Cup O Noodles Lab Report

Cup o’ Noodles: Through the Eyes of a Chemist

Background: Before completing this experiment, one must know about chemical formulas, ionic bonding, solutions and moles to understand the results of this experiment. A chemical formula is the symbol for compounds and elements. It tells chemists how many atoms are in a chemical compound, formula unit or molecular compound. In a chemical formula a subscript indicates how many atoms there are of an element before it. The coefficient in a chemical formula indicates how many molecules of the formula unit, or chemical compound. The chemical formulas we use in this experiment are NaCl (sodium chloride/salt), KCl (potassium chloride), and CsCl (cesium chloride) and CaCl2 (calcium chloride). To form
In this experiment, we only use ionic bonds. There are also two main types of chemical bonding: ionic and covalent. Ionic bonding is caused by the attraction between anions and cations. An anion is a negatively charged ion, while a cation is a positively charged ion. Ions are formed when an element loses or gains an electron. Atoms in the alkaline metals, alkaline-earth metals and the boron family will lose atoms because it takes less energy to lose 1, 2 or 3 valence electrons respectively than gain 7, 6 or 5 valence electrons respectively. These elements will form cations with a positive charge. However, in the nitrogen, oxygen and halogen families, atoms will gain electrons because they have 5, 6, or 7 valence electrons respectively, because it is easier to gain 3, 2 or 1 valence electrons than lose 5, 6 or 7 respectively. Once the anions and cations are formed, their charges are attracted, forming an ionic bond. Ionic bonds charges must be balanced, so subscripts are often added in the chemical formula. Ionic bonds also have many properties that are relevant to our experiment. Most ionic bonded compounds dissolve in water and then are able to conduct electricity (like salt). A