In class, you’ve learned to compute how much of a chemical product you can make when you mix measured amounts of chemical reactants. In this lab, you will be actually using this information to predict how much product will be made; you will then calculate the percent yield gained from the amount that you actually recover.
The reaction you will be working with should be familiar to you from elementary school science fair volcanoes: You will be mixing baking soda (NaHCO3) with vinegar (CH3COOH) to generate carbonic acid (H2CO3, which breaks up into water and carbon dioxide gas) and sodium acetate (NaCH3COO), which is a food preservation additive.