Chemical Reactions & Heat Lab

Hypothesis

The hot temperatures will cause a fast reaction, the room temperature will cause a reaction slower than the hot temperature, but faster than the cold temperature, and the cold temperatures will cause a very slow reaction.


Results/Observations

Hot Water Test:

The water was at 24.5ºC before the test.

We heated the water to 50ºC.

We couldn't get the tongs in time to remove the beaker from heat when the water was at exactly 50ºC, so whe

n we finally removed it, the water was 55ºC.

We waited for the water to cool to 50ºC before we dropped in the tablet.

There was an inst

ant visible reaction.

The tablet dissolved in 22.4 seconds, causing the water to fizz and bubble.

After the tablet dissolved, the water was 48.9ºC.

Room Temperature Water Test:

The water started at 25.3ºC.

The reaction was slower than before, but still extremely fast.

The reaction took 36.4 seconds, and the end temperature for the water was 24.9ºC.

Cold Water Test:

We put about 6 ice cubes in the water, and stirred for 60 seconds.

The water lowered to exactly 1ºC. When we dropped the tablet in, the reaction took place extremely slowly. The temperature rose to 1.4ºC, then dropped to 1.3ºC by the end of the reaction.

The reaction took 2 minutes 8 seconds.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was correct, and I accepted it completely. My hypothesis worked because the hot water caused the reaction to finish far faster than the reaction for the cold water. The part of the hypothesis referring to the room temperature was correct, too, because it was faster than the cold temperature but slower than that of the hot temperature. I learned that it is very important to read directions carefully and thoroughly because of one problem we ran into. The problem was that we took the probe out to let the alka-seltzer dissolve in the hot water test. We didn't realize it until the moment we finished the hot water test, and then we put the probe in the water to get that temperature. This could definitely skew results based off of the temperatures.