Ideal Gas Law Lab

Introduction:
The goal of this experiment was to measure the amount of gas produced in various reactions. The Ideal Gas Law was needed in order to calculate the mass of reactants and moles of gas produced: , where is the pressure in atm, is the volume in Liters, is the number of moles, is the ideal gas constant [0.082 (Latm)/(Kmol)], and is the temperature in Kelvins. Considering the units on R, it was important to convert pressure, volume, and temperature to atm, L, and K, respectively.
In this investigation, the volume of reaction space needed to be measured. One way to measure the volume was to use a string to measure the diameter and the length of the tube. The volume of reaction space =, where is the radius of the tube and is the length of the tube. Another important formula is the percent yield
The mass of CaCO3 needed was calculated using the ideal gas law and stoichiometry; the amount needed was 0.256 g of CaCO3. Three measurements of 0.256 g were used for three trials. Each trial, CaCO3 was placed into a tissue paper, and then tied off with a string to prevent the loss of CaCO3. The diameter and the length of the tube connecting the pressure measuring device to the stopper were measured with a string and a ruler, and its volume was calculated using the simple equation for a volume of cylinder. After obtaining the volume, temperature of the reaction was measured using enough CaCO3 and HCL. 100mL of HCL was put into the flask. The tissue paper container was placed into the flask of HCL like a bag of tea and the stopper was quickly placed over the flask to prevent any pressure loss. Using the pressure sensor, the pressure was measured and recorded. The steps were repeated three times. During the experiment, volume and temperature were