Lab Write Up Act #48
Ethan Doan
IAPS- Mrs. Moriarty
Title- Act #48- Mixing an Acid and a Base
Purpose- What happens when you mix an acid and a base?
Experimental DesignFor this experiment, our group started out with 1 drop of universal indicator and 10 drops of HCl
and then we gradually added a single drop of KOH to the HCl. We gradually added drops and then
around 14-15 drops the universal indicator turned yellow/green. We kept each drop the same and we
waited a good amount of time between each drop. Each drop of HCl was from the same bottle and each
drop of KOH and we had the same person dropping. For the second experiment we started with 10
drops of KOH and 1 drop of universal indicator and we gradually added HCl. Our kept the same
constants.
Data-
Acid-Base Neutralization- Class Results
Adding HCl to KOH
Adding KOH to HCl
ConclusionIn this activity it was determined that when you add an acid to a basic solution or a base of an
acidic solution eventually it will become neutral of it will become more acidic or basic based on what
you are adding. Based on the data, at 15 drops, the acid and base canceled out and there was a neutral
solution. But if you added one more drop, for the acid, the universal indicator showed acidic and for the
base, if you added one more drop of base when it was neutral the indicator showed that the solution
was basic. This shows that when you add a base to an acidic solution or a base to a acidic solution the
solution will first become less basic or acidic, then become neutral and then go more acidic or basic
based on what you are adding.
In this investigation the acid seems to be more powerful. In the data, it only takes 6 drops of the
acid to neutralize the 10 drops of base. It takes 15 drops of base to neutralize 10 drops of acid. This
means that the acidic concentration of the acid is greater than the basic concentration of the base.
Based on what I know so far, I think that adding a base Is a better way of neutralizing an acid
than diluting it with water. It only took 15 drops of base per 10 drops of acid. When you dilute it, we
used 72 drops of water per ten drops of a food coloring to get the level of food coloring to a “safe” level
assuming it was an acid. As you can see, adding a base to an acid is extremely efficient compared to the
method of diluting the acid.