Report for Oxidation States of Vanadium

In this assignment you will write a formal laboratory report for the experiment in which you prepared and isolated the various oxidation states of vanadium. Your report will be similar in format to that of a paper found in a journal and needs to contain the following parts:

  • abstract
  • introduction
  • experimental section
  • data section
  • discussion
  • conclusions
  • references

 

 

Vanadis, also called Freya, the goddess of love and beauty

Scientific papers are typically written in the passive voice, and your paper is to be written following this convention. Your paper is to be typed using 1" top and bottom margins and 1.5" left and right margins. You must use a sarif style font (sarif fonts are easier to read for a typed document, and sans sarif fonts are better for projection). If you don't know what a sarif style font is, you should look it up! You will submit your paper in electronic form as a pdf via a Moodle upload. Any information that is not general knowledge, must contain a footnote citation. Any web citations other than images you might choose to use, must be from scholarly sites (images not in the creative commons must have citations). Citations are to be indicated in the body of the paper by superscript numbers. Refer to the "ACS Style Guide", a copy of which is in the Hamersly Library Reference Room, to see how these numbers are to be placed in your text. The citations themselve are to be located as reference lists at the end of your report. Your references must follow the format shown in "The ACS Style Guide 3rd Edition (Chapter 14)." Part 2 Style Guidelinesd is a section of the style guide with which you should become familiar. In this section will find chapters covering proper grammar, punctuation and spelling for chemical writing; proper formatting for tables and figures; how to properly write numbers and units of measure; etc along with how to write references. Part of your assignment is to review these parts of the style guide. Aside: this is a reference book that you should have in your professional library. It can be purchased new or used from Amazon fairly reasonably....you will need it for seminar as well.

Include the following in your report:

  • Identify the ions formed in each reaction step along with their colors.
  • Relate the absorbance maxima of the visible spectra with the colors observed.
  • Balance the equation for the following redox reaction in acidic solution

    MnO4- + VO2+ ----> MnO2 + VO2+


  • Write balanced equations for the other redox reactions in this experiment
  • Based on literature electrochemical potentials, make a plot of energy (y-axis) versus oxidation number (x-axis) for the various oxidation states of vanadium. Based on your diagram, which of these states (if any) are unstable with respect to disproportionation?
  • Using Pourbaix diagrams, predict the result of mixing each of the four vanadium ions with the zinc ion and the chlorate ion. You will need to learn about Pourbaix diagrams here and here.

Click here to access detailed information on writing a formal laboratory report.