Experiment Manual

C2000

This set contains chemicals that may be harmful if misused. Read cautions on individual containers and in manual carefully. Not to be used by children except under adult supervision. Only for use by children 11 years of age or older. This kit must only be used under the strict supervision of adults who have familiarized themselves with the experiments and safety precautions stated in the manual. Children must not conduct any of the experiments without the presence of a parent or other responsible adult.

Warning!

Caution!

Kit contains experiments with combustion, hazardous chemicals, glass components and sharp components. Some chemicals have been classified as posing a health hazard. Read and follow the instructions and keep them available for reference. Do not allow chemicals to come into contact with any part of your body, especially mouth or eyes. Keep small children and animals away from the experiments. Keep the experiment kit out of the reach of small children at all times. Wear included safety glasses at all times. Supervising adults must wear eye protection as well (not included).

For their safety, all users must strictly adhere to these warnings and precautions, as well as those inside this experiment manual, as part of the Terms of Use of this experiment kit.

Kit Contents: Tray One

See page 40 for the contents of Tray Two.

No. Description 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Measuring spoon Carbon rod Basin Lid opener Four connection wires Copper wire Magnesium strip Protective safety glasses Test tube brush Four test tubes Test tube stand 6 V, 50 mA bulb Two dropper pipettes Rubber stopper without hole Cork stopper with hole Pointed glass pipe Angled glass pipe Bottle for litmus solution incl. safety cap and dropper insert Hexamethylenetetramine Sodium hydrogen sulfate Sodium carbonate Potassium hexacyanoferrate(II)

Part No. 035017 026217 070167 070177 000343 (each) 000063 771761 052347 000036 062118 (each) 070187 009028 071208 071078 071118 065308 065378 704062 032952 033402 033412 033422

No. Description 23 24 25 26 27 28 28a 28b 28c Calcium hydroxide Ammonium iron(III) sulfate Ammonium chloride Copper(II) sulfate Screw-top jar Two measuring cups with lids Litmus powder Clip for 9-V square battery Not pictured: sheet of filter paper

Part No. 033432 033442 033452 033462 061127 087907 (each) 771500 042106 080062

Additional Materials Read each experiment completely before beginning it, so you know what additional items you may need. Most additional items can be found around your home, but you may need to have an adult buy something at the supermarket or drug store.

Caution! Individual parts in this kits have sharp or pointed edges or corners. Do not injure yourself! Thames & Kosmos reserves the right to technical alterations.

10

Kit Contents: Tray Two

No. Description 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Two screw-top lids Two plastic bottles (1) Two test tubes Two plastic funnels Alcohol burner base Wick Burner cap Insulator gasket Wick holder Aluminum disk Test tube holder Litmus paper, blue Filter paper Straight glass pipe Heating rod Stopper with one hole Calcium hydroxide Sodium hydrogen carbonate Tartaric acid Luminol preparation
(luminol-sodium sulfate mixture, 5% m/m)

Part No. 075088 (each) 086298 (each) 062118 (each) 086228 061117 051056 021797 048067 021777 021787 000026 056026 080156 065188 065458 071118 033432 033532 033472 033482

No. Description 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 Potassium hexacyanoferrate(III) Calcium sulfate Ammonium chloride Copper sulfate Iron filings (iron powder) Potassium permanganate preparation (2) Not pictured: C2000 labels

Part No. 033492 033502 033452 033462 033512 033522 440537

(1) One bottle for hydrogen peroxide solution (3%), the other for saving solutions you prepare yourself. (2) The potassium permanganate preparation used in Thames & Kosmos CHEM C2000 (potassium permanganate-sodium sulfate mixture, 1:2 m/m) can be used wherever a potassium permanganate solution is required.

Additional Materials Read each experiment completely before beginning it, so you know what additional items you may need. Most additional items can be found around your home, but you may need to have an adult buy something at the supermarket or drug store.

Caution! Individual parts in this kits have sharp or pointed edges or corners. Do not injure yourself! Thames & Kosmos reserves the right to technical alterations.

40

Copper A semiprecious Metal

Metals like calcium or magnesium, which combine easily with oxygen or other elements, are designated non-precious metals. Iron also combines with oxygen in the air when water is present; the result is rust. You will get to know iron a little better in the next chapter. Platinum, gold, and silver, by contrast, do not interact with oxygen, and they retain their metallic sheen. These metals are called precious metals. Copper has a position somewhere in the middle, and is therefore called semi-precious. Under certain conditions, such as when subjected to high temperatures, copper will combine other elements, such as oxygen to form black copper oxide (see Experiment 160).

21

When Copper Wire Turns Black

ExPErIMENT

Large-scale electrolysis of copper (remember Experiment 74?). The copper is deposited on the large copper cathode platters.

There can be many reasons for copper wire turning black. Hold one end of the copper wire in a candle flame. In no time at all, the copper is covered with a coating of soot just like the knife in Experiment 142. Verify for yourself that the soot can be rubbed off easily with a paper towel or a piece of cloth.

187

ExPErIMENT

Denatured (ethyl) alcohol is highly flammable. See the warnings on p. 7 and 8!

Hold the cleaned copper wire in the upper part of the alcohol burner flame. It will turn black, as in Experiment 160. While the wire is heating, you may see a pretty show of colors flitting above it. After it has cooled, try to rub the wire clean again. You wont be able to do it. To remove the oxide layer, you will need hydrogen chloride or ethyl alcohol, as in Experiment 160.

188

ExPErIMENT

Bend the end of the copper wire into a spiral by wrapping it around a pencil, and wrap the other end of the wire around the double-ended measuring spoon. Pour 2 to 3 cm (1 in) ethyl alcohol into a test tube. Heat the spiral of copper wire in the upper part of the burner flame, until it turns black, and plunge it immediately into the alcohol. The liquid will hiss, gas bubbles will rise, and the wire will be brighter than before.

189

Professor Probenius Warns Sulfur dioxide is poisonous when inhaled; it irritates the eyes and respiratory organs! You must perform experiments with sulfur dioxide outside or by an open window. If you start to feel ill, follow the First Aid advice (number 3, inside front cover), and consult a doctor immediately. Provide the information that sulfur dioxide is the chemical causing the problem.

Professor Probenius Explains If copper oxide is brought into contact with ethyl alcohol, the oxygen is transferred from the copper oxide to the alcohol, leaving behind nothing but the shiny copper. The semiprecious nature of copper lies in the fact that it separates from oxygen so easily. This experiment would not work with iron oxide.

Copper Disappears and reappears

Now well try dissolving some copper. Not in water, obviously. For this task, the chemist uses sulfuric or nitric acid. We will use a salt: sodium hydrogen sulfate.
ExPErIMENT

Copper sulfate is harmful to health and harmful to the environment. Sodium hydrogen sulfate is caustic. Refer to the information on p. 7 and 8!

Cut a piece from the end of the copper wire about 1 cm (1/2 in) long, and place it along with 2 spoonfuls sodium hydrogen sulfate in a dry test tube. Clamp the test tube in a horizontal position and heat it. Make sure the mouth of the test tube is slightly tilted down (see second warning on page 42). The sodium hydrogen sulfate will melt, and water vapor will escape from the mouth of the test tube. Sodium hydrogen sulfate like gypsum or copper sulfate contains water of crystallization. When the water is vaporized, the molten salt begins to turn green to blue-green. At the same time, pungent-smelling sulfur dioxide vapors escape. After 2 to 3 minutes, stop heating and watch how the melted salt becomes hard again.

190

72

ExPErIMENT

Wait for the test tube to cool. Then, add 5 to 6 cm (2 in) water and heat. Insert the heating rod. The hardened mass of salt will dissolve. The copper wire will begin to disintegrate, and completely disappear or at least become noticeably thinner. The solution will have turned a light blue. Save half of it for Experiments 196 and 198.

sodium hydrogen sulfate + copper

191

ExPErIMENT

192

Place a shiny iron nail in the other half of the pale blue solution. Watch to see if the appearance of the nail changes. Disposal Instructions: A4

ExPErIMENT

193

Repeat the experiment with copper sulfate solution (dissolve 1 spoon tip of the blue crystals in water). Disposal
Instructions: A4

Professor Probenius Explains If copper is heated with sodium hydrogen sulfate, copper sulfate and sulfur dioxide are produced. So the pale blue solution in Experiment 192 is a solution of copper sulfate. It shouldnt come as a surprise, then, that Experiments 192 and 193 have the same result: The iron nail gets covered with a dark, partly reddish-brown coating. The reddish-brown coating is none other than metallic copper. If a non-precious metal is placed in the solution of a more precious metal (in this case, iron in a solution of copper sulfate), the non-precious metal will gradually disintegrate and push the more precious metal out of the solution. QUESTION 34: You have already put the reaction in Experiments 192 and 193 to practical use. How?

Copper Pots and Acetic Acid

Notice that you have had to put a little heat on copper (in the alcohol burner, with sodium hydrogen sulfate) to get it to combine with other things. Its also possible to do it without expending so much energy.
ExPErIMENT

Place some vinegar and a piece of shiny copper wire in a test tube. The wire should be long enough so that it sticks out of the vinegar. After a day or two, the part of the wire sticking out of the vinegar will have formed a green coating. Remove the wire with tweezers. Disposal Instructions: A3

194

Professor Probenius Explains In everyday language, the term for the green coating is verdigris (green of Greece). The verdigris resulted from the effect of the acetic acid in the vinegar on the copper. Verdigris is poisonous, so its important not to store acidic foods in copper containers. Other copper compounds, such as copper sulfate, are harmful to health too, and even deadly to microbes (algae, fungi, bacteria). That is why copper compounds are used as plant pesticides and fungicides, for example to combat mildew in vineyards. You can also keep cut flowers fresh for longer if you put a little copper wire or a copper penny into the flower vase, which adds trace amounts of copper compounds to the water.

Testing for Copper

If you have a piece of copper wire in front of you, it probably wont be very hard to identify the metal based on its color alone. It gets a little harder, though, when you want to look for copper in a very dilute solution of copper sulfate. You already know one method, from the experiment with the iron nail. It isnt really necessary though, to remove the reddish-brown metal from the solution in order to identify it. You can also convert copper into another compound with a characteristic color. Thats what we will do now. 73