Honors Chem Lab #8 Flame Test

Jasmine Gold

Friday, October 4,

2013
Period 7
Purpose- The purpose of this lab is to observe the colors that certain
metal ions when vaporized in a flame, and use a flame test to identify
an unknown metallic ion.
Materials:

Lab burner
Test tube rack
Solutions containing Na+, K+,Li+,Ca2+, Sr2+, Ba2+,

Cu2+,Co2+
2 Unknown soultions
colored pencils

Ion

Color

Li+
Co2+
Cu2+
Na+
Ca2+
Sr2+
Ba2+
K+
Unknown 1
Unknown 2

Magenta
Yellowish Green
Neon Green
Golden Yellow
Light Orange
Neon Orange
Greenish Yellow
Light Purplish Pink
Greenish Yellow
Magenta

Identity of
unknowns
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Ba2+
Li+

Neon

Argon

Questions- attached in lab

Conclusion
I was able to see distinct colors for each ion and match the
Unknown solutions with those I had already identified. I was also
able to see and record distinct light specrums for Neon and Argon.
These results were matched those that I would have expected

based on what I learned in class. Possible sources of error include

inequal amounts of the desired substances making identification of
the unknown substances possibly incorrect. Also, even for those
who are not color blind everyone sees color slightly differently so
its possible that everyones color spectrums for neon and argon
would be slightly different using the methods we used in class.