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.
