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25 Titration of Vinegar

This experiment involves titrating vinegar with a sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution to determine the concentration of acetic acid in the vinegar. Students will add NaOH from a buret to a vinegar sample containing a pH indicator until the solution reaches the endpoint and turns pink. From the volume of NaOH used and the balanced reaction between acetic acid and NaOH, students can calculate the moles of acetic acid present and its concentration in the original vinegar sample. The procedure is repeated multiple times and the average concentration of acetic acid is reported and compared to the value listed on the vinegar bottle.

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Juventie Primastuti
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119 views3 pages

25 Titration of Vinegar

This experiment involves titrating vinegar with a sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution to determine the concentration of acetic acid in the vinegar. Students will add NaOH from a buret to a vinegar sample containing a pH indicator until the solution reaches the endpoint and turns pink. From the volume of NaOH used and the balanced reaction between acetic acid and NaOH, students can calculate the moles of acetic acid present and its concentration in the original vinegar sample. The procedure is repeated multiple times and the average concentration of acetic acid is reported and compared to the value listed on the vinegar bottle.

Uploaded by

Juventie Primastuti
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Experiment 25 - Titration of Vinegar

Vinegar tastes sour because it has a pH less than 7. This low pH is caused by the
presence of the weak acid acetic acid, CH3COOH (or HC2H3O2). Like any acid, acetic
acid can be neutralized by allowing it to react with a base. You will use the base sodium
hydroxide (NaOH), in the form of an aqueous solution. By measuring how much NaOH
(aq) is needed for the neutralization you can calculate how much acetic acid must be
present in the vinegar. You will add the NaOH solution slowly from a buret until enough
has been added to neutralize all of the acetic acid in the vinegar. You know when that
point has been reached because before starting, you have added a few drops of the
indicator phenolphthalein. This remains colorless until you have reached the “endpoint,”
whereupon it turns pink, signaling or “indicating” that you have added enough NaOH;
then you must stop instantly. The neutralization reaction follows this equation:
HC2H3O2 (aq) + NaOH (aq) à NaC2H3O2 (aq) + H2O (l)
Acetic acid sodium hydroxide sodium acetate water

Note the 1:1 ratio of the two reactants to each other.


Because sodium hydroxide and sodium acetate are soluble ionic compounds, we
often write the equation as an ionic equation:
HC2H3O2 (aq) + Na+ (aq) + OH- (aq) à Na+ (aq) C2H3O2- (aq) + H2O (l)
Finally, a net ionic equation may be written, by omitting the “spectator ions,” those
which are not taking part in the reaction. (Write the net ionic reaction for the above
reaction.)
Regardless of how the equation is written, one mole of acetic acid in the vinegar
requires one mole of sodium hydroxide to get neutralized. When all of the acetic acid in
the vinegar has been neutralized, any further sodium hydroxide added (even just one tiny
drop) will not find anything to react with except phenolphthalein (the indicator). When
that happens, the pH is about 8, and the phenolphthalein is converted to its red form. The
“color change” of the phenolphthalein indicates the endpoint.

Safety Precautions:
• Wear your safety goggles.
• If acid or base splashes on you, rinse it off with plenty of water.

Waste Disposal:
• The neutralized samples can be poured down the drain.
• Any excess acid or base may also be poured down the drain with lots of water.

Procedure
1. Clean a buret and rinse it with deionized water. (The instructor will explain this
procedure.)
2. Rinse the buret with about 5 mL of the standard NaOH solution that will be used
for the titration. Make sure the entire inner wall of the buret gets rinsed with the
NaOH. (Tilt and rotate the buret while rinsing.) Discard the rinse liquid by

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allowing it to drain out the tip of the buret. Repeat this rinsing with a new 5 mL
portion of NaOH solution.
3. Fill the buret with the standard NaOH solution. To make sure that the buret
contains solution all the way to the bottom of the tip, allow some of the solution
to drain out the tip into the sink. Write down the concentration of the NaOH
(written on the bottle).
4. Clamp the buret onto the ring stand with a buret clamp.
5. Weigh a clean, dry 250-mL Erlenmeyer flask to the nearest 0.1 gram.
6. Using a 10-mL graduated cylinder, measure 10 mL of commercial vinegar (to the
nearest 0.1 mL) and pour it into the weighed flask. (Do not put anything else into
the flask at this point.)
7. Weigh the flask and its contents. Subtract to obtain the mass of the vinegar
sample.
8. If the vinegar is colored, add about 20 mL of deionized water to the flask. (The
amount of water added does not have to be measured.)
9. Put 2 drops of phenolphthalein indicator into the sample in the flask.
10. Record the initial buret reading to the nearest 0.1 mL.
11. Begin adding NaOH slowly from the buret, while constantly swirling the flask to
mix the solutions.
12. When the pink color of the indicator seems to persist for a longer time before
disappearing, you are approaching the endpoint. Add NaOH more slowly near the
endpoint until you are adding it one drop at a time. Make sure to swirl the flask
well between drops, and periodically rinse down the inner walls of the flask with
a jet of water from a wash bottle. When one drop of NaOH causes a permanent
color change from colorless to pink that persists for at least 20 seconds, you have
reached the endpoint. Stop adding NaOH.
13. Record the final buret reading. Determine the volume of NaOH used by
subtraction. Pour the neutralized sample down the sink.
14. Rinse the titration flask with tap water and then with deionized water. Wipe off
the outside of the flask with a paper towel.
15. Add more NaOH solution to the buret, and repeat steps 5-13. This time, however,
you can add the NaOH more quickly at first, because now you will know the
approximate volume of NaOH needed. You only need to slow down when you get
close to the endpoint.
16. Do two more trials of the titration: repeat steps 5-15. You should have data for
four trials.

Calculations (do these separately for each trial)


1. From the volume of NaOH used and the concentration of the NaOH, determine
the moles of NaOH used in the titration.
2. Use the balanced equation to determine the number of moles of acetic acid that
must have been present in the titration flask to react with the amount of NaOH
found in #1.
3. Determine the molarity of acetic acid in the vinegar using the number of moles of
acetic acid found in #2 and the known volume of the vinegar sample used.
4. Report the average molarity of acetic acid from the two trials.
5. Determine the mass of acetic acid present in the vinegar sample: use the number
of moles of acetic acid found in #2 and the molar mass of acetic acid.
6. Determine the mass percent of acetic acid in the vinegar sample from the mass of
acetic acid found in #5 and the mass of the vinegar sample. Remember:

⎛ 111mass X ⎞
mass percent X = ⎜ × 100
⎝ total mass sample ⎠
Here, X is the acetic acid and the total mass of the sample is the mass of the
vinegar.
7. Report the average mass percent found from the four trials. Compare this with the
mass percent of acetic acid found on the label of the vinegar bottle.

Questions
1. How many milliliters of a 0.100 M NaOH solution are needed to neutralize 15.0
mL of 0.200 M H3PO4?
2. If 24.7 mL of 0.250 M NaOH solution is needed to neutralize 19.8 mL of H2SO4
solution, what is the molarity of the H2SO4?
3. 25.0 g of 5.0 % (by mass) acetic acid solution is titrated with 0.300 M NaOH.
What volume of NaOH will be needed to neutralize this sample?

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