Metal Activity

We did a metal activity lab and we observed the reactivity of three different metals. The activity of a metal is based on the fact that a more active metal will replace a less active metal in a compound. This may also  be called a single replacement reaction. If an active solid metal is placed in a solution containing a less active metal, one will observe a precipitate forming on the metal. Metals are not charged, they still have all of their electrons. In this lab we had a 24 well plate, 0.1 M solutions of- Copper(II) nitrate, Magnesium nitrate, Zinc nitrate, and Silver nitrate. Pipets full of different ionic compounds mixed with water, copper, magnesium ribbon, and zinc granules. We put a little amount of each metal into the wells. Then we put the solutions in the pipets into the wells with the metals and waited about 5 minutes for them to react and do all the things that they do. After we let them sit for a few minutes, we recorded down the data and got that magnesium reacted with the largest number of solutions, and copper reacted with the smallest number of solutions. Zinc was in the middle of the two. We also learned that the Statue of Liberty is made out of copper, because it reacts with the least amount of solutions.

Magnesium Lab

We did a short little magnesium lab in our class, and or little experiment actually didn't turn out the way it was supposed to. It didn't really smoke and light up like some other peoples did. But when we did do it we had a little ceramic Crucible, a ribbon of magnesium, a scale, and a little gas torch that heated up and turned the magnesium into the powder that we got at the end of the lab.

   First we got the ceramic crucible and weighed it by its self and got 11.61g. Next we weighed the Mg ribbon and crucible before heating it and got 12.01g. Then we subtracted 11.61 from 12.01 and got .60g for the weight of the Mg ribbon. We next weighed the crucible and Mg products after heating and got 12.17g. The Mg ribbon products mixed with distilled water was .16g. After we weighed that we got a conductivity tester and tested the conductivity of the Magnesium. The Mg had a medium conductivity level. The compounds were ionic.

Here is a pictures of burning magnesium ribbon:

Magnesium ashes after being burnt:

What we did was pretty similar to this, except we burnt the Mg ribbon in a crucible.

Conductivity Lab

We did a conductivity lab and tested different substances mixed with water. We had conductivity testers that consisted of batteries, wires, and led lights that showed us whether the substance was reactive or not.  We tested 5 different substances: Sodium bicarbonate, Sodium acetate, Corn syrup, Corn starch, and molasses. Mostly all of them were all 3s which were the highest reactive level, and only one of them was a lower level. (about a 2.5).  Sodium bicarbonate and Sodium acetate were high, because they have a lot of ions in them with the either the sodium, bicarbonate, or acetate. The corn syrup and molasses have higher, thicker sugars, and the sugar molecules must be bigger, making the substance more reactive.

Electron Configuration

Well this lab was pretty fun, but i'm glad i wasn't Lee having to count all of those little plastic things. Our purpose of this lab was to attempt to concretize the ideas of quantum mechanics, orbitals, and probability models. We were supposed to have 40 ml of the plastic split pea things, but that would have way too many to count so we just narrowed it down to 20 ml. We had a funnel to put the peas in to drop down on to the target. We also had a paper target that had 6 different circles.
   We first started with a high energy. We held the bottom of the funnel closed and put the plastic spit peas in the funnel. We then let the bottom of it open and some started to fall out, but we had to use either our finger or a pencil to make the rest of them come out. When they all fell we counted them and wrote how many had fallen in each circle and then wrote them down in our data table. After we did that we picked them all back up, put them in the cup and changed it to a lower energy. We then repeated it but putting them back in the funnel and so on... After we wrote down the information for that, we compared the data and the peas from the lower energy were all bunched together in the first couple rings of the target. This is because they fell from a lower height so they stayed closer together, instead of falling from a higher height and spreading out, and going everywhere when they fell.
      Electron configuration isn't a hard thing to get once you get the hang of it. At first i thought to myself and was like what is this? I didn't get it at all first, and i'm still a little confused about it, but i'm getting better now. If you look at a Periodic table of elements it's way eaiser to help you figure things out.
Here is a little example of a chart that Mr. Ludwig taught us to help us out: The numbers in the parenthesis are supposed to be exponets, but since i can't, i'll just be in parenthesis.
1s(2)
2s(2) 2p(6)
3s(2) 3p(6) 3d(10)
4s(2) 4p(6) 4d(10) 4f(14)

Here is an even better chart of it!:

S's can have up to 2 electrons per orbital, P's can have up to 6 electrons per orbital, D's can have up to 10 electrons per orbital, and F's can have up to 14 electrons per orbital.

LIGHT

Something that has a high frequency has a high energy. Different colors are related to different energies. Red light is low energy, and violet is a higher color. Energy comes in specific packets. Light particles are photons. If you know the frequency, you can know the exact energy. The equation to know this is Eq=hxf. We looked through a spectroscope at light and saw a light spectrum. In the Light spectrum there are 7 different colors. There is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Here is a quick little scale to show:
RED- radio waves
ORANGE- microwaves
YELLOW- infared
GREEN- visible light
BLUE- ultraviolet
INDAGO- X-rays
VIOLET- gamma rays
If you know the wavelength you can now the energy and if you know the energy you can know the frequency. The Photoelectric Effect is where the blue light excites electrons and gets a current going. Red will not create a current because it is a lower frequency. Blue and violet light are at a higher energy and closer to UV. The lowest possible energy for an electron to be happy is ground state, closest to the nucleus. When it is at its highest level and excited it crashes down to ground level and thats when the light comes out. You get different colors from when it jumps. There must be jumps, thats why there are different energy levels. Different colors have different things to do with the levels of electrons. The higher the energy, the higher the frequency. Positives and negatives are attracted to each other, when the electron is closer it is pretty stable and when you drag the electron out, it has higher energy so it's not so stable. The main gasses in mercury gas are orange, yellow, and blue. You can also see a little bit of red and purple. In the gas neon, the colors you see are red, orange, yellow and green. You can see a little bit of blue and there are some dark bands between the yellow and green. In the gas nitrogen there is yellow, green and purple. There are also some dark bands in between the green too.  In Helium there is red, yellow, green and blue as the main colors you can see. There is some faint purple and there are some gaps between colors.

This is the Complete Spectrum where there is just a light and we look through the spectroscope to see pretty much all the colors in the light spectrum.

Here is a picture where we placed a little bottle of orange water in front of the light and looked through the spectroscope to see mostly red and orange. From the reflection you can see some other colors but they aren't any of the main colors you see.

Here is a picture where we placed a blue tank of water in front of the light and saw mostly all the colors but mainly the green and blueish colors.

Here is a link about an article that helped me to understand some of the things about light.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/cern-light-speed_n_977014.html

Atomic structure

All matter is composed atoms which contain electrons neutrons and protons. The electrons are in the outside cloud and the neutrons and protons are in the nucleus in the center of the atom.  Electrons are a part of all forms of matter because they are attracted the the positively charged nucleus. Most of an atom consists of electrons moving rapidly through empty space. The electrons move throughout the available space around the nucleus and are held in the atom atom by their attraction to the positively charged nucleus. The volume of the space which they move in is huge compared to the volume of the nucleus. A tiny hole located in the center of the anode produces a thin beam of electrons A phosphor overcoating allows the position of the beam to be determined as it strikes the end of the tube. Because altering the gas in the tube and the material used for the cathode have no effect on the cathode ray, the particles in the ray must be part of all matter. People usually write out isotopes using a shortened type of notation involving the chemical symbol, atomic number, and mass number. The mass number is written as a superscript to the left of the chemical symbol, and the atomic number is written as a subscript to the left of the chemical symbol. You can't pass your hand through a solid object because they're so tightly packed together unlike a liquid or gas.

Here is this picture as an example:

Seperation Techniques

Well i didn't really get to do any of these labs because i've been gone, but i understand a few of the concepts we're going over. We did a fun little thing today where you have a little circular filter, and you mark on it with whatever colors or designs you want. Then we got a petri dish and put water in the bottom of it, rolled up a little piece of paper towel and stuck it in the middle of our filter paper. You want to only let the bottom of the piece of rolled up paper towel touch the bottom, not the whole filter paper (like i did) haha. But i guess it still came out okay. The water comes up the paper towel and soaks into the filter paper and spreads the ink out all around the filter paper. If you want it to get all of the ink you put on the paper you can put multiple pieces of paper towels in different places, because sometimes if you just have one in the middle it won't reach the whole thing and spread all of your colors. This was called chromatography. Mr. Ludwig also showed us the centrifuge and how it separates the mixtures as it spins. He only used a sandy-muddy mixture with water but it was still pretty cool to see how it worked. They usually use it with blood to separate the blood and the plasma from each other. Filtration is when you filter something to get the bigger pieces or solids out of a liquid or something that you are draining. I didn't really get to do much in class of the other stuff, but from what i did learn in class i learned that distillation is the evaporation and condensation of a liquid when water is boiled in a cool receiver.


Chromatography Field:

1st blog for chem :)

Well same as Biology.. this is my first time doing this too. I've got the hang of it out just a tiny bit more since i just did it for my biology class, but it's still a little confusing. I now know that i have to create a web address for chem and biology. So now that i have that done i can relax and not be worried about doing it! haha :)