Horesha Williams

LAB #: 7

DATE: January 29, 2020

TITLE: Calibration

AIM: To calibrate a burette

APPARATUS/MATERIALS: burette, beakers, distilled water, thermometer, electronic

balance

METHOD:

1. The distilled water was allowed to be used to attain thermal equilibrium with the
surroundings then its temperature was recorded.
2. An empty 100 ml beaker was weighed.
3. The burette was filled with distilled water to the zero mark and 10 ml of the water was
accurately ran from the burette into the weighed beaker.
4. The beaker and distilled water were weighed then the mass of water transferred was
calculated.
5. Steps 2-4 were repeated with aliquots of 20 ml, 30 ml, 40 ml and 50 ml of distilled
water and it was ensured that the burette was refilled to the zero mark each time.
6. The volume delivered by the burette was calculated by using the data given on the
relationship between the water's density and temperature along with the actual mass.
7. The accuracy of each aliquot was determined by subtracting the actual volumes from
the apparent volumes.
8. A graph of apparent volumes against actual volume was plotted.
Horesha Williams

RESULTS:

Volume of 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00

water/cm3
Mass of empty 51.1 51.1 51.1 51.1 51.1
beaker/g
Mass of beaker + 64 71.4 81.4 91.3 101.5
water/g
Actual mass of 12.9 20.3 30.3 40.2 50.4
water/g
Actual volume/ 12.95 20.37 30.41 40.34 50.58
cm3
Apparent volume/ 12.9 20.3 30.3 40.2 50.4
cm3
Accuracy/ cm3 0.05 0.07 0.11 0.14 0.18

TITLE: TABLE SHOWING THE READINGS OBTAINED FOR THE CALIBRATION OF

THE BURRETTE DURING EXPERIMENT

CALCULATIONS:

1. Sample calculation of Actual volume

Density of water at 27 °C = 0.996512 g/cm3
mass m
Actual volume = =
density ρ
12.9 g
Actual volume at 10.00 cm3 =
0.996512 g /cm3
= 12.95 cm3

50.4 g
Actual volume at 50.00 cm3 =
0.996512 g /cm3

= 50.58 cm3
2. Sample calculation of Accuracy
Accuracy = Actual volume/cm3 – Apparent volume/cm3
Test at 10.00 cm3 = 12.95 cm3 - 12.9 cm3 = 0.05 cm3
Test at 50.00 cm3 = 50.58 cm3 - 50.4 cm3 = 0.18 cm3
Horesha Williams

DISCUSSION:

Calibration is the act of checking or adjusting by comparison with a standard the

accuracy of a measuring instrument. The goal of calibration is to quantify and improve the
measurement accuracy of an instrument. The uncertainty in the measurement is the difference
between a measured quantity and what is considered to be the true value. Two concepts that
deal with measurements are accuracy and precision. Accuracy refers to the closeness of the
data values to the true values while precision refers to how closely the data values are
grouped together. The mean is the average of a sample of data and is widely used as the
central value for a set of measurement. Precision is usually measured in terms of deviation of
a set of results from the mean value of the set. This is measured using the standard deviation.
The standard deviation is a measure of the variation of a set of measurements about its mean
value; it is also referred to as the uncertainty in a measurement.

In the experiment, distilled water was used to calibrate a burette which was repeated
five times. Firstly, the temperature of the distilled water at room temperature was measured
and recorded. For the five trials, the burette was zeroed then increments of 10 cm3 of water
were run in a 100 ml beaker. For each volume of water that ran in the beaker, the mass of the
beaker and distilled water was found and recorded. When each beaker was weighed the water
was poured back into the burette and the burette was zeroed and this was repeated until the
end of the experiment. From the experiment records of the temperature of distilled water at
room temperature, mass of beaker, mass of beaker and distilled water where obtained. These
records were used to determine the actual mass, actual volume, apparent volume and
accuracy for each aliquot. The actual mass of water along with the density of water at 27°C
was used to calculate the actual volume of water and the accuracy of water was found by
subtracting the apparent volume from the actual volume of water.

Based on the results obtained for the actual volume of water, it was seen where the
actual volume deviated from the true value which from the table is the volume of water that
was ran out in the beaker. It is observed that the actual volumes for all trials deviated from
the true value by a great amount; however they were not completely distance from the true
value. Due to this uncertainty, the standard deviation was calculated to determine how far the
data deviates from the mean (30.9 cm3). The standard deviation was found to be ± 15.1 cm3
which is considered a high value which shows that the data points are spread out over a wider
range. In addition to this the value is considered a high standard deviation since the burette is
Horesha Williams

read to an accuracy of at least 0.1 cm3 to about 0.05 cm3. From the value obtained it is seen
that the actual volume of water for each trial experienced high deviations from their true
values. The standard deviations are as follows: 10 ± 15.1, 20 ± 15.1, 30 ± 15.1, 40 ± 15.1 and
50 ± 15.1. Based on the graph plotted, is seen where the data points are spread apart and the
curve is relatively flat which means that standard deviation is relatively large hence the
uncertainty in the measurement is also relatively large.

Standard deviation occurred due to varying measurement errors. Measurement errors

may be classified as either random or systematic depending on how the measurement was
obtained since an instrument could cause a random error in one situation and a systematic
error in another. Random errors are statistical fluctuations in either direction in the measured
data due to the precision limitations of the measurement device while systematic errors are
reproducible inaccuracies that are consistently in the same direction. Random errors affect the
precision of a measurement and systematic errors affect the accuracy of a measurement. The
random and systematic errors that resulted in standard deviation include: Environmental
factors, which are vibrations, drafts, changes in temperature, and electronic noise or other
effects from nearby apparatus, Calibration error, Zero error, Parallax error when reading
burette and thermometer, Lag time error and Personal errors.

CONCLUSION:

The burette was calibrated to reduce measurement errors and to improve the precision and
accuracy of the measurements.