Answer to Question #218347 in General Chemistry for mtshepana

Question

1.     If some volatile impurities are not burnt off during the first experiment, but gets burned off in the second experiment, will the reported percentage mass of water in hydrated salt be higher or lower than the true value. Explain

Answer 1

In precipitation gravimetry an insoluble compound forms when we add a precipitating reagent, or precipitant, to a solution that contains our analyte. In most cases the precipitate is the product of a simple metathesis reaction between the analyte and the precipitant; however, any reaction that generates a precipitate potentially can serve as a gravimetric method.