Hydrochloric Acid And Marble Chips Experiment

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Observations and Explanation:
When the hydrochloric acid was poured into marble chips, gas bubbles were seen – signifying the carbon dioxide (gas) that was being produced due to the chemical reaction.
As the reaction was taking place, the water in the measuring cylinder was being displaced – indicating that the calcium carbonate (in the form of marble chips) was displacing the hydrogen in the hydrochloric acid.
Discussion:
According to the results shown, 2 M hydrochloric acid that was more concentrated had a faster rate of reaction than less concentrated 0.5 M hydrochloric acid. As could be seen from Figure 1: processed data, 2 M hydrochloric acid’s average water displacement of 9.1 cm was much larger than 0.5 M hydrochloric acid’s water displacement of 0.3 cm. Therefore, the trend of the reaction rate increasing as the concentration increased was shown. The hypothesis was supported by the evidence obtained from this experiment.
In this experiment, the calcium carbonate was in the form of marble chips. The calcium carbonate reacted with hydrochloric acid when the acid was poured into marble chips. Due to calcium carbonate’s higher reactivity, it displaced hydrogen in the hydrochloric acid. As a result, products of calcium chloride, carbon dioxide and water were formed. As the chemical reaction occurred, the water in the measuring cylinder was displaced and gas bubbles that were blowing out represented carbon dioxide.
The word and chemical equations for this reaction are:
Calcium carbonate + hydrochloric acid  calcium chloride + water + carbon dioxide
〖CaCO〗_3 (s)+2HCl (aq)→〖CaCl〗_2 (aq)+H_2 O (l)+〖CO〗_2 (g)
Compared to the 0.5 M hydrochloric acid that was less concentrated, the more concentrated 2 M hydrochloric acid c...

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...es. This can provide more accurate results with the average of these measurements calculated.
Furthermore, an additional method to use other hydrochloric acids that have different concentration levels such as 1 M and 2.5 M ones, can improve the outcome of the results. This increases the variation of the independent variable, which accordingly increases the precision of results.
Conclusion:
This report discusses the effect of the reactants’ concentration on the rate of the chemical reaction. Based on the results and evaluations, it is proven that the reaction rate increases as the concentration of hydrochloric acid increases. The collected data has shown that the 2 M hydrochloric acid has a faster reaction rate than the 0.5 M acid, due to its larger volume of water displacement. In conclusion, the results obtained from the experiment support the hypothesis stated.

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