Crystal lab

During the crystal lab (which I was really looking forward to) I completely messed up my crystal. In fact it is still in a small beaker which is in a larger beaker which is still trying to dissolve. STILL! I guess I put too much aluminum potassium sulfate 12-hydrate crystal (AKA: Baker analyzed Reagent) into it.

The premisis for this experiment was to make some crystals on a string. We add about (actually i added two things of salt) and stirred till most of the salt or all of it was dissovled in the water. Then I added even more "salt" , as I call it and stirred it, this time resulting in a little being left in the bottom of the beaker. I left it over night and returned the next class period to find that i had no seed crystals what so ever! (I told you this was a frustrating experiment.) So I added more "salt" within the first mixture i had created under a high heat and then left it alone. It failed yet again.

So i asked for someone else's crystal, going for the experiment, to see if we can see a colored seed crystal on the outside of the clear crystal mine was SUPPOSED to form. Yet again a fail. As you can tell from the picture above, my crystal grew too big and was a sold white color, not clear. Which led me to the conclusion that I put too much salt into my beaker. Over all my experiment failed. Yet the other experiments were great. We had several crystals that turned out in beautiful square crystals and deep colors. I learned that you had to have a stopping point, even if it is a experiment and that you want to go all out.

Beer's Law

Beer's Law is a simple law actually. The law states that the clearer the liquid the more light it can pass through thus the abosrbance rate it low but when the liquid is darker that means the absorbance rate it high. Sort of like when you where a black t shirt out in the sun, you get hot easily. yet when you wear a white shirt it stays cooler then when you wear a black shirt.

When we began the experiment we tested the light source (which is was a red laser since the solution was green) and then gave the solution out into beakers. Each going up but 10 ml each beaker. As we filled each beaker the solution became less concentrated thus allowing more light to shine through. But as it was a lower setting (such as 10 ml flat) no light was allowed through.

When we began the experiment ( as in Timmy, Jessie, Tenchita, and I) we began by calibrating the colorimeter which is a tiny black box that holds cuvettes (little rectangle thingies that had a smooth side and a rough side. the rough side is where we could place our fingers. WE couldn't place fingerprints on the smooth side or it would mess up the experiment.) We filled the cuvette with a known solution of Nickel (2) sulfate solution and we measured it within the colorimeter making a graph that we can compare the unknown solution to.

When we began to compare the unknown solution(s) we compared them to the known solution graph thus finding the absorbency in mol/L. After the experiments were done we cleaned up our mess and saved the picture (which will go up later ONCE I find it! should have written down the computer number).