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Acid And Non-Buffer Experiment

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In this experiment, we set out to determine the effect the addition an acid and a base would have on the pH of a buffer and a non-buffer. We utilized phosphate, a buffer, and sodium chloride, a non-buffer, as our base solutions and added hydrogen chloride, an acid, and sodium hydroxide, a base, to each solution separately. First, we took a base pH reading of 40mL of phosphate with a pH meter, then added 1 mL of our acid, HCl, at a time, recording the pH after each drop was added. As depicted in Figure 1 and 3, the pH gradually dropped after each mL of acid was added to the phosphate solution. Similarly, we added 1 mL of acid at a time to our sodium chloride solution, after a base pH reading, until our pH reached 2. The pH of the sodium chloride dropped more rapidly than the pH of phosphate, depicted in Figure 1 and 4. After the addition of the acid was complete, we measured out new 40 mL solutions of phosphate and sodium chloride to test with our base, sodium hydroxide. As done with the …show more content…

We predicted that the buffer’s pH would change less rapidly than the pH of the non-buffer. Thus, we hypothesized that if mL’s of an acid or a base was added to a buffer, then the pH of the solution would drop or rise, dependent on whether the acid or the base was added, more gradually then the pH of the non-buffer. Throughout our experiment, we recorded that the non-buffer only required 5 mL of acid to reach our goal pH, while the buffer required well over 10 mL to reach the goal pH. Similarly, the non-buffer only required 2 mL of base to be added in order to reach our goal pH, while the buffer, once again, required well over 10 mL. Furthermore, this discovery confirmed our prediction that the buffer’s pH rose/dropped less rapidly. Our hypothesis was also supported because the pH of the buffer did rise/drop more gradually than the pH of the

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