Hypothesized Correlation Between Ionization And Ionic Acid

The purpose of this experiment was to observe the hypothesized correlation between ionic strength and degree of ionization of a weak acid, while determining the factors that would impact the degree of ionization using measurements of pH. It was initially required to prepare standard 20-mL solutions of varying concentration of acetic acid for use in the rest of the experiment. One solution of CH3COOH was supposedly developed to be 2.00M, however it is highly possible that the solutions of CH3COOH were not exactly the expected concentration, evident by the differences in the percent ionization of the no salt added solutions.
In order to calculate the degree of ionization of the weak acid, the varyingly concentrated acetic acid solutions and
In the outcome of the experiment, when the ionic strength of the acetic acid solution increased with respect to concentration, the pH relatively decreased and percent of ionization decreased. However the data points had a low correlation to the line of best fit with an R2 of 0.6762 and resembled an inverse curve. The most directly proportional relationship between the ionic strength and percent ionization was determined to be an inverse of the square root of ionic strength: α∝1/√I, where α is percent ionization and I is ionic strength (M). The graph between percent ionization and the inverse square root of ionic strength has a nearly perfect R2 value of 0.989, suggesting that this relationship is the most accurate. The observed relationship between percent ionization and ionic strength is confirmed by Ostwald's dilution law, which suggests that α=√(K_a/C), where percent ionization has a directly proportional relationship with the inverse square root of concentration. Since concentration was the primary variant in this first no salt added experiment, the data collected is quite accurate and helps confirm the correlation explained in Ostwald's law between ionic strength and percent