What are the sources of errors when Hydrochloric acid mixes with Magnesium?
Let’s assume you had a large excess of HCl and just a small piece of Mg. You weighed the Mg and calculated how much H2 would be produced. You’ve collected the H2 and it’s less than what you expected. Sources of error would include: 1) Failure to allow all of the Mg to react. You removed the tube too soon while H2 was still being generated. 2) The position of the tube did not allow you to capture all of the H2. Some of it reached the surface of the water and was lost. 3) There was an error in your weighing of Mg. 4) A small amount of H2 remains dissolved in the liquid (this error would be too small for you to observe based on a visual measurement of gas volume. 5) There was an error in your measurement of pressure and temperature, needed to adjust your measured gas volume to standard state. 6) You misread the volume of gas due to miniscus effect. Basically, whenever you measure something or try to capture something you have sources of error in all that you do. A good experimenter tries
