Percentage Yield Lab

Purpose: To determine what effect the mass of silver nitrate used will have on the percentage
yield during the following chemical reaction: Cu(s) + 2 AgNO3(aq) → 2 Ag(s) + Cu(NO3)2(aq)

Hypothesis:
1) If the mass of silver nitrate used increases it will increase the yield of silver. If the mass
of silver nitrate used decreases the yield of silver will decrease. This is because silver
nitrate is the limiting reactant therefore the yield of the product is determined by how
much of it there is.
2) If copper reacts with silver nitrate the actual yield of silver will be higher than the
theoretical yield. This is because when the solution is separated from the silver it will be
very hard to remove all the solution and completely dry the silver. This will make the
weight of the silver seem greater than it actually is.

Materials:
● Chemical safety goggles
● Lab apron
● Latex gloves
● Balance
● Wooden splint
● Stirring rod
● Two 250mL beakers
● 30 cm length of copper wire
● Wire cutters
● Silver nitrate solution, AgNO3(s) - 1 g for calculation purposes
● Wash bottle of distilled water
● Aluminum foil
● Weigh boat

Safety:
Silver Nitrate:
- Avoid contact with skin and eyes. Avoid inhalation. Silver nitrate should be stored in
sealed containers or packages and not exposed to light.
Copper:
- Avoid breathing dust or fumes. Provide adequate ventilation if dusts are created. Avoid
contact with skin and eyes.

Procedure:

Part 1:

1) Safety goggles, lab apron, and gloves were put on.

2) Measured and recorded the mass of the copper wire to the nearest
0.01 g.
3) Coiled the copper wire into a loose coil. Used a wooden splint to
suspend the coil in a clean, dry 250 mL beaker so that the coil
would not touch the sides or bottom of the beaker. Removed the
coil.
4) Determined the mass of a clean, dry 250 mL beaker to the nearest
0.01 g.
5) Filled up the 250 mL beaker with the silver nitrate solution leaving
about 3cm of space at the top. For calculation purposes, each beaker had about 1 gram
of silver nitrate.
6) Using these two masses, what the limiting reagent might have been was determined.
When completing calculations, Ag(s) is the product looked at. Used this information to
come up with the hypothesis.
7) Added the coil, still attached to the splint, to the beaker.
8) Covered the beaker with a square of aluminum foil and allow it to sit undisturbed
overnight. Recorded our observations of how the wire and solution looks.

Part 2:
9) Removed the aluminum foil and recorded any observations
10) Used the splint to carefully lift the coil out of the beaker and suspended it in another
beaker.
11) Dislodged the silver from the wire and into the beaker with a stream of distilled water.
12) When the silver was removed, the remaining sopper was allowed to dry.
 13) Measured and recorded the final mass of the copper wire to the nearest 0.01 g.
14) Carefully removed as much of the liquid as possible without losing any silver
15) Measured and recorded the mass of the dry silver residue in the beaker to the
nearest 0.01g.
16) Cleaned the workstation and washed hands
17) Posted the mass data, as directed by the teacher.

Observation Table:
Substance Before Substance at very Substance after
Reaction beginning of Reaction Reacting Overnight

Cu - Malleable - Turned black - Precipitate

- Somewhat on surface attached to
shiny - powdery outside
- bronze color substance surface
coming off of - Copper wire
Mass: 1.5g surface uncoiled more
- uncoiled - Copper wire
slightly became
thinner

Mass: 1.3 g

AgNO3 - Cloudy - Turned Cu(NO3)2 (solution):

- white slightly darker - Precipitate at
- translucent at bottom of the bottom of
solution solution(I
- Black know because
powdery it is solid)
substance - Not viscous
floating - Transparent
around - Slightly blue

Ag (precipitate):
- Dull
- mushy/ very
soft
- Slightly
different
colors
throughout
Mass: 103.3 - 101.3 =
2g

Part 1: Questions
 1) Based on your observations, which is the limiting reactant in this experiment? Justify
your selection using visible evidence. (2 marks)
Based off my observations silver nitrate is the limiting reactant. This is because after the
reaction there was still some copper left. This means that there wasn’t enough silver nitrate to
react with all of the copper and therefore is the limiting reactant.

2) Use the amount of limiting reactant present initially to determine the theoretical yield for
this experiment. (1 mark)
3) Determine the percentage yield. (1 mark)
4) Predict the effect, if any, of the following factors on the percentage yield. Justify your
prediction in each case.
a) The silver residue was not completely dry when you measured its mass. (1 mark)
The silver residue not being completely dry would make the percentage yield increase. This is
because when we weigh the silver the water increases the weight and makes it seem to be
more silver than there actually is.
b) The silver nitrate was old (Silver Nitrate Deteriorates over time, especially if it is
exposed to light. (1 mark)
This decomposition of the silver nitrate would lead to a lower percentage yield because the
more it decomposes the less of it there is. Therefore there wouldn’t actually be 1g of silver
nitrate reacting, there would be less. Especially because it is the limiting reactant.
c) Tap water was used instead of distilled water (Tap water contains dissolved
chloride ions which react with silver ions) (1 mark)
The reaction of silver and chloride would decrease the percentage yield. This is because once
the silver is formed from the reaction, the chloride ions in the tap water would react to make
silver chloride. Therefore this would leave us with less pure silver to react with.
5) Imagine the amount of silver nitrate used by each person varied, and we plotted a graph
showing the amount of silver nitrate used vs. percentage yield. What trends/ patterns
would you expect this graph to show? (1 mark)

If the amount of silver nitrate varied I would expect the graph to be an upwards line graph(more
silver nitrate equals higher yield) and then plateau eventually. Let me explain, because silver
nitrate is the limiting reactant, the yield it dependent on how much of it there is. So more silver
nitrate would give a higher yield and less will give you a smaller yield. However once the
amount of silver nitrate passes the amount needed to completely react with all the copper, it
then become the excess and copper would be become the limiting reactant. Then the yield
would be dependent on copper and the yield wouldn't change as we are not increasing the
amount of copper.

Part 2: Error Analysis:

Error 1: When we separated the silver from the copper wire, it was separated into the copper
nitrate solution. We the had to drain the solution from the beaker leaving the silver there. We
were not able to completely remove all the solution from the beaker. This in turn made the
weight of the silver seem heavier than it actually was. This resulted in the actual yield being
much higher than the theoretical yield and made the percentage yield very high(well over
100%). To fix this error next time we can use paper towel to dry the silver or just let it air dry in a
contained environment to let it fully dry.

Error 2: Silver nitrate decomposes when exposed to sunlight, the balanced chemical equation
for this is as follows: 2AgNO3 -----sunlight------ 2Ag + 2NO2 + O2. When the silver nitrate was
put into the beakers for all the groups to use, it was not fully covered and was therefore exposed
to sunlight. This caused it to decompose, ergo there was less than the 1g of silver nitrate in the
beaker (which is what we used in our equations for theoretical yield). This would lead to a lower
percentage yield especially because it is the limiting reactant. We can fix this error by simply
covering the silver nitrate before using and not letting it be exposed to sunlight. To make sure
there is no sunlight exposure we can perform the experiment in a black room with no sunlight
entering the room.

Conclusion: The purpose of this lab is to determine what effect the mass of silver nitrate used will have
on the percentage yield during the following chemical reaction: Cu(s) + 2 AgNO3(aq) → 2 Ag(s) +
Cu(NO3)2(aq). In conclusion the more silver nitrate used will lead to a higher yield and the less silver
nitrate used will lead to a lower yield. This is because silver nitrate was found to be the limiting reactant.
The actual yield of silver was higher than the theoretical yield. Hypothesis one was correct. This is
because the experiment proved that silver nitrate was the limiting reactant. This means that if more silver
nitrate had been used the yield of silver would’ve been higher and if less had been used the yield
would’ve been lower. This was proved by there being and excess of copper after the reaction which
means there wasn’t enough silver nitrate to react with it all. Hypothesis two was also correct. This is
because the actual yield of silver was in fact higher than theoretical yield. It was also stated that the cause
of this would be because the silver residue wasn’t completely dry, this was also correct. When the silver
was weighed there was still some solution left in the beaker as it was very hard to remove all of it. This
made it seem that there was more silver than was actually present.