DISPLACEMENT REACTION....... WHAT IS IT? HOW IS IT DONE? EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

This experiment focuses on "Displacement Reaction" for high school students.

Displacement Reaction: A reaction in which a more reactive element displaces or takes place of an element with lower reactivity

Materials:

1) Three Iron nails

2) Sand paper

3) 2 test tubes

4) Copper Sulphate Solution (CuSO₄) 

5) Thread

6) Test tube stand

Instructions

• Take 2 test tubes and put 10 ml copper sulphate solution in each.
• Put the first test tube on the stand and tie the 2 nails and immerse them in the same test tube. (The other nail and test tube containing copper sulphate is only for comparison)
• Leave the apparatus for 20 minutes.
• After 20 minutes take the nails out.

Observe: The nails which were immersed are brownish in colour in comparison to the nail which was not immersed. Also the copper sulphate solution in which the nails were immersed has a lighter shade of blue.

What happened?

There was a reaction between Copper sulphate and iron in which, iron displaces copper.

     Fe(s) + CuSO₄(aq)⟶ FeSO₄(aq) + Cu(s)

Iron displaces copper because in the reactivity series it is placed higher then copper, in other words, it is more reactive then copper.