THE COPPER CYCLE

Name: Lwandiswa Mncube

Student no : 4239725
Aim : It is to show that in a copper cycle copper can transition through
many states and end with a same amount of solid copper you began
with .

Introduction

Copper is a chemical element with an atomic number of 29 in the

periodic table of elements. The occurrence of this metal in Earth’s
crust is about 0.25%, concentrated in copper ores. Apart
from gold, copper is the only metal that does not naturally occur
in gray or silver color. It also has two valence electrons that
provide a relatively stable configuration.

All of the reactions of copper they all demonstrate how copper can
transfer between different states of matter and still return to a solid
state. We were able to do all this by using the chemicals that we
reacted with copper so that we can see copper change it’s states. The
most important thing is to try to limit human error which is
unavoidable.

In this cycle there were a lot of things to be careful about from how you
decant your mixture of precipitate and water. To how much Al you add
to the solution of CuSO 4 . Since you can see that actually doing any of
these things incorrectly would result in some of the copper mass being
lost .This was pretty hard to avoid as you will see below when you look
at the amount of copper we got.
Discussion

We first reacted copper with Nitric Acid the balanced equation is

below.
Cu (s ) + 4 HNO 3(aq) → Cu(N 0¿¿ 3)2(aq) ¿ + 2 NO2 (g) +2 H 2O(l)

We were able to see some brown smoke coming out of which that
brown gas was 2 NO2 (g) and the solution inside the beaker was green and
all the solid copper disappeared.

When we added the distilled water to the liquid it changed colour from
green to a light blue colour . Than we added NaOH to the liquid .
Cu(N 0¿¿ 3)2(aq) ¿ + 2 NaOH(aq) → Cu(OH )2 (S ) + 2 NaNO3(aq)

The liquid turned cloudy .It formed a blue precipitate .

Then we heated the up the mixture and it turned from blue to green
and to black . A black precipitate formed.

The heat actually caused C u( OH )2(S ) to separate.

Cu(OH )2 (S ) → CuO(s) + H O(l)

2

Than we waited for the black precipitate to settle .

Then we separated the water from the CuO(s) and rinsed it with warm
water and Acetone.

Than we reacted CuO(s) with H 2 SO4 (aq)

CuO(s) +H 2 SO4 (aq) → CuSO 4 (aq ) + H O(l)

2

In the reaction the black precipitate dissolved to form a blue liquid .

Than we added 2 pieces of Al foil we can see copper replacing Cu
3 CuSO 4(aq) + Al(s) → Al2 (SO ¿¿ 4)3 ¿ + 3Cu(s )

Then we added HCl of which that’s we started to see copper form on

the Al and some gas was forming .
2 Al (s) +6 HCl(aq) → 2 AlCl 3 (aq ) + 3 H 2(g )

We got our copper and filtered it and we took what left and put than in
the oven to dry overnight.

Below it is the mass of copper before and after.

Initial mass of copper : 0.06g

Crucible : 30.22 g

Crucible + Copper : 30.27g

Obtained copper : 30.27g - 30.22g = 0.05g

0.05
Percentage yield = 0.06
× 100 = 83.33%

We initially put a mass of 0.06g Copper and got back 0.05g

The other 0.01g we may have lost it while decanting due to the fact
that some of our product went out with the water . Most studies on the
internet show that it quit rare to get 100% yield due to all the factors
that play a role in doing on experiment. Most of the say it can fall
between 80% and 90% . Plus in this situation even the Al if you used
only a little amount of it that would have reduced the amount of Cu.
The reason as to why we use Aluminium is because Aluminium forces
the copper out of the bond . As aluminium is more active metal than
copper in electrochemical series of metals . Thus , red metallic copper
and gaseous hydrogen are realised .

References
Anon., 2023. wikipidia. [Online]
Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper
[Accessed 4 March 2023].

Landolt-Börnstein, 2023. wikipidia. [Online]

Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper
[Accessed 4 March 2023].