zip-Lock® bag. Pour 20mL of Hydrochloric acid into the graduated cylinder. Place the weighing tray on the scale and gently pour 5.15g of baking soda onto the tray. Take a plastic Easter egg and tape off the holes in the top and bottom so the baking soda does not come out prematurely. Take the 5.15g of baking soda and pour it into the bottom half of the egg and securely put the top of the egg on. Pour the 20mL of Hydrochloric acid into the Zip-lock® bag and hold it upright so none of the liquid pours …show more content…

When using the 6.56g of baking soda and 26mL of Hydrochloric acid the bag inflated too quickly and too much and the bag popped and released all the gas through the top. Our third and final trial of 5.15g of baking soda and 20mL of Hydrochloric acid the bag inflated in about one second and inflated to just the right amount where the bag was not too hard and not too soft.
Experimental Error: There are several errors that could have taken place in this lab. The first error could have been excess air being inside the bag before the experiment starts. Another error could have been, left over water from previous trials preformed in the lab. The third possible error could be, baking soda leaking out of the egg into the hydrochloric acid causing a premature reaction.
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