Description
Demonstrating a simple precipitation reaction with simple household ingredient
Difficulty: easy
Materials:
1. Sodium Hydroxide(also known as caustic soda or lye) : one tablespoon,
2. Copper Sulfate : one tablespoon
3.water
4. beakers or flasks
Procedure:
1.Mix Copper sulfate and water in one beaker
2.Mix Sodium Hydroxide and water in another beaker or flask
3.Add Sodium Hydroxide solution to copper sulfate solution
4.You can see the precipitate forming immediately as a dark blue precipitate. Please check video below
How It Works:
Sodium Hydroxide reacts with Copper Sulfate creating Copper Hydroxide and Sodium Sulfate. Sodium Sulfate is soluble in water while Copper Hydroxide is insoluble. Hence it precipitates and shows as a dark blue precipitate. This can be filtered and used
Equation is
CuSO4 + NaOH → Na2SO4 + CU(OH)2