Integrated Chemistry and Physics 1

1.9 Investigation: Identifying Unknown Substances with Density

Purpose: To determine the identity of unknown substances based on

density.

Background: You can identify an unknown substance by first identifying

its physical properties and then comparing those properties to the known
values. In this experiment, students will use the density of unknown
substances to determine their identity

Review the important vocabulary for this assignment:

● Physical Property - a characteristic of a material that can be

observed or measured that does not change the composition of the
material.
● Density - ratio of mass to volume of a material
● Surface Tension - an effect where the surface of a liquid is strong
and prevents the liquid from being absorbed.

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Instructions: This chart includes 10 known substances and their densities.
Determine the density of each unknown substance by calculating ρ=m/v
and then identify the substance based on its density.

Remember that a square has three equal sides. Therefore the volume of a
square is determined by V = LWH = S3.

Substance Density (g/mL)

PVC 1.10

Copper 9.24

Aluminum 2.91

Steel 2.76

Brass 8.78

Poplar .45

Acrylic 1.21

Pine .41

Oak .79

Nylon 1.09

Data

Unknown Side Volume Mass Density Identity

(cm) V = S3 (g) ρ=m/v
(cm3) (gcm3)
1 2.5 45.4

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2 2.5 43.2
3 2.5 137.2
4 2.5 144.4
5 2.5 18.9
6 2.5 12.3
7 2.5 17.0
8 2.5 6.4
9 2.5 7.1
10 2.5 17.3

Data Analysis:

1. How would you identify objects that can float?

2. How would you determine the identity of an unknown liquid?

Specifically, How would you measure the mass? How would you
measure the volume?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
A product of Indiana Online.