Exploring Factors That Affect the Rate of a Chemical Reaction Involving Magnesium and Hydrochloric Acid

What factors affect the rate of this chemical reaction:

Magnesium + Hydrochloric Acid  Magnesium Chloride + Hydrogen

Mg (s) + 2HCl (aq)  MgCl2 (aq) + H2 (g)

Prediction

I think that my results will show that the hydrochloric acid with a molarity of 2 will finish reacting the quickest because it is the strongest hydrochloric acid and I predict that the slowest experiment to finish reacting will be the 0.4 molar strength of hydrochloric acid. I think that the results will go slower and slower the nearer they are to the 0.4 strength of hydrochloric acid. The reason that the experiment with hydrochloric acid at 2 molar will dissolve the magnesium ribbon faster is because it is of a stronger concentration and so the molecules in the hydrochloric acid move faster and so react with the magnesium ribbon quicker.

Strategy

Some factors that could cause the rate of reaction to vary are simple things like temperature. The temperature could affect things like the rate of successful collisions.

The method that I chose was downward displacement of water. The main reason that I chose this was because that is really easy to use and very clear to collect my results. Also our solution produces a soluble gas so the reaction will work perfect.

Other methods available consisted of timing how long it took for the magnesium to disappear. We would place the liquid and the magnesium in a flask and start the timer, one reason we chose not do this is we won’t precisely know when the reaction is finished. Plus people might have different opinions of when the magnesium has disappeared. Another is timing how long it takes for a solution to turn cloudy. We would again place the liquid and the magnesium in a flask and start our timer, the reason...

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...skin if spilt on it, the hydrochloric acid would also cause irritation to the eyes and mouth if ever spilled into those. Another risk is that

magnesium is flammable especially if in powder form, but we are using it in a ribbon form and we are not using any flames in any part of the experiment. The gas which is given off from the reaction between Hydrochloric acid and Magnesium ribbon is Hydrogen which is a flammable gas.

We will reduce the risk of these hazards by wearing protective eyewear for example laboratory goggles, we will also measure out the hydrochloric acid pouring away from the body, over the sink. We will not be using flames in our experiment so the risk is reduced from the hydrogen and magnesium but still other experiments could be using flames so we will still have to be careful and make sure to stay away from any other experiments using flames.