The purpose of this experiment is to determine the rate law equation of HCl Solution and

Magnesium Ribbon solid and to investigate a factor that affects the rate law.
What is a rate law? To understand a rate law , first one must know that is a branch of
chemical kinetics ; the study of methods to make a chemical reaction faster or slower.
Therefore a rate law is simply the rate at which a chemical is made per some unit of time. A
rate law has the form r = k[X]n[Y]m where r is the rate, k is some constant , X and Y are
concentrations of a substance in the reaction and n and m are exponents that have an
impact on the reaction, if an exponent is 0, then that substance has a no impact on the rate.
The rate of a substance can be determined with formula r = 1seconds where seconds is
the time the reaction takes. The rate of a substance also changes depending on certain
factors such as temperature, surface area, the orientation of particles,presence of a
catalyst and of course a change in concentration. All of these factors affect the threshold
energy which is simply the minimum amount of kinetic energy required to start a reaction.
The more particles that are at the threshold energy, the quicker a reaction will happen.
The order of the rate law will most likely be 1, since the unit grams for magnesium ribbon is
not a concentration. Since there is only 2 substances , and 1 is a solid without a
concentration, according to the rate law equation, only concentrations of a substance can
be used in the rate law equation therefore the order of the rate law should only be related to
the concentration of HCl, for example if an increase from 2 mol/L solution to 4 mol/L solution
HCl is used, then the rate of production should also double.In the first part of the experiment
only concentrations will be changed with all other factors such as temperature and surface
area remaining constant.In the second part of the experiment , when HCl is heated, the
rate should increase for all concentrations, and thus provide a different rate law equation
compared to HCl and Magnesium Ribbon at room temperature. The surface area and
concentrations will remain unchanged in the second part of the experiment.
Required Materials

StopWatch
Bottle of 6 mol/L HCl solution
Bottle of Distilled Water
Magnesium Ribbon tape
Scale/Mass
Hotplate
6 100 mL beakers
2 50 mL beakers
Steel Wool
paper towels
thermometer
Pipette

Massed out 6 pieces of 0.05grams of magnesium ribbon on scale. Used steel wool to
remove any rust from magnesium ribbon, then kept all pieces inside a dry paper towel to
prevent further oxidization.

Placed about 30 mL of water into both 50 mL beakers. Used pipette to obtain 20 mL of 6

mol/L HCl and placed into a 250 mL beaker. Placed the piece of magnesium ribbon inside
HCl solution and timed how long the reaction took. Repeated step 2 with 20 mL of 3 mol/L
HCl solution and 2 mol/L solution
Dumped all acidic waste from step 2 into the acidic waste bin and rinsed out all beakers.
Removed 2 250 mL beakers and both 50 mL beakers.
Used pipette to obtain 100 mL of 6 mol/L solution then placed 20 mL HCl solution into each
250 mL beaker. Massed out 2 pieces of magnesium ribbon at 0.05 grams, one piece at 0.1g
and another piece at 0.2grams , used steel wool to remove any oxidization and kept
individual pieces in their own paper towel.
Placed 0.1 grams of magnesium ribbon into 20 mL 6 mol/L HCl, and timed the reaction,
then placed 0.2 grams of magnesium ribbon into another beaker, timed the reaction.
With a thermometer, checked the temperature of the unused HCl solution then used a hot
plate to heat the unused HCl solution by 5 degrees celsius.Removed thermometer from
beaker. Placed 0.05 grams of magnesium ribbon into heated HCl and timed reaction, then
placed another 0.05 grams into unheated beaker and timed the reaction.

Magnesium Ribbon reacting with HCl

Trial #

Magnesium(g)

HCl (concentration mol/L)

Rate (1/seconds)

Temperature
(C)

1-1

0.05

1/15.24

21

1-2

0.05

1/9.71

21

2-1

0.05

1/13.26

21

2-2

0.05

1/22.68

21

3-1

0.05

1/28.06

21

3-2

0.05

1/22.86

21

4-1

0.1

1/11.37

21

4-2

0.2

1/18.78

21

5-1

0.05

1/19.69

21

5-2

0.05

1/9.52

26

Averages for trials

Trial

Magnesium(g)

HCl(mol/L)

rate

Temperature (C)

0.05

0.08

21

0.05

0.06

21

0.05

0.04

21

4-1

0.1

1/11.37

21

4-2

0.2

1/18.78

21

5-1

0.05

1/19.69

21

5-2

0.05

1/9.52

26

Now that the information is simplified, rate law calculations can be done.According to the
graphs, the rate is affected linearly on the amount of magnesium,but not linearly for HCl,
rate law equations will help determine the real effect each has on the rate. For this rate law
equation the variables X,Y , n and m have been used. X is concentration of Mg and Y is
concentration of HCl. m is the exponent for magnesium while n is the exponent for HCl.
R=[X]n+ [Y]m

Trials 1 and 2
From 2 to 1
1.3 = 2n
Ln(1.3) = n(Ln2)
n = 0.42
Trials 1 and 3
From 3 to 1
2=3n
Ln(2) = n(Ln3)
n = 0.63
Trials 2 and 3
From 3 to 2
1.5=1.5n
n=1
Average of exponent n
n = (1+ 0.63 + 0.42) /3
n = 0.68
Therefore exponent n will have a large effect in the reaction.
Trials 4-1 and 4-2
From 4-1 to 4-2
2=0.60m
Ln(2) = m (Ln 0.6)
m = -1.3
Therefore exponent m will have a large effect in the reaction.
The rate law equation:
r =k[X]n[Y]m
Sub trial 1 into rate law equation.
0.08 =k[0.05]-1.3[6]0.68
k = 0.0048
r =0.0048[Mg]-1.3[HCl]0.68

Trials 5-1 and 5-2(Temperature affecting rate)

Trial 5-1 : r = 1/19.69 (21 degrees)
Trial 5-2 : r = 1/9.52 (26 degrees)
r=2
Approximate change in rate due to temperature is 2x increase from 5-1 to 5-2
It was found that in the rate law calculations that the amount of Magnesium and
concentration of HCl both had an effect in the rate law equation since neither of the
exponents were 0 and that neither was a linear relation. Depending on the amount of
magnesium , the rate could go up or down , the same rule applies based on the
concentration of HCl. Surprisingly even though Magnesium was a solid and did not have a
concentration, it still had impact on the overall rate law equation. Another factor that was

tested during the experiment was the temperature of HCl, it was founded that based on a 5
degree change in temperature (C) the rate of reaction increased by a factor of 2. A source of
error in the experiment would be when the Mg ribbon was scraped with steel wool to
remove rust, since it may have changed the mass of the ribbon by removing and moving Mg
atoms unknowingly. If the mass had been changed, then the reaction may have taken a
shorter or longer time thus affecting the rate 1/seconds. Another source of error may have
been the temperature of the magnesium ribbon since it may have been different for each
individual piece, each piece had a different time spent in air before being dropped into the
acidic solution, so due to a oxidization reaction, the magnesium ribbon would release
energy and in turn become colder. With a colder piece of magnesium , the reaction may not
go as fast due to the magnesium having less particles with a high enough threshold energy.
To fix these errors, powdered magnesium could be used since it will have less oxidization
and still retain the same mass since cleaning it wouldnt be as necessary. Also to fix the
magnesium temperature issue, what could be done is keeping all pieces of magnesium at
the same temperature then performing all the reactions at the same time, so they all lose
the same amount of energy during the oxidization process.
To conclude, The rate law equation for the experiment was determined experimentally to be

r =0.0048[Mg]-1.3[HCl]0.68 and temperature was determined

to increase the rate of reaction by a factor of 2 per 5C change in temperature.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, the data from the experiment did show the effects that concentration and
surface area had on the reaction rate. The exponential value for HCl was indeed 1, but
mass also had an exponential value of 2,and the reactant with less surface area had a
faster rate of reaction, defying my hypothesis. However the experiment did prove that
the higher the concentration of an acid is, the faster the rate of reaction will be.

References
Rate of reaction of magnesium with hydrochloric acid. (2011, December 22). Nuffield
Foundation |. Retrieved October 22, 2014, from http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/practicalchemistry/rate-reaction-magnesium-hydrochloric-acid

St-Louis, P. (n.d.). SCH4U Rate Lab 2: Determination of the Order of a Simple Reaction.
SCH4U Rate Lab 2: Determination of the Order of a Simple Reaction. Retrieved October
22, 2014, from http://www2.ucdsb.on.ca/tiss/stretton/chem2/ratelab2.html