Density and Measurements

Charlie You and Andie Marczewski 10/03/12

Group Members Class

Andie Marczewski, Charlie You

Honours Chemistry CD1 Jandreau

Intro
To nd out the density of an object, rst, one needs to nd the mass and volume. In this lab the volumes and masses of water, graphite, aluminum, and air are measured. After nding the volume and mass, the densities will be calculated, using the formula of mass/volume = density. The thickness of foil will also be found by measuring the sides of the foil and then plugging in the data into the density formula. This lab was done to test the group on the their ability to measure an object's mass and volume and then calculate density. These values will then be compared to the actual density values.

Procedure
To begin with, 50 mL of water was put in a graduated cylinder. Then aluminum was put in the graduated cylinder. The volume of the aluminum was recorded. Then aluminum was measured on the scale and its mass was recorded. Next, 70 mL of water was put in the graduated cylinder and the volume of the graphite was recorded. Then the graphite was put on the scale and the mass was recorded. The mass of the graduated cylinder was recorded, and then the mass of the graduated cylinder with 10 mL of water in it was recorded. The mass of the balloon was measured on the scale. Then the volume of the balloon was measured in a beaker with 90 mL of water. The air pump was then used to blow up the balloon. The air lled balloon was put on the scale and its mass was measured. A beaker was then lled with 1500 mL of water. The balloon lled with air was put in the water and the volume of the balloon was measured. After, the sides of the foil were measured in centimeters. Finally, the densities of the water, graphite, aluminum, and air and the thickness of foil were calculated using the numbers below.

Results and Observations

Data and Results
Materials Graphite Aluminum Water Air Mass (g) 19.14 40.07 9.46 .01

Densities Data Table

Volume (mL) 12 14 10 200
g Density ( mL ) 1.6 2.9 .95

5 104

Aluminum Foil Thickness Data Table

Materials Aluminum
g Density ( mL ) 2.702

Mass (g) .17

Length (cm) 6.6

Width (cm) 6.5

Thickness (cm)
1.5 103

Percent Error Data Table

Material Graphite Aluminum Water Air Aluminum Foil
g Density (Observed)( mL ) 1.6 2.9 .95 g Density (Actual)( mL ) 1.69 2.70 1.0

5 104 1.5 103

1.239 103 1.5 103

% Error 5.3% 7.4% 5.0% 59.6% 0%

Observations
This lab involved mostly measurement and not observation, but the observations that were noted resulted in errors, so are deferred to the Error Analysis section.

Calculations
g For the density, the forumula mL was used. For the density of graphite, with the mass being 19.14 grams and the volume being 12 mL, 19.14 = 1.6. For thickness of aluminum, the volume of the object was 12 m expanded to V = lwt and then plugged into the density equation to get: T = lwd . With numbers: T = (.17) 3 . To calculate the percentage of error the following equation was used: (6.6)(6.5)(2.702) = .0015 = 1.5 10 abs(valueexperimental valueactual ) (100). For the graphite density, that density that was calculated was 1.6 and valueactual the actual was 1.69: abs(1.61.69) (100) = 5.3. 1.69

Error Analysis
For all the mass measurements, the scale used only goes to the second decimal place. While this is sucient for most of the measurements, for the smaller ones (Air, Aluminum Foil), it is not. The volume measurements in the larger beakers are not very accurate. This was important for the air measurement as it used a large beaker that had a rather large error percentage.

Conclusion
The 10 mL graduated cylinder had a fairly small error percentage and so all the gures that were measured using it were rounded to 2 signicant gures. For the air density measurement, the percantage of error that was acheived was 59.6%, a not very accurate number. The scale that was used to measure the air was not suciently accurate to measure the mass of the air. Also, the beaker used the measure the volume of the air was not very accurate either. Both of these factors contributed to the large percentage of error. The size of the sample does not aect the density as the the density of an object is an intensive property. If an object were to oat on the water that was tested, it would mean that the density is less than the density of the water; in this case, less than 1 g/mL. The percentages of error were relatively low, with the exception of the air measurement, which was discussed above. Overall the group is condent in their skill of measuring and calculating density.