Magnesium Lab

In my chemistry class, we performed a lab to see how much magnesium weighs(both burnt and in metal form), as well as how conductive it is. We used the following materials: crucible, ribbon of magnesium, scale, and a gas torch. We weighed the crucible by itself, it came to 11.61g. We also weighed the crucible and magnesium together before putting it under the gas torch, that turned out to be 12.01g. By subtracting both of those weights, we found that the magnesium ribbon piece(without heat) we used was approximately .60g. We put the crucible with the magnesium inside over the gas torch. It took a while for the crucible to get hot enough for the magnesium to start to burn, but when it did, the magnesium burned incredibly bright, it was almost blinding. The magnesium burned to an ash; at this point, we weighed both the crucible and the ash together, that came to 12.17g. Subtracting the crucible alone from that weight, the ash itself only weighs .56g. Out of all of this, we learned how magnesium behaves under heat. Below is a picture of how bright magnesium actually gets under heat.

Metal Activity Lab

In my chemistry class, we tested how reactive or non-reactive metals are. Specifically, we tested three different metals: magnesium, zinc, and copper. For testing, we used magnesium ribbon, zinc granules, and copper(III) pebbles. We had a 24 well plate and we organized a series of nitrates contained in pipets in columns of four rows: copper nitrate in one, magnesium nitrate in the second, silver nitrate the third, and zinc nitrate in the fourth. In each of the 4 wells in the row, we placed a small amount of all the metals in each to see exactly how reactive each metal would be.
After waiting 5 minutes for the metals to react, we found that magnesium reacted with the most solutions and that copper reacted with the least solutions. Zinc was right in the middle of magnesium and copper. After doing this lab, we learned that the Statue of Liberty was actually made out of copper so that it wouldn't corrode as easily since it reacts with the least amount of solutes.

Above is a series of elements organized from most reactive to least, to show that the data that we retrieved is, indeed, correct.

Light

Frequency is how often a wave passes the reference point in a set time in a period. Wavelength is how far apart a wave is from another wave. Amplitude is the distance from the midline to the trough or peak. If a wave has a high frequency, it has a small wavelength. If a wave has a lower frequency, it is going to have a longer wavelength. The electromagnetic spectrum includes: radio waves, microwaves, infared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. That list is in order from longest wavelength to smallest. Visible light regions include red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. That list is in order of increasing frequency; red being the lowest and violet being the highest.
Quantum is the minimum amount of energy that can be lost or gained by an atom.
Eq=hf
In the equation above, the h = plank's constant; Eq = energy of the quantum; f = frequency.
This equation applies directly to the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect is an observation of light that is shone to a metal piece, however, the electrons in the metal piece will not be excited unless it is blue light. Red light is too low of a frequency to excite the electrons within the metal piece. Quanta of light energy are called photons.
If you know the wavelength, you can know the energy and if you know the energy, you can know the frequency.
In my chemistry class, we took many pictures of the different spectrums for different elements.

HELIUM: As you can see, this element is mostly reflecting; green, violet, orange/goldish.

HYDROGEN: As you can see, this element is mostly reflecting; violet, blue, red and green.

MURCURY: As you can see, this element is mostly reflecting; green, violet, indigo, and small portions of yellow.

NEON: As you can see, this element is reflecting mostly; red, orange, and yellow.

ORANGE WATER PLACED IN FRONT OF COMPLETE SPECTRUM: When we did this, it reflected mainly red, orange and yellow, however some other colors like green and blue as well.

BLUE WATER IN FRONT OF COMPLETE SPECTRUM: When we did this, it seemed to include all the colors in the spectrum except for mainly red  and orange colors of low frequency.

COMPLETE SPECTRUM

When and electron is at ground state, is the electron is very close to the nucleus and has a low frequency. Also, when the electron goes from the high energy level to the lower energy level, this is how light is produced. 

Atomic Structure

All matter is composed of atoms which contain protons, neutrons and electrons. The electrons are in the empty space around the nucleus and the protons and neutrons are in the nucleus of the atom. The electrons are held in the atom because they are attracted to the positively charged nucleus. The atom is held together by the positive and negative attractions. The cathode ray is used mainly in television today, a cathode ray is a ray of negatively charged electrons. When you place the positive side of the magnet to the cathode ray, the ray moves close to it because the negative charges are attracted to the positive ones in the magnet. To identify an isotope, the number that is added is called the mass number. The mass number is the sum of the protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom. The mass number for potassium is 40. The atomic number is the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. If you subtract the mass number from the atomic number, you will then know how many neutrons are in the particular atom.
For the the chemical symbol V; the element name is vanadium, there is only one proton and only one election is this element. For the chemical symbol Mn; the element name is manganese, this element has 25 protons and 25 electrons. For the chemical symbol Ir; the element name is iridium, the element has 77 protons and electrons. For the chemical symbol S; the element name is sulfur, this element has 16 protons and electrons.
132/55 means the element has 77 neutrons, 55 electrons and protons. 70/30 means the element has 40 neutrons and 30 protons and electrons. 163/69 means the element has 94 neutrons and 69 protons and electrons. 59/27 means the element has 32 neutrons and 27 protons and electrons.

Separation Techniques

In our classroom, we did an experiment where we traded mixtures and found out how much each element in the mixture weighed. In the mixture we made, we had 2.28 grams of sand, 2.23 grams of sugar and 3.75 grams of boiling stones. That came to a total of 8.36 grams.
In the mixture we received, there was boiling stones, iron and sugar. The boiling stones where large enough for us to just pick them out with one of the tools. We set those aside, and tried to use the magnet to get the iron out of the sugar, but that wasn't working out so well for us. We took Mr. Lugwig's advice and used a paper funnel and water to filtrate the sugar out of the iron, the sugar would dissolve so we had to weigh the combination of the iron and sugar before we went through with the funnel process. The total of the sugar and iron was 13.06 grams and we proceeded with the funnel and water. The next day we came back and took the iron out, it seems that some of the sugar had crystalized over the iron, making it hard. So that might explain why the measurements weren't as accurate as it could have been. We did weigh the iron and took the final measurement.
We did another experiment with filter paper and markers, we used chromatography to separate the other colors out of the one color that we originally drew on the filter paper.
Out of all four of the different separation techniques, we used two in the experiments that we performed; filtration and chromatography.
The other two are distillation and centrifugation. Distillation is when all the liquid is evaporated out of the mixture and all that is left is distilled matter. Centrifugation is when you use a centrifuge to separate the liquid as well as all the other matter, in layers. Mr. Ludwig did an example with dirt and use the centrifuge to separate the sediment from the water.