Chemguide

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Pearson's Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry books


Acids, bases and salts

Video clips and animations

Magnesium and dilute hydrochloric acid

Short bit of video including testing for the hydrogen produced. YouTube

Calcium metal reacting with moderately concentrated hydrochloric acid

This acid is three to six times as concentrated as typical dilute hydrochloric acid. The acid is added in small amounts to keep the reaction under control. YouTube

Aluminium foil reacting with fairly concentrated hydrochloric acid

The interesting thing here is that nothing much happens at the beginning, and then the rate of reaction really accelerates. At the beginning, the acid has to react with the layer of aluminium oxide which protects the aluminium. After that the reaction gives out a lot of heat and so gets faster and faster because the temperature is rising. YouTube

Preparing hydrogen from magnesium and dilute hydrochloric acid

This shows how you could make samples of pure hydrogen from magnesium and dilute hydrochloric acid. You may need to pause the video from time to time to read the labelling. The next video follows on from this one. YouTube

Testing pure hydrogen

This shows the disappointing pop you get if the hydrogen is pure. To make the typical squeaky pop you need some air mixed with the hydrogen. YouTube.

A hydrogen-oxygen mixture exploding

Exploding a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in a very big balloon. Spectacular. YouTube.

The Hindenberg disaster

Archive footage of the destruction of the Hindenburg airship. YouTube.

Copper(II) carbonate and dilute sulfuric acid

Showing the reaction between copper(II) carbonate and dilute sulfuric acid to make copper(II) sulfate and carbon dioxide. It would have been better if it had been able to show a clear blue solution at the end. YouTube

Making a salt from an acid and a soluble base

This shows how you make a sample of sodium chloride from sodium hydroxide solution and dilute hydrochloric acid. YouTube

Making a salt from an acid and an insoluble base

This shows how you make a sample of copper(II) sulfate from copper(II) oxide and dilute sulfuric acid. There is one small error in this. When you hae the solution of copper(II) sulfate, the commentary talks about boiling all the water off. If you do this, you don't get copper(II) sulfate crystals, but instead get white anhydrous copper(II) sulfate. The video continues by correctly showing an evaporating basin with copper(II) sulfate crystals in some residual copper(II) sulfate solution. YouTube

The growth of copper(II) sulfate crystals

Short, gentle, quirky video showing the growth of copper(II) sulfate crystals in a dish. YouTube

Making an insoluble salt by precipitation

This shows how you make a sample of insoluble lead iodide from lead nitrate and potassium iodide solutions. YouTube

Precipitation of silver chloride and iodide

Included to show the pale yellow colour of the silver iodide. Silver bromide is somewhere between this and the white silver chloride in colour. YouTube.

Precipitation of barium sulfate

Concentrate on what is happening, and ignore some of the spelling! YouTube.

How to use a pipette

An excellent video description of the way to use a pipette for accurate work. It mentions the term "aliquot", which is used in this sense to mean a measured sample taken from a liquid. YouTube

How to use a burette and do a simple titration

An excellent video description showing how to do this accurately in a simple acid-base titration using phenolphthalein as indicator, running an alkali (the "titrant") into an acid (the "analyte"). Don't worry about these, possibly unfamiliar, terms. YouTube


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© Jim Clark 2017