What we needed for the lab:
- A empty crucible ( a little white bowl basically)
- a weight scale
- 25mm strip of magnesium
- a Benson burner
- a sparker
- gas
- a chemistry lab book
- goggles and or sunglassess
Procedure:
Ok there are a series of steps that we did to actually use this procedure and I am telling it from my point of view. Always seems more real then the textbook version.
- We write down the table that was necessary for the experiment, and walk into the lab.
- Secure all safety goggles (I double checked this as I get migraines easily and completely failed to bring some sunglasses).
- We were told to measure the empty crucible and then cut a strip of magnesium. (empty crucible weights around 25 g.)
- When we cut the strip of magnesium, it had some residue on it from the magnesium reacting with the oxygen in the air, we scrubbed it gentley to remove the residue.
- We measured the weight of the magenesium in the crucible (which weighed around 32-334 g) and then we set it near the bunseon burner and waited as the temperature had to reach a certain degree of heat to make the magnesium flash.
- We waited and waited, the magnesium did not flash for us but it shrunk and it turned a brilliant white.
- We turned the bunseon burner off and we let the crucible cool before weighing it again, which weighed around 30 g.
- We then added some water to check its ractivity (which was extreamly low).
- We then cleaned the crucible and cleaned up our mess.
That was the whole procedure.
What we learned:
What we learned from the magnesium was:
- It does not always flash, and that is crappy for us who wanted it to flash.
- Once the magnesium is burned, it looses ractivity and mass.
- It takes a incrediable amount of heat for the magnesium to even react and "flare"
- Don't trust Victor with the bunseon burner (this is thrown in the observations as a fact and for fun)
