Acid-Base Titration
PRELAB
 Set up lab book or paper
 Read through the lab
 Answer prelab questions
1. What are the two products of an Acid reacting with a base?
2. What is the purpose of the phenolphthalein?
3. What is meant by neutralization? How will you know when that
point is achieved?
4. What is true about the number of moles acid compared to the
number of moles of base in a neutral solution?
5. If you have 50 mL of 2M acid and you reacted it with 6M base,
would it take more or less mL to neutralize the base? Explain
why.
6. If your solution turns bright pink, what happened? What do you
do to remedy this?
7. What color is an acidic solution with phenolphthalein? What
color is a basic solution with phenolphthalein?
8. Does every person in a lab group do a titration run?
9. How much 0.20M HCl would it take to neutralize 50.0ml of
0.30M NaOH solution
Purpose: To prepare a solution of NaOH of a certain Molarity
and then check it’s Molarity by titrating it with an acid of known
concentration.
Introduction:
Titration is the name given to the process used to determine the
volume of s solution needed to react with a given mass, or volume, of
a sample.
Acids (H+ ) react with bases (OH- ) to produce neutral water. When
the moles of H+ equal the moles of OH- then the equivalence point has
been reached. Because acids and bases are dissolved in water, the
number of moles is dependent on the Molarity of the acid or base
solution and the amount of volume of the solution. Phenolphthalein is
a chemical that is added to the solutions that acts as an indicator.
When phenolphthalein is mixed with an Acid the solution is clear,
when phenolphthalein is mixed with a base the solution turns pink. At
the equivalence point the solution is a pale pink.
Procedure:
Titration instructions
1. There should be a set of funnels and burettes marked
acid and base. Do not mix these. Only pour acid in
the burette and funnel marked acid. Same thing for
the base.
2. Pour about 50 ml of acid and base into their
respective burette.
3. Let a milliliter or two of acid and base run into your
waste beaker, just to make sure there are not any
impurities in the nozzle of the burette.
4. Record the starting volume of each burette to the nearest
0.1mL. Read the bottom of the bubble (meniscus
5. Measure about 15 mL of the acid from the burette into a
flask (do not record this burette reading yet)
6. Add 3 drops of phenolphthalein
7. Hold the neck of the flask with one hand and the value of
the burette with the other hand. Or one person control the
burette and the other swirl the solution in the flask.
8. Add small amounts of base to the flask while swirling the
flask.
9. Continue adding the base SLOWLY until the solution turns
light pink and the color lasts after mixing. One drop should
be enough to change the solution from colorless to pink
when the equivalence point has been reached.
IF YOUR SOLUTION IS DARK PINK, YOU WENT TO
FAR, ADD ACID DROP BY DROP UNTIL IT GOES BACK
TO LIGHT PINK!!!!
10. Record the ending volume of both burettes to the nearest .
01mL
11. Rinse the flask with water for the next run. You may need
to add more acid or base to the barrette (you should have at
least 25 ml left in the burette to start a run.
12. Repeat steps #7-14 for 3 more runs. Each person in the
group should do one run.
POSTLAB
1. Complete data table
2. Calculate the average experimental MB this is your
experimental value.
3. What is the accepted molarity of the base.
4. Calculate a percent error for the MB
5. What was the pH when the solution was a dull pink? What
do we know about the relationship between H+ and OH-?
6. If your percent error is higher than 10%, what do you think
happened? What do you think the Molarity of base you
made was different from what you found from titration? If
you had a % error less than 10, what do you think you did
correctly?
7. Calculate the average number of moles of acid used in the
titration. Remember M=mol/L
Conclusion- Write a conclusion paragraph, be sure to explain
your percent error.
 Average Experimental MB ____________________

Run # ACID = .200 M HCl BASE = ? M NaOH Experimental

Start Buret End Buret VA Start Buret End Buret VB MB = MA VA
mL mL (End – start) mL mL (End – start) VB
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