How Much Hydrogen Peroxide is in Bleach - Lab Report Example

The paper "Determining the Amount of Hydrogen Peroxide in Bleach" is a good example of a lab report on chemistry. The main use of bleach is to eradicate stains from cloth materials. Bleaching can be referred to as an oxidation reaction in other words. For instance, some bleaches use ions as their oxidizing agents. The main purpose and aim of the experiment are to the amount of hydrogen peroxide present in a bleaching agent (Bajpai, 288). The investigation uses redox reactions as well as titration to achieve the objective of the experiment. The experiment is based on titration reactions. Titration is a reaction that involves the reaction between a base and an acid (Bajpai, 289). The acid is normally used as the titer and the base as the titrant. The experiment is composed of two parts and hence two experimental procedures. The first part will deal with the use of iron II ammonium sulfate hexahydrate to standardize potassium permanganate solution (Bajpai, 289). The equation involved in this reaction is;

On the other hand, part two of this investigation will focus on analyzing the amount of hydrogen peroxide in bleach. The reaction is a titration reaction between the sampled bleach and the solution of potassium permanganate. The equation involved in the entire reaction is;

Experiment

The two procedures of the investigation were performed. The first procedure was the standardization of the KMnO4 solution. The procedure was performed in order to determine the concentration of a solution of KMnO4 standardized. The requirements are samples of FAS. KMnO4 solid, distilled water, burner, watch glass, beaker burette, sulfuric acid and reagent bottle among others. The procedure was performed using three main steps, the steps include preparation of a solution of KMnO4 from the solid samples. The second step is the titration step where a solution of KMnO4 was titrated using the samples of FAS. About 0.3g of FAS was used, 10ml distilled water, 9M sulfuric acid and two drops of H4P2O7. The final step was observation and results were recorded in table 1 below.

Part two of the procedure was then conducted immediately the first procedure was complete. This part was conducted in order to determine the power bleach has as an oxidizing agent. The power of oxidizing in bleach is obtained as the amount of hydrogen peroxide in the bleach. The entire experiment involves the titration of hydrogen peroxide and the solution of KMnO4. The experiment was also performed in three main steps. The first step is the preparation of the solution, followed by the titration of the solution with hydrogen peroxide and finally observing and results collection.

Results

After carefully going through all the steps and following the appropriate procedure in the lab, results were obtained and analyzed. This section contains the results recorded during the procedure as well as the analysis of the results. The analysis includes numerous calculations that were done and presented in the results section of the report.

Table 1: Standardization of KMnO4

Trials

Mass of FAS

(g)

Initial burette reading (ml)

Final burette reading (ml)

The total volume of KMnO4

 Moles of KMnO4

I

0.265

13.90

28.32

14.43

0.00919

II

0.260

28.34

42.12

13.78

0.00963

Table 2: Determination of the amount of H2O2 present in bleach.

Trials

Initial reading

Final reading

Total volume

Average (m)

Moles of H2O2

I

0.42

9.12

8.71

II

9.12

17.89

8.76

III

17.89

26.54

8.65

Calculations:

Amount of hydrogen peroxide was determined as

Discussion

The experiment was successfully performed although small errors were not completely eradicated. The results were not as expected. However, all the results obtained in the experiment were reasonable and followed the appropriate trends. Some errors came from the apparatus used which were not cleaned properly as well as the external environmental factors such as temperature and rainfall among others. Other small errors were internal such as excessive use of chemicals while following the procedure and the use of wrong measurement devices.

Conclusion

To conclude, the experiment produced results that were analyzed in the report and numerous calculations were done in the analysis to obtain the objective and the aim of the experiment. The concentration of potassium permanganate used as well as the percentage by mass of the bleaching agent used was determined through calculations. The main purpose of the investigation was to determine the amount of hydrogen peroxide in bleach. The amount of hydrogen peroxide was found to be 3.48% by mass. Evidently, the experiment was successful.