David+and+Phil

Title: Effect of Copper on Conductivity of Nitric Acid

Aim: The goal of our experiment is to find out how dissolving copper into nitric acid affects the nitric acid's conductivity.

Background: We were curious about how conductive water is when we thought about how to affect the conductivity of water or any other solution. Then, we thought of the fact that metal is really conductive and were curious about whether adding metal to solutions would affect the solution's conductivity. Since we had a supply of copper dust, we decided to find a way to dissolve copper. Our research showed that nitric acid is the best way to dissolve copper. Thus, our experiment involves dissolving copper into nitric acid and measuring the conductivity of the solution.

Hypothesis: Since nitric acid already has a high conductivity, we think that dissolving copper in nitric acid will increase the conductivity because copper is already a very conductive metal.

Materials/Setup: Nitric Acid Water Copper LoggerPRO Vernier conductivity sensor Phenolphthalein Beaker Protective gloves/goggles Access to fume hood

Procedure: 1. Set up the equipment (picture pending). 2. Prepare 5 beakers with 50ml of nitric acid solution (25ml water and 25ml nitric acid). 3. Record the conductivity of the nitric acid solution on a data table. 3. Dissolve 1g of copper in 50ml of nitric acid. Record the conductivity on a data table. 4. Dissolve 2g of copper in 50ml of nitric acid. Record the conductivity on a data table. 5. Dissolve 3g of copper in 50ml of nitric acid. Record the conductivity on a data table. 6. Dissolve 4g of copper in 50ml of nitric acid. Record the conductivity on a data table. 7. Graph the data onto a table with “amount of copper dissolved” along the x-axis and the conductivity of the solution along the y-axis.

Results: Control: 26590 1g copper dissolved: 25690 2g copper dissolved: 22010 3g copper dissolved: 21990 4g copper dissolved: 21340