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Buffers Lab

Decent Essays

Buffers are solutions that resist change in pH when small amounts of strong acids or bases are added to it. Adding a strong acid to a solution would decrease its pH as seen in fig 2 and adding weak base would increase its pH as seen in fig. 3. One good use of buffers in a biology field is that buffers control the pH in order for the cells to live in a livable environment. If the cell is too basic it releases H+ ions into the cells and if its too acidic the buffer releases OH-. Therefore, buffers inside and outside the cells help maintain the pH in the cytoplasm because if the pH is not applicable in the cell, the cell dies. To recap buffers in the cells, help to maintain an ideal environment for biochemical reactions to take place.
However, …show more content…

In experiment 1, the Ph was predicted using the Henderson-hassle back equation. Twelve large test tubes were obtained in addition to two beakers including a base (Na2HPO4) and an acid (NaH2PO4) ranging in different acid and base volumes. The pH of the solution was measured using a calibrated pH probe. After the pH of the solution was measured, the pH measured and the predicted pH were graphed, we concluded that the values were fairly close, in addition the data from the experiment demonstrated that as the Ph increases the log (base/acid) increased. Experiment 2 was done to determine the buffer capacity of the phosphate buffer. Buffer capacity is the change the pH value by a unit of 1.0. 0.1M of HCl and 0.05M of NaOH were titrated into 1x PBS buffer, and from the molarity concentration calculation done to find the pH change of 1 unit, we can conclude that the buffering capacity increased as the concentration of the buffer of acid/base solution increases. We can confirm that the closer the buffered pH is to the pKa the greater the buffer capacity, and the further it is from the pKa the more difficult it is for the buffer to resist changes in ph. Collected from the internet, the pKa of PBS is 2.16, 7.21 and 12.31. by looking at table 2, our starting pH of HCl titration was 7.37 and while the starting pH of NaOH is 7.34 we can say that NaOH has a greater …show more content…

In part 1 of the experiment was where a stock solution was prepared using different quantities of acid and base and comparing the predicted PH using the Henderson-hasselbach equation vs. the measured pH using a pH probe. The Ph readings that was measured and graphed were pretty close and off by approximately 0.03-0.08 points and we can say that is an accurate reading, meaning that the probe was calibrated precisely in order to have a pH reading of the prepared solution as close as possible to the predicted ph. When we used the hasselbach equation for the predicted pH we were provided with a pKa of 7.18, looking at graph 1 at the intercept of each line, the pKa of the measured pH is 7.195 and the predicted pH has a pKa value of 7.18, rounding those values to one decimal place we get a pKa value of 7.2 for both and that is spot on compared to the provided pKa for the Henderson-hasselbach equation. Looking at the graph, we can conclude that as pH increases the concentration of acid/base increases

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