Vincent Antonio Experiment 4 Results and Discussion During the first part of preparing the solutions, boiling the

distilled water to be used is important as it volatilizes CO2 and other impurities which are carbonate in nature. This is to make sure that the only carbonate salts present in the titration system comes from the analyte in order to get more accurate results for the percent composition of NaOH, NaHCO3, or Na2CO3. It is also necessary to boil the solution just before reaching the methyl orange endpoint for the same reason of getting rid of CO 2 produced during the titration process. Since NaHCO3 is the last one to react with HCl, the production of CO2 is given by:

NaHCO3 + HCl NaCl + H 2 O + CO2

To determine the components of an unknown soda ash sample, it is important to take note of the volumes of acidic titrant needed to reach the phenolphthalein and methyl orange endpoints. In the experiment, since the volume of HCl needed to reach the methyl orange endpoint is greater than that to reach the phenolphthalein endpoint, it is concluded that the sample contains a combination of NaHCO 3 and Na2CO3. This is so since Na2CO3, being the stronger base, gets used up by the HCl first before the much weaker NaHCO 3. Adding to this, the stronger base needs less volume of acid to reach the phenolphthalein endpoint than the weaker one reaching the methyl orange endpoint. In line with the components of a soda ash sample, it is known that the mixture of NaOH and NaHCO 3 is incompatible since it only results into acid-base neutralization. The carbonate acts as an acid due to the presence of the strong base, NaOH. Because of this, the pH of the resulting mixture depends on the substance in excess. Thus, it would be hard to use the conventional double-titration using phenolphthalein and methyl orange to determine the amounts of the components of the sample. Although NaOH is widely used as a titrant, the strong base is not an ideal primary standard for this experiment. Sodium hydroxide is a hygroscopic substance which means it easily absorbs different substances present in the moisture in the surroundings. These contaminants can affect the concentration of the components in the system. It is also important to note that basic solutions should not be stored in volumetric glassware since they eats away glass by reacting with its SiO2 particles. It is advisable to store them in plastic containers to avoid the disintegration of glassware. The experiment is subject to a couple of errors. This includes the contamination of the boiled distilled water used. These were boiled on kitchenware which we are not quite sure if these are free of contaminants. Also, the boiled water was stored in previously used plastic bottles which, if not properly washed, can contaminate the water it contains. Carbonate particles which contaminate the water and the solutions act as acids or bases. The presence of these substances affects the real concentrations of the titrant and analyte. Thus, changing the values for the amount of HCl needed for the titration. Determining the titration endpoints based on the color of the solution can also vary since this is plainly subjective.