Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to determine how conductometry can be used to help obtain the concentration of a Ba(OH)2 solution.

Background: The purpose of this lab is to see how conductometry can help to obtain the concentration of a barium hydroxide solution. The form of this experiment is a titration. A titration is used to find the unknown amount or concentration of a substance by reacting it with another. This method will allow the equivalence point to be found by measuring conductivity. Solutions conduct electricity when ions are present so the conductivity is higher when the ion concentration is higher. That means initially there will be a high conductivity because there will be a large amount of OH- anions in the titration jar. When a strong electrolyte is added to another, the conductivity decreases. As the sulfuric acid is added, the H+ ions from it neutralize the OH- ions which makes the conductivity decrease until the equivalence point is reached at which point the two substances have reacted fully together. As the sulfuric is continuously added, the conductivity begins to rise because strong electrolytes are in excess. At the equivalence point, the conductivity is the lowest. These trends create a V-shaped graph. The equivalence point allows us to see how much sulfuric acid was needed to react with the barium hydroxide. With the amount, the number of moles and the concentration of the barium hydroxide can both be calculated.