RATEOFDECOMPOSITIONOFHYDROGENPEROXIDE Lab Report

RATEOFDECOMPOSITIONOFHYDROGENPEROXIDE - Lab Report Example Therefore, hydrogen peroxide appears to exhibit a metastable characteristic in solution or its pure state (Egan and Nills, 2005). Oxygen evolution is rapid at room temperature and in concentrated solutions the released heat may increase the temperature so that an explosion occurs. On heating, hydrogen peroxide decomposes and it may be explosive. The stability of hydrogen peroxide at room temperature is attributed to the fact that the first step in its thermolysis involves the splitting of the molecule into hydroxide radicals whose formation demands much heat. Catalysts such as silver, gold, platinum, manganese dioxide act as heterogeneous catalysts whereas ions such as I-, IO-, OH-,Fe3+ or copper act as homogenous catalysts. Catalysis of hydrogen peroxide decomposition by iron ions is an important in redox catalysis. The steps in the process as demonstrated by Evgenil, Oleg and Gerts (2005), gives data on the mechanisms of redox catalysis. This decomposition is also important in processes in living organisms. The decomposition may be represented as below; 25 mL of the ten†volume hydrogen peroxide was dilute to about 200 ml with distilled water. A Dewar flask was rinsed with distilled water and then with a few mL of the dilute H2O2 solution. Hydrogen peroxide solution was added into the Dewar flask, and the solution temperature noted at a constant value. 10 ml of Fe3+(a) catalyst solution was added into the beaker while stirring gently. A stop watch was used to keep track of time. Thirty seconds after the addition of the catalyst, 10 mL aliquot of the reaction solution was pipetted and transferred into an Erlenmeyer flask containing 18 mL of 2 M H2SO4. The acid provides an acid medium for the titration and also quenches the decomposition reaction. 10 mL samples were draw from the reaction mixture at 5 min intervals and titrated with potassium permanganate. The titration reaction follows the

Different Kinds of Scientific Fraud Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Different Kinds of Scientific Fraud - Assignment Example One of the serious cases of scientific fraud involves carrying out a research process that does not conform to the expected rigour. For example, if a scientist adopts a quantitative paradigm, he or she faces the compulsion of formulating both a null and alternative hypotheses. The data collected in such a research should help the researcher test the two hypotheses and adopt one of them depending on the statistical correlation identified. However, many researchers adopting the quantitative approach claim to have indulged in a rigorous data collection, analysis and hypothesis testing while in a real sense, they have not. Some of them face the temptation of manipulating data to soot the hypothesis that they think is right. The use of unreliable statistical tools also compromises the quality of data analysis.Scientific fraud may involve the production of a scientific paper aimed at presenting the different steps adopted in the research process. In a real sense, a scientific paper is a th eoretical reconstruction of all the activities undertaken by the researcher. However, many researchers only report aspects of their research that proved successful. They prefer to omit cases of failed experiments because of poor design, erroneous data analysis. This is the reason why many of the research papers published seem to insinuate that the researcher had a carefully arranged proposal and outline and that implementation of the research paradigm adopted was of a very high standard.