CM1131 Foundations in Chemistry I

Assignment: Investigating the Water Pollution

in Joyous Ville
Mentor Group: M24105 Experiment, Explore,
Excel
Group Number:7 Important:
Due Date: Maximum mark: 18  Proposal should not exceed 5 pages
21/03/2024 (proposal)  Font size 11, Cambria
Recommended time:
 4-hour group research

PART 2: INVESTIGATION RESEARCH AND PLANNING (Group Work)

Team Members’ Roles

Role Full name of student (index no.)
Coordinator: Keeps everyone on task and makes sure that Haruto Yamamoto (26)
everyone is involved
Recorder: Prepares the final document to be submitted Patricia (19)

Monitor: Confirms that everyone understands both the Yao

solution and strategy used to get it Yanchen(27)
Checker: Double-checks work before it is handed in. Yao Yanchen
For teams of three, the same person should cover (27)
both monitor and checker roles

This proposal consists of Sections A – E:

A. Visual Check on Water Sample

beaker

B. Isolation of Waste Products

1
(i) How to separate cooking oil from water

 Can the technique of decanting be used to separate oil from water?

Explanation: Diagram
Yes.
Oil and water are immiscible, and oil
will float on water. Using decanting, we
can pour the layer of oil above the
water into another container while
leaving the water. However, it must be
done very carefully.

 Using readily available household items to separate and collect oil from a
mixture of oil and water:
Description of separation process Diagram

Use a cup and pour the mixture inside it.

leave it there for some time. After you
have left it, pour the layer of oil which
would form on top of the cup into
another cup.

(ii) Order to separate each pollutant from the polluted water

Order Waste product to be removed Name of Separation Technique used

1 Ethanol Fractional Distillation
2 Copper (II) Sulfate Crystallisation

2
3 Copper (II) Oxide Centrifugation
4 Carbon-Black powder Adsorption/Filtration

3
C. Procedure and Rationale for Purification Methods
(You may use https://chemix.org/ to draw your experimental setup.)

4
Separation Technique (in sequence)
1. Decantation Brief Description
Use a beaker and pour the
Diagram:
mixture inside it, leave it there
for some time. After you have left
it, pour the layer of oil which
would form on top of the beaker
into another beaker.

Scientific Concept

Oil is less dense than water.

Hence, it floats to surface as you
leave it alone, allowing us to
decant the mixture by pouring
the top layer.

2. Fractional Distillation Brief Description

Diagram:

When the mixture is heated, both

will boil and become gas, ethanol
goes through the condenser and is
collected in the beaker, but water
re-enters the flask.

Scientific Concept

When a mixture of ethanol and

water is heated, ethanol vapour
rises to the top of fractionating
column, and condense into liquid
when pass through condenser.
Water has a boiling point of 100, it
cannot reach the top of fractioning
column as it condenses along it and
go back into the flask.

3. Crystallisation Brief Description

Stir the powder in the water, heat it
Diagram:
in an evaporating dish till most
5
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Separation Technique (in sequence)
4. Centrifugation Brief Description
Diagram: Pour the mixture of water,
copper(II) oxide and carbon
black powder into a centrifuge
tube, then put in a centrifuge to
spin quickly, and for a long
period of time. After that, take
the mixture out while being
careful not to stir the particles
up. It should end up with water
being at the top, carbon black
being at the second highest, and
copper (II) oxide being at the
very bottom
Scientific Concept
In centrifugation, the items are
spun at fast rate with
accelerated gravitational force
due to extremely quick rotation.
This is also known as
centrifugal force, and as the
amount of centrifugal force, the
accelerated gravitational force
(basically just a force applied
by the centrifuge), is directly
related to the density of the
particles, the particles will be
arranged in height based on
density, with particles of lowest
density, the copper(II) oxide,
being at the very bottom.

5. Filtration+Decantation Brief Description

The mixture from the
Diagram:
centrifuge tube will be
decanted, carefully pouring
only the water and carbon black
into a piece of filter paper. The
residue in the filter paper will
be the carbon black, the water
in the beaker, and copper(II)
oxide in the beaker. To obtain
more water, this step can be
repeated with the water in the
original centrifuge tube if there
is still water inside.

Scientific Concept
As the centrifuge already
ensured that the particles
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D. Potential Difficulties
To distinguish carbon and copper (II) oxide, Solution X can be used.

Identity of Solution X Dilute Sulfuric Acid

Chemical change occurs and Effervescence of carbon
Observation if only carbon is dioxide gas produced will be observed, the colour of
present liquid will not change due to chemical change.

Chemical change occurs and the copper (II) oxide will

Observation if only copper be dissolved in the dilute sulfuric acid, a blue liquid
(II) oxide is present solution can be observed.

E. References

 How to Separate Oil and Water: A Comprehensive Guide | WATER

(watermedia.org)
 Centrifugation Lenntech