Solution Conductivity Experiment Lab Report

Tavares, Brianna; Matticola, Zachary; Tuitt, Crista; Ruppel, Matt.

High Tech High North County, San Marcos, CA
Introduction:
Chemical bonding is important in chemistry because without bonds many of the substances that
we have wouldnt exist and everything in the world would have to be a periodic element. Like
chemically bonded compound examples are Sodium Chloride and Magnesium Sulfate. Without
Sodium Chloride for example we wouldnt have table salt in our everyday eating lives. Sodium
Chloride is made up of Sodium which is a hard metal and chloride is a lethal green gas. But, like
many other chemical compounds or elements that get combined their properties tend to
completely change. So chemical bonding is important because there are chemical bonds
everywhere, in the atoms in our body, in the air, including synthetic material.1
There are a certain type of electrons that are in the outer shell of an atom and are involved in
forming bonds with adjacent atoms, these electrons are called Valence Electrons. The number
of Valence Electrons are for determining the number of bonds an atom will form and an atoms
formal change. It is also for determining the number of unpaired electrons. If the number of
Valence Electrons is equal to the main group number, on the periodic table, then the atom is
neutral. Now for charged atoms there is a deviation from the number of Valence Electron and
the charge tells the deviation from elements normal Valence number. So the number of Valence
Electron equals the main group number minus the charge.4
Chemical bonding is when two or more atoms join together to form into chemical compounds.
Three examples of chemical bonding are covalent, ionic, and metallic bonding. Covalent
bonding is a bond between two or more nonmetals that forms when electrons are shared. Unlike
covalent, ionic bonding is instead a bond between metal and nonmetals which is formed when
the electrons are transformed from one to the other. The ionic bond then causes an outcome of
there being negative and positive ions which then become attracted to one another. The
opposites attract. Last but not least, metallic bonding is when electrons are not particularly
shared between just two atoms but instead between the neighborhood of metal atoms since one
metal atom isnt able to keep hold of its electrons. The electrons then flow like a sea moving
from one atom to the other throughout the neighborhood of metal atoms.3
Electrons in an atom arent going to all be held with the same amount of strength, so
conductivity can be used to examine the electron properties of covalent, ionic, and metallic
bonds. But, metallic and covalent bonding are closely similar because both share electron
between atoms except the only difference is that metallic bonding is between metals only and
covalent is between non-metals only. A good way to examine these electron properties is testing
the conductivity of water solution to discover if it was ionic or covalent. Ionic and metallic
bonding is able to conduct electricity when dissolved in water and covalent bonding isnt able to
conduct electricity since the electrons dont move freely like ionic and metallic bonding.5

The types of experiments that were performed were solution conductivity testing experiments
with the main focus of discovering if dissolved covalent molecules impacted the conductivity of
the solution. The conductivity of four different chemical compounds which were NaCl, Sucrose,
CaCl2, and MgSO4 were explored during the experiments. The conductivity was measured for
NaCl, Sucrose, MgSO4, CaCl2,and regular water also yet the measurements when taken for the
four chemical compounds varied on and off during the experiments, but they were still linear.

Experimental:
To prepare the solutions for the experiment, first, there would be either around 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and
0.4 grams of the NaCl or Sucrose or 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 grams of CaCl2 or MgSO4 measured
in a beaker. Next, there would be water poured and mixed into the volume with the solid
chemical compound four times in order to dissolve and get as much of the chemical compound
in the solution as possible. Each time there was water poured into the beaker and mixed with
the compound, after the solution would be poured into a flask. The flask was either 100 mL for
NaCl and Sucrose or 200 mL for CaCl2 and MgSO4. Once the small amount of solution from the
four runs of water and mixing solution was poured into the flask, there was water also poured
cautiously into up to the maximum fill line in the flask. Once again the solution was mixed in the
closed flask to ensure mixture and then poured into another yet bit larger beaker for conductivity
testing. To test the conductivity of the solution, there were conductivity meters used which would
be turned on and placed into the solution. The conductivity meters would then measure the
solution's conductivity in parts per million. Data would be collected throughout experiments.
There was one start question the we were to first focus on answering when doing these
experimentations for the procedure but, there were also three other questions that were needed
to be focused on also. The questions kept in mind also while the multiple experiments were
conducted which were...
Does the number of ions in an ionic solid affect the conductivity trend observed?
Do polyatomic ions behave differently for conductivity than elemental ions?
How well can you predict the concentration of a salt in an unknown solution?

Results and Discussion:

All four of the data results graphed individually from the experiment were inserted into one
graph for easier comparison. Each of the graph lines were trended in order to show the fit in the
data for each of the data results. As shown above in the graph, the conductivity increased in the
majority linearly for CaCl2, NaCl, and MgSO4, except for Sucrose instead it decreased linearly.
So after conducting the experiments it was discovered that the concentration of the compound
ions did create an impact on the conductivity of the solution.

Conclusions:
Ionic concentration of chemical compound make an impact on the compound solutions
conductivity because of the covalent and ionic bonds once dissolved in water. The
conductivity of a chemical compound alone cannot be measured because of the ions
arent able to freely move as when dissolved in water.2 Concluding the experiment, the
molecular bond can be stated between the concentration and conductivity and the
outcome was that MgSO4, NaCl, and CaCl are all ionic bonds except Sucrose was
instead covalent. After conducting all of the experiments the questions that arise after
were...
Would the change in the waters temperature change or make an impact
on the conductivity or chemical bond?
In order to go and explore more into depth, an experiment that could be performed
based on this question is that there could be a conductivity experiment performed
similar to the one that was just concluded but, instead of observing and experiment with
the temperature could be varied. First the experiment could be conducted with hot
water, then room temperature, and ice cold water. After the data is collected and
compared then the answer and conclusion should be determined based on the results
founded.
References:

Chemical Bonding. Chemical Bonds, http://hyperphysics.phyastr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/bond.html (accessed 2015).

2

Some info on electron properties provided by the Crista Tuitt (accessed 2015)

Types of chemical bonds. Types of chemical bonds,

http://dwb4.unl.edu/chem/chem869d/chem869dmats/bondtypes.html (accessed 2015).
4

Shimizu , K. HOW TO: PREDICT THE NUMBER OF VALENCE ELECTRONS FOR AN

ATOM. Table of Contents,
http://www.chem.sc.edu/faculty/shimizu/333/chem_333/1a.i.html (accessed 2015).
5

Electrical conductivity. Science Clarified, http://www.scienceclarified.com/diel/electrical-conductivity.html (accessed 2015).