Required Practical: Making a Soluble Salt

This lesson covers AQA Required Practical 1 (Chemistry) — preparing a pure, dry sample of a soluble salt from an insoluble oxide or carbonate and a dilute acid, as specified in the AQA GCSE Combined Science Trilogy specification (8464).

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Aim

To prepare a pure, dry sample of a soluble salt by reacting an insoluble base (e.g. copper oxide) with a dilute acid (e.g. sulfuric acid).

Context

In this practical, you make copper sulfate crystals from copper oxide and dilute sulfuric acid:

$\text{CuO}(s) + \text{H}_2\text{SO}_4(aq) \rightarrow \text{CuSO}_4(aq) + \text{H}_2\text{O}(l)$CuO(s)+H2​SO4​(aq)→CuSO4​(aq)+H2​O(l)

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Apparatus