Titration core practical

• Procedure for carrying out a titration

  1. Transfer 25 cm³ of sodium hydroxide solution into a conical flask

  2. Add 5 drops of indicator (e.g. methyl orange) to the alkali

  3. Place conical flask on a white tile

  4. Fill a burette with sulfuric acid

  5. Add acid to the alkali until the solution is neutral (colour change from yellow to permanently red)

  6. Read the volume of acid added from the burette (at the bottom of the meniscus)
• Normally, the titration is repeated several times until two readings within 0.1 cm³ are obtained, and the mean of these is taken as the final volume
• The volume and concentration of the alkali, and the volume of acid needed to neutralise it, can be used to calculate the concentration of the acid
• Titration

  A procedure used to determine the concentration of an unknown solution by reacting it with a solution of known concentration
• Neutralization reaction


  A reaction between an acid and an alkali, producing a salt and water
• Pipette

  • It is important to allow the liquid to drain out of the pipette rather than blowing it out using the pipette filler, as blowing it out will give an incorrect volume
• Burette

  • When reading the burette, it is important to ensure that your eye is level with the surface of the liquid (the meniscus), and to read at the bottom of the meniscus