Experiment 3

Absorbance Spectroscopy

INTRODUCTION
This experiment focuses on using the concept of absorbance without the quantitative
aspect often used by Beer’s Law.
When using Beer’s Law, we focus on the absorbance of one wavelength of light.
However, the choice of this wavelength depends on the overall absorbance spectra of
the substance being studied. Most substances actually absorb light of many different
wavelengths – a plot of the wavelength of light versus the absorbance by a sample is the
absorbance spectra of a sample. We often make the oversimplification that if a
substance appears one color it absorbs the opposite color on the color wheel. By looking
at the total absorbance spectra for a sample, we can often determine why exceptions to
that rule exist.
PROCEDURE
You will perform this part of the lab virtually on Colorado’s PhET simulator. Click on the
“Beer’s Law” option, not the concentration option.
https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/beers-law-lab/latest/beers-law-lab_en.html

Part A. Predicting Wavelength Absorption: Before turning on the light source

and measuring anything, look at the color of each of the chemical solutions available
(you can ignore the drink mix) by opening the dropdown menu and simply looking at
the color of the thumbnail for each compound solution. Make a prediction about what
color light the wavelength of maximum absorption will be for each compound solution.
Create a table of 3 columns – compound, color appears, and predicted color absorbed –
to enter in your predictions.
Part B. Absorbance Spectra: Turn on the light source (the little grey thing with the
giant red button), and make sure the wavelength is set to “variable”. Choose any of the
chemical compound solutions (not the drink mix). Record the wavelength and color of
the automatically selected wavelength light for comparison to your Part A predictions.
Make sure the detector (the green apparatus) is set to “absorbance”. The detector is
measuring the log of the fraction of light that is being transmitted in “arbitrary units”
(you can see the difference in the intensity of the light that passes through the solution
before the light hits the solution and after it passes through).
Leave the solution concentration at its automatic value, and record the absorbance for

Lab 3 – Spectroscopy
each wavelength of light from 380 nm to 780 nm at 20 nm intervals. You can make part
of your data collection easier by making excel type the wavelengths for you – enter the
first two wavelengths (380 and 400), highlight those two cells, then click and drag the
bottom right corner of the highlight box down (as if you were dragging an equation
down) until the ghost numbers that appear reach 780. When you release the box after
dragging, those numbers will all fill in for you.
Make sure you pay attention to the absorbance as you are changing the
wavelength. If there is a large change over a region that wouldn’t
otherwise be noted, YOU SHOULD RECORD EXTRA DATA POINTS TO
ENSURE YOUR SPECTRA HAS THE CORRECT SHAPE. In a real lab in the real
world you would have a fancy spectrometer which is hooked up to a computer which
could scan and record all wavelengths and absorbances for you.
(When recording the absorbances, a trick to make it easier on you is to not record repeat
measurements. Change the wavelength until you get a new measurement that needs to
be recorded, then fill in all of the repeat measurements before that.)
You must make absorbance spectra for all 7 solutions. You can record all of your data in
an excel spreadsheet, make the graphs there, and then copy and paste as an image into
your lab word document. (Pasting a chart as an image ensures that it is seen correctly.) I
do not need the raw data used to make your graphs in your report.
Completing the Lab Report Assignment
Data
You should have a table for Part A (for the solutions and their light colors and
wavelengths) and 7 Graphs for Part B. Make sure your graphs are appropriately titled,
have appropriate axes (the x axis should only go from 380-780), and have all other
necessary labels. You should use scatter plots with smooth curves for this lab.
Analysis Questions
1. Did your predicted color of absorbed light match the actual light for the preset light
used? Make a table with columns of compound, predicted color, actual color, and
match? as the headers (under match? just write yes or no).
2. Discuss how well the “solutions appear the opposite color of their absorption”
generality appears to apply. Do you notice anything in the absorbance spectrum of the
solutions which are particularly in contrast to the general rule that could contribute?
(Hint – look at nickel(II) chloride for this problem.)
3. What do you notice about the relationship between the preset wavelength and the
absorbance spectra of each solution?

Lab 3 – Spectroscopy
Post Lab Questions – Spectrochemical Series
Download the “Spectrochemical Series” document and copy the content into the postlab
section of your report for this lab. Answer the questions given to the best of your ability.
Please type your answers in a different color than black so it is obvious which parts are
template and which are your answers. You should replace any ____ with your answers.
Below is a color-wheel, as well as a picture of all of the solutions used in the problems
(note – they are arranged by ligand (aquo is the tetraaquacopper(II)) but the
bis(glycinato)copper(II) is on the far right; the lab this picture was taken in involved
synthesizing that complex so it was separate from the other copper complexes). You may
need to reference these in order to answer them. The color wheel cutoff wavelengths are
approximate – the actual spectrum isn’t cut into 6 colors, so we can only approximate
the regions. You may also use the color spectrum from the virtual lab if you wish as well.

Lab 3 – Spectroscopy
Additionally, you may or may not be familiar with the bidentate ligands referenced in
the Spectrochemical series portion. The structure (and abbreviations) for these ligands
are given here.

en – ethylenediammine

dmg – dimethylglyoxime

ox – oxalate

acac – acetylacetone

gly – glycinate

Lab 3 – Spectroscopy