Magical Lab

Today we made solid copper out of a liquid and a nail. We made a thing out of two other things. MAGIC. Look:

Copper grew on a nail.

The way it works is via a RedOx Reaction where a mixture of Copper (II) Chloride and Iron switch places, and in our situation of Iron (III) Chloride and Copper, which appeared on the degrading nail.

Here is a video that shows it. However the video is slow to start so Here will take you to the reactions visible start. Overall it was an interesting look at magic.

Percent Yield

Percent Yield is the percentage of a compound formed when compared to the theoretical yield. This happens because of human error, side reactions, and impurities in the chemicals. Using Percent Yield you can figure if a certain Ion was used for the reaction, such as when Iron and Copper Chloride react, and two possible Ions of Iron can form. We used this to figure out the Ion of Iron in the Magic Lab. The formula and a short summary of is uses are shown here:

Here some guys go over Percent Yield and finding and interpreting it.

Limiting Reagant

A Limiting Reagants is the chemical in a reaction that "runs out" first. To find it you can either calculate and compare the amount of theoretical yields. The compound that results in the smaller of the two values is the Limiting Reagent, while the other method is by multiplying the moles of them by the mole ratio from the equation and the one with less moles is the Limiting Reagent. Here Crash Course discusses them along with Stochiometry. Here is a image showing a simple version of what the chemicals would look like if there is a Limiting Reagent:

Stochiometry

That really weird word is the name for the science of stuff. OK. Stochiometry is name for the science of finding theoretical yields using chemical reaction equations and conversion factors. When worked out it looks like this:

It actually makes a lot more sense do to its nature as an application of mathematics to chemical reactions.  Crash Course has a run down HERE.