STUDY GUIDE

LAB 02: pH, buffers & water properties

In addition to ALL QUESTIONS present in your lab manual in pages 21-23, review the following…

All the following questions can be answered out of what you did in the lab during that activity!

  1. Know the pH scale and what it means regarding the amount of H+ (acidity) or OH- (alkalinity)
  2. Let’s imagine substance A has pH 6 and substance B has pH 3. How many times more acidic is substance A compared to substance B?
  3. Why is the water molecule said to be “polar” and how is that connected with the “hydrogen bonds”?
  4. How does a buffer solution work? What solution was used to show this? Which other natural fluid is mentioned as having buffer properties?
  5. Explainthe properties ”heat of vaporization”, “specific heat”, “cohesion”, and “surface tension”. The water’s polarity and the ability to make hydrogen bonds are responsible for all these properties in water.
  6. Describe the way you did the experiment for specific heat and explain the results you got in the form of a graph
  • Which had a higher specific heat, water or alcohol?
  1. Explain the difference between a blind and double blind experiment. Which one did you actually do in the lab and for what experiment?
  • Which had a higher heat of vaporization, water or alcohol?
  1. Describe the way you did the experiment for capillary action heat and explain the results
  2. For the previous, you had 3 different experiments. You measured in all three the capillary action by seeing how much the liquid would “climb” in the tube..
  • Capillary action was then your dependent, Y variable that you measured
  • Which were your independent X variables in each one of these experiments? In other words how were the two set ups different in each of the three cases (Look at the table on page 18)
  • Which had a higher capillary action water or alcohol?

Instructor: Jose Bava, Ph.D