Journal 3

In todays class we did 2 practicals.

The first one was a Combustion practical. This is were we had to get a strip of magnesium and safely with the use of iron clippers, we had to place the strip of magnesium over the blue flames of the Bunsen burner. The result that we got was a very bright spark that kept going till the strip of magnesium had been burnet out. Some of the other groups in the class had theiir spark go a Fluro green colour. We were expecting this result as we knew that magnesium is used for making fireworks.

The second one was a decompostion practical. The aim of this practical was to observe and understand the reaction that would occur if nickel carbonate was to slowly burn into gas form and react with lime water. We also had to state what was happening and why. What we as a group observed was that as soon as the nickel carbonate reached the lime water it started forming bubles in the lime water. This was because a gas was being formed. The gas that was being formed was carbon dioxide. This gas is what was causing the bubbles in the lime water.