KUMASI TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

BCHE 109

EXPERIMENT TO DETERMINE THE BUFFER SOLUTION

BY

ABUGRI VICTOR ALEBINA

052441770009

FROM BATCH 1 GROUP 1

14th APRIL , 2025

1
INTRODUCTION

pH of a Buffer Solution

Buffer solutions are crucial in maintaining stable pH levels in various systems by neutralizing
small amounts of added acids or bases. This stability is achieved due to the interplay of a weak
acid and its conjugate base (or a weak base and its conjugate acid).

The Henderson-Hasselbalch Equation

The pH of a buffer solution is calculated using the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation:

pH=pKa+log⁡[Base][Acid

Where:

 pKa is the negative logarithm of the acid dissociation constant (KaK_a) of the weak acid.
 [Base] and [Acid] are the concentrations of the conjugate base and weak acid,
respectively.

For example, a buffer made of acetic acid (CH3COOHCH_3COOH) and its conjugate base,
sodium acetate (CH3COONaCH_3COONa), resists drastic pH changes because:

 Acetate ions (CH3COO−CH_3COO^-) neutralize added hydrogen ions (H+H^+).

How Buffers Work

1. Adding an Acid (H⁺):

CH3COO−+H+→CH3COOHCH_3COO^- + H^+ \rightarrow CH_3COOH

The conjugate base (CH3COO−CH_3COO^-) reacts with the added hydrogen ions to form acetic
acid, thus preventing the pH from decreasing significantly.

2. Adding a Base (OH⁻):

CH3COOH+OH−→CH3COO−+H2OCH_3COOH + OH^- \rightarrow CH_3COO^- + H_2O

The weak acid (CH3COOHCH_3COOH) reacts with hydroxide ions to form water and acetate
ions, preventing the pH from increasing significantly.

Objective(s)
1. To determine how to measure the pH of a solution.
2. To demonstrate the operations of buffer systems.

2
Apparatus:
1. pH meter
2. pH paper
3. Kimwipes
4. Wash bottles
5. 10 mL beakers

Materials:
1.0.1 M HCI,
2.0.1 M acetic acid (CH: COOH),
3.0.1 M sodium acetate (CH,COONa),
4.0.1 M carbonic acid or club soda or seltzer,
5.0.1 M NaHCO,,
6.0.1 M NHs(aq) (aqueous ammonia),
7.0.1 M NaOH

PROCEDURE
1. ML of 0.1M HCl are pour into 10 ML beaker.2 CM long universal PH paper are immersed
into the solution. And the PH paper is taking out from the solution. The color that matches the
PH paper chart is recorded in the table below.
2. The procedure are repeated with the same 0.1 M acetic acid,0.1M sodium acetate,0.1M
carbonic acid,0.1M sodium bicarbonate,0.1M ammonia, and 0.1M NaOH. For all the solution
with separate wipe dry beakers. The result is recorded in the table below.
3.Four separate level, dry, and clean 50 ML beaker are prepared in four buffer system which are
underlisted.
a.1ML 0.1M

3
TABLE 1

Solution pH
0.10 M HCl 1

0.10 M acetic acid 3

0.10 M sodium acetate 7

0.10 M carbonic acid 6

0.10 M NaHCO3 8

0.10 M NH3 9

0.10 M NaOH 13

TABLE 2
Color change PH
Solution
6
a.acetic and sodium acetate
5
b.1ML0.1M acetic acid and 10ML
0.1M sodium acetate

c.5ML 0.1M carbonic acid and 9

d.5ML 0.1M carbonic and10 ML 9

4
TABLE 3
Solution Color change PH
0.5 HCl in solution a 0.5 in NaOH 5
in solution a 6
0.5 in 0.1 HCl in solution b 0.5 in 6
0.1 NaOH in solution b 8
0.5 in 0.1 HCl in solution c 0.5 in 9
0.1 NaOH in solution c 9
0.5 in 0.1 HCl in solution d 0.5 in 8
0.1 NaOH IN solution d 9

TABLE 4

solution PH
Distilled water 6
0.5 ML of 0.1M HCl 1
0.5 ML of 0.1 M NaOH 13

POST LAB

5
1.
a. Buffer system a consists of 0.1ML acetic acid +0.1M sodium acetateThis buffer system
contains equal molar concentration of the acid,acetic acid and its conjugate base,sodium acetate.
b. buffer system b consist 1ML0.1M acetic acid+10 ML0.1 sodium acetate This buffer system
contains10 times as much acetate as acetic acid.
C buffer system c consist 5ML 0.1M sodium bicarbonate This buffer system contains equal
molar concentrations of the acid,and its conjugate base,sodium bicarbonate.
d buffer system d consists 1ML0.1M carbonic acid +10ML 0.1M sodium bicarbonate This buffer
system contains 10 times as much bicarbonate as carbonic acid.
2
PH=PKa+log[A-]/[HA]
Carbonic acid=6.37
Acetic acid=4.75
EXPERIMENT A
. 5ML 0.1M CH3COOH+5ML 0.1M
CH3COO-+Na+
Initial PH=4.1
After addition of 0.5 ML 0.1M HCl,PH=4.1
EXPERIMENT B
.1ML0.1M CH3COOH+10ML0.1M
CH3COO-+Na+
Initial PH=5.2
After addition of 0.5ML0.1HCl,PH=6.O
EXPERIMENT C
5ML0.1 H2CO3+5ML0.1
NaHCO3
Initial PH=9.2
After addition of 0.5ML 0.1M HCl
PH=9.5
EXPERIMENT D
6
. 1ML0.1M H2CO3+10MML 0.1 NaHCO3
Initial PH=7.5
After additionof 0.5ML0.1M NaOH
PH=9.0

7
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this lab was to observe the effective on how adding a base or acid to a buffer
solution can affect the PH of that water and a base or acid being added.The system that was
obsersed is made up of 0.1M of acetic and 0.1M of acetic acid.In the equation; CH3C00H+H20-
H30+ +CH3C00-; we can see the dissociation of the acid being shown.
In the first part of the experiment, HCl was added in increments that were represented on the
chart and they PH was recorded after each amount was added to the buffer as well as the distilled
water. since HCl is a strong acid, it dissociates by releasing a H+ ion and consumes some ions to
form acetic acid. This resulted in a small decrease in the PH over time as more of the HCl was
added to the buffer and distilled water. This was calculated automatically with the program that
was used for the lab but also in our own calculation by using the Henderson-Hasselbatch
equation PH=PKa acetate/acetic acid. when the HCl amount that needed to be added came to
5ML and finding the mol value each molecule in the equation using the ICE table in moles, the
table show that the buffer solution was at equilibrium with one another. This resulted in a regular
ICE table using mole found in the first table and converted th value into molality by
doing ;M=mole/liter, liter being the total amount used in the solution .once the ka was solved,
ka=[CH3COO-][H+]/[CH3COOH],we solved for PH by taking the -log of the concentration
found, PH=-log[H+].Then once the 100MLof the HCl had to be added to the 50ML of buffer and
the distilled water. It was in the excess due to the amount at buffer capacity. This meant that all
the acetate ion were consumed in the solution, however there was still more of the H+ ions
present.

8
CONCLUSION
In this experiment, we are aiming to perform a buffer with designated PH and concentration
units. Another part of the experiment is determining a titration curve between ammonia solution
and strong hydrochloric acid. We observe the trend between mixing these two solutions. As a
result, we will sketch a curve to demonstrate the trend from the recorded data. In the first part of
the experiment we perform the calculation to obtain the amount of acid and the base that we need
the buffer acetic acid. We made the buffer and tested out the PH when we add acid or base to it.
In part 2 we finish titration and record the PH of the solution when adding each 1ML acid into
the basic solution.
Final value
In the first part of the experiment, we were assigned to one of the desired buffers which is
CH3OOH. We researched that CH3COOH- is the conjugate base of the buffer. We applied the
Henderson hasselbatch equation and solved the equation. We found out that the concentration of
the two ingredient is 0.03876 and 0.6124 M respectively. We move forward to do the calculation
and obtain that 19.38 ml of acetic acid CH3COOH and 0.2512g of CH3COONa are necessary to
make the buffer (Ph is 5). We separated to test out the effect of the acid or base mix with the
buffer. On the other hand, we set up two set of calculation and see how Ph change theoretically.
The actual value and the theoretical value of the Ph are 4.83 and 4.82 with the addition of the
acid and 5.20 and 5.1 with the addition of the base. After this we also repeat the above part with
DI water as a controlled group(ph =2.39) when added to acid and ph is equal to 12.25 when
added to the base it strongly prove that the acid would drop down the ph of the buffer and the ph
would not bring to much effect on the buffer.
The experiment demonstrated the effectiveness of buffer solutions in resisting pH changes when
exposed to strong acids or bases. The four buffer systems prepared, namely acetic acid/sodium
acetate and carbonic acid/sodium bicarbonate, showed varying degrees of buffering capacity.

9
REFERENCE
1. Atkins, P. and De Paula, J. (2010) Atkins physical chemistry. 9th edn. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

2. Sarps series.

10