Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

How do you determine by experiment the mass of oxygen produced when a fixed mass of sodium nitrate is heated in air

Gafie wrote:How do you determine by experiment the mass of oxygen produced when a fixed mass of sodium nitrate is heated in air

There are many different ways to do this experimentally. How does the sodium nitrate change and how can you quantify that change? Can you relate a change in the physical properties (volume/mass/whatever) to the amount of oxygen released?

Sodium nitrate widely used as an explosive, so you need to be working with amounts of material and safety procedures approved by your teacher.


Louise

but how do you Determine the mass of O2 produced when a fixed mass of NaNO3 is heated in air?

Gafie wrote:but how do you Determine the mass of O2 produced when a fixed mass of NaNO3 is heated in air?

How do the physical observables of the sodium nitrate change after oxygen has left?

I'm not going to give you the answer, just hints that will let you figure this out.

Louise