Title: Flame Test
Purpose: To understand that substances can be identified by flame color.
To learn how we get light and colors and understand what the atom is doing
to produce that light.
Procedure:
1. Put on your goggles.
2. Light the Bunsen burner and adjust the flame so that it is almost
colorless.
3. Record the formula and name in the data table below.
4. Dip the tip of the nichrome test wire into the solution at the lab table.
Place the nichrome wire into the tip of the inner cone.
View the flame color and record your observations in your data table.
(note: it is extremely important that you do not mix up the nichrome wires.
Make sure the wire stays with the solution it was with.)
5. Once you have collected your data proceed to the next station and
repeat steps 3 and 4.
Data:
A= Formula
A
Lab Station
B= Name
B
C= Color
C
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
ANSWER THE QUESTIONS ON THE BACK OF THIS SHEET
Questions and Conclusions.
1. Do all compounds with names ending in the word chloride give the same color?
2. Do all compounds with names ending in the word nitrate give the same color?
3. How do the colors produced by heating sodium chloride and sodium nitrate compare?
4. Divide the other compounds (exclude Na) into groups by the color of the flame. List the
groups in the space below.
Color -
Color -
Compounds:
Compounds:
What is common?
What is common?
Color Compounds:
What is common?
5. The name of each compound you tested has two words that tell you something about
the elements in the compound. The first word is the name of the element that is a metal.
The second word refers to one or more elements that are not metals. Which part of each
compound - the metal or the nonmetal - produces the color in the flame?
6. What metallic elements are present in:
unknown 1 -
unknown 2 -
unknown 3 -
Read in your text about ground state and exited state.
7. Explain thoroughly, on an atomic level, how we get different colors from different
substances? (This is the most important question in this lab.) In otherwords, how are the
electrons behaving.
8. What is a use of what you have seen today?