Jove Lab Chem
Metal Flame Emission — Lab Prep
Source: Smaa Koraym at Johns Hopkins University, MD, USA
- Lab Preparation for Metal Flame Emission Testing
Here, we show the laboratory preparation for 10 students working in groups of 5, with some excess. Please adjust quantities as needed.
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Put on a lab coat, safety glasses, and nitrile gloves.
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Barium, copper, and strontium require special disposal, so place an appropriate waste container and a wash bottle of deionized water in the waste hood.
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Prepare a spectrophotometer for each student group. Confirm that the devices are working and charged before distributing them to the student's fume hoods.
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Set a Bunsen burner, a length of latex tubing, a striker, a sparkler in a 250-mL Erlenmeyer flask, and a 400-mL glass beaker in the main instructor's hood.
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Prepare the metal salts. For each student group, place 6 small test tubes in a rack.
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Label the 6 tubes as 'Na', 'K', 'Li', 'Ba', 'Sr', and 'Cu'. Prepare an extra rack as a backup.
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Obtain the metal salts and a few paper towels to catch any spills. Use a small disposable spatula to fill each Na tube with NaCl to a depth of about 2 mm. Discard the spatula afterward.
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Fill the remaining tubes in the same way using a clean spatula for each metal to prevent cross-contamination.
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Place a rack of filled test tubes at each fume hood. Store the extra rack in the instructor's hood and clean up any traces of spilled salts.
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Distribute a Bunsen burner and striker to each fume hood.
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Lastly, just before the lab, fill a 400-mL beaker with deionized water for each student group and place 6 cotton-tipped applicators tip down in each beaker. Set one at each fume hood.
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