Sodium Tetraborate Decahydrate Lab Report

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Introduction According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, sodium tetraborate decahydrate (also known as borax) is a chemical compound that is slightly soluble in cold water but very soluble in hot water (“Borax”). Some of the various uses of borax are a cleansing agent, an antiseptic, occasionally as a preservative and used as a flux for silver soldering. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the thermodynamic quantities, enthalpy (ΔH°) and the standardized entropy (ΔS°) of the solvation of sodium tetraborate decahydrate, borax, in water. This was achieved by observing the effect various temperatures have on the solubility product of borax.
Experimental Details The experiment required that a 250 mL beaker be filled with 75-85 mL of distilled water. Then between 25-30 grams of borax was weighed out using the electric analytical balance and added into the beaker of distilled water. To ensure that all of the borax was transferred from the weigh boat, it was washed with distilled water a few times and also added into the beaker. The beaker …show more content…

From the results, it is concluded that as the temperature increased the solubility product increased as well. The high percent errors could account for the following errors: there could have been solution residue left in the glass wear from the previous class’s experimentation resulting in cross contamination, misjudgment of the color change once the solution was reaching the end-point, adding too many drops of bromocresol green indicator, and because the borax was a solid some of the particles could have been blown away while being transferred into the beaker. Also, reading the thermometer incorrectly could have resulted in experimental error. Recording the data collected at specific temperatures was a major part of the experiment to perform calculations to determine the enthalpy and

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