2: Aluminum and Blue Lab

Physical Description

Before	After
silvery solid	silvery solid
blue liquid	reddish-brownish-blackish solid
	clear liquid

Quantitative Measurements

N/A

Particle Diagram

Chemical Symbols/Equation

Explanation of the Reaction

When aluminum is placed in a liquid of copper and chlorine, the chemical equation is Al + 3CuCl → AlCl₃ + 3Cu. In order to come to this conclusion, we first tested to see what the reddish-brown solid was by burning it. We knew that if it was rust, the fire would stay red, and that if it was copper, the fire would turn green, so when the fire turned green, it confirmed that we had copper. But where did the copper come from? We then tested to see if there was copper in the original blue solution (the "before" stage) by dropping ammonium hydroxide into a sample of it. The result was a solid formation which confirmed the presence of copper in the blue solution.

Next, we added ammonium hydroxide to a sample of the clear liquid. This resulted in a jelly-like substance, which is supposed to form when ammonium hydroxide meets aluminum, thus confirming that aluminum was present in the "after" solution.

But to see if there was anything else in the liquid, we added silver nitrate to both the "before" and "after" samples. The result was a cloudy formation, which meant there was chlorine in the liquids.

With all of this in mind, we knew that there was solid aluminum and liquid copper-chlorine in the "before" stage, and that there was solid copper and liquid aluminum-chlorine in the "after" stage, validating the equation: Al + 3CuCl → AlCl₃ + 3Cu.