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The Harcourt Essen Experiment Essay

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The Harcourt Essen Experiment
The aim of this investigation is to: 1) find the rate equation for the reaction between hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide and sulphuric acid by using the iodine stop clock method and plotting graphs of 1/time against concentration for each variable. Then to find the activation energy by carrying out the experiment at different temperatures using constant amounts of each reactant and then by plotting a graph of in 1/t against I/T, 3) to deduce as much information about the mechanism as possible from the rate equation.
The first experiments investigate the order of reaction with respect to the reactants; hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide and sulphuric acid by varying the concentrations and plotting them …show more content…

Any unreacted iodine turns blue because of the starch indicator signalling the end point of the experiment.
I2(aq) + 2S2O3 2+(aq) 2I-(aq) + S4O6 2- (aq)
Hydrogen peroxide decomposes readily as shown in this equation
2H2O2 2H2O + O2 which is why it must be made up just before use in order to stop it reacting with the air and contaminating the experiment. The concentration of hydrogen peroxide is described as 10volume. This means that for everyone one volume of hydrogen peroxide that decomposes 10 volume of oxygen is given off.

The structure of Hydrogen peroxide makes it a good oxidising agent because of the lone pair of electrons which is why it reacts with the iodine in the first reaction.

Theory of kinetics

Apparatus:

Chemicals used:

Method:
The first experiment investigates the order of reaction with respect to Hydrogen peroxide in an uncatalysed system. Firstly solution one is made up into a 300cm beaker containing 20cm of 1 percent starch solution, 10cm of 0.1M aqueous potassium iodide, 10cm 1M aqueous sulphuric acid, 5cm 0.1M aqueous sodium thiosulphate and made it up to 250cm distilled water.
To measure the starch, aqueous potassium iodide, aqueous sulphuric acid and aqueous sodium thiosulphate use clean, graduated pipettes and measure each solution using the meniscus for accuracy. To measure the distilled water use a burette in order to get the most accurate measurement. Then use a

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