Calculation

Concentration of acetic acid

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Discussion
Vinegar is a solution of acetic acid in water. Acetic acid, CH3COOH, is a weak monoprotic
acid with a molar mass of 60.05 g/mole. The percent by mass of acetic acid in vinegar can be
determined by titrating a known amount of vinegar with a standardized solution of sodium
hydroxide. Which was sodium hydroxide solution of accurately known concentration. Acetic
acid and sodium hydroxide react as shown below:

Sodium hydroxide is a hygroscopic solid which means it absorbs water from the air. A
weighed quantity of sodium hydroxide therefore contains an unknown mass of water.
Therefore, a solution of known molarity cannot be made by dissolving a known mass of solid
sodium hydroxide in water. The concentration of a sodium hydroxide solution must be
determined experimentally. This is done by titrating the sodium hydroxide solution against a
primary standard. A primary standard is a substance from which a solution of known
concentration can be prepared. The primary standard used in this experiment is potassium
hydrogen phthalate,
, which is referred to by the shorthand notation of
"KHP". KHP has several advantages: it does not absorb moisture readily (i.e., is not
hygroscopic); it is easily dried; it can be accurately weighed; it can be obtained in very pure
form; it has a high molar mass of 204.22 g/mole; and it is very soluble in water. KHP is an
acid, which reacts in aqueous solution to neutralize the base, sodium hydroxide, as shown
below:

From calculation, the number of mole for NaOH is 0.0625 mol, and since 1 mol of NaOH
produce 1 mole of acetic acid (taking from the chemical equation), this made the number of
mole for acetic acid is also 0.0625 mol.
Once we have obtained the number of mole, the mass of the acetic acid now can be obtain by
relatively rearrange the equation of number of mole.

Using this equation and taking the data from the experiment, its certain that the mass of our
acetic acid is 3.625 g, which is relatively quite much.

Next, by assumming that the density of the vinegar is the same as the water, we then
calculates the mass of vinegar solution using the formula of density.

And as we used 10 mL of vinegar during the titration, making it the official volume of the
acid, we then obtained 10 g as the mass of the acid and thus, we can finally can find the
percent of acetic acid on vinegar by relatively dividing the mass of acetic acid with the mass
of vinegar and multiple the answer with 100%, we gain the percent of acetic acid in vinegar
solution as 36.25%, and the percent of error happen to be 11.03 %. According to a webpage
vinegar contains of about 4.0% to 8.0% of acetic acid. After calculated, the percentage error
of this experiment is 11.03%. The percentage error is quite high. Therefore, it can be
concluded that some errors had occurred and this experiment is not conducted properly. In
order to minimize the error, the experiment must be repeated until several times and the
average is taken. Other than that, the mass of solid KHP and NaOH must be taken carefully
and precisely. The beaker must be tarred to get the exact mass of the solid. In order to have
the slightest error, the solid must be placed inside the beaker outside the range of the balance.
This is to ensure that there is no solid fall onto the balance and affect the reading. All the
equipments that is used in the experiment must be washed and dried in order to minimize the
percentage error. In addition, the reading of the burette must be taken perpendicularly to the
meniscus in order to avoid parallex error. Dirty glass can also affect the volume used: dirty
glass is not properly wetted by the solutions and they can form droplets on the glass surface
making exact volume measuring become impossible. Besides that, the KHP generally suitable
for standardized the carbonate free base solution only. In this case, potassium hydrogen
phthalate, KHC8H4O4 (KHP) was chosen as it has high molar mass, readily available and
stable on drying.(Carrol et. all,2007) Preparation of NaOH solution free of carbonates requires
additional actions. One of the suggested procedures calls is quick rinsing of NaOH granules
with water, that will dissolves carbonate because the carbonate usually present on the granules
surface.

Conclusion
Titration method is used for both experiments. In this case of study, the volume required to
neutralize the KHP is found to be at 16.00 mL and 5.70 mL respectively. From the second
experiment, the average percent by mass of acetic acid in vinegar is calculated to be at 36.25 %
CH3COOH. Meanwhile, the theoretical value of it is 4.00%. The percentage error that we
obtained is quite high which is 11.03%.