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Standardisation of iron(III) nitrate solution.

I am doing my chemistry project on the iron content of teas.
As a result I have had to prepare an iron(III) nitrate solution to make my calibration curve as a reference. I need to titrate this solution but everything I search up is using iron(III) nitrate as the titrate and not the analyte.
Can anyone help me to work out what chemicals and method I need to use to work out the Fe^3+ concentration in the iron(III) nitrate solution?
Or point me to some good resources which could help me work out the answer?

Reply 1

Original post
by Student42pie
I am doing my chemistry project on the iron content of teas.
As a result I have had to prepare an iron(III) nitrate solution to make my calibration curve as a reference. I need to titrate this solution but everything I search up is using iron(III) nitrate as the titrate and not the analyte.
Can anyone help me to work out what chemicals and method I need to use to work out the Fe^3+ concentration in the iron(III) nitrate solution?
Or point me to some good resources which could help me work out the answer?
-Method 1: Reduction with Metallic Zinc (as powder) and Titration with Permanganate.
-Method 2: Reduction with SnCl2 and Titration with Dichromate.
-Method 3: (without reduction) Complexometric Titration with EDTA.
Which method would you like to choose? If you let me know, I can provide more details on the selected method.
Ciao,
Sandro
(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 2

Original post
by Student42pie
I am doing my chemistry project on the iron content of teas.
As a result I have had to prepare an iron(III) nitrate solution to make my calibration curve as a reference. I need to titrate this solution but everything I search up is using iron(III) nitrate as the titrate and not the analyte.
Can anyone help me to work out what chemicals and method I need to use to work out the Fe^3+ concentration in the iron(III) nitrate solution?
Or point me to some good resources which could help me work out the answer?

Personally I’d use the first of the three methods suggested by Nitrotoluene. The chemistry involved is quite straightforward- Zn reduces Fe^3+ to Fe^2+ and then the acidified potassium permanganate oxidises the iron(II) back to iron(III) with a very distinctive colour change (the purple solution of KMnO4 in conical flask goes virtually colourless since Fe^3+ and Mn^2+ are both pale and the concentrations of both will be low):

2Fe^3+ + Zn —> 2Fe^2+ + Zn^2+

5Fe^2+ + MnO4^- + 8H^+ —> 5Fe^3+ + Mn^2+ + 4H2O

For this, you will want to use sulphuric acid solution to make up the standard solution of KMnO4 (HCl oxidises to Cl2 with KMnO4, HNO3 is itself oxidising and leads to side reactions and many alternative acids like CH3COOH are too weak). All the chemicals you’ll need should be readily accessible in a high school laboratory.

As for why I’d pick it over the other methods, I’d say method 2 proposed by Nitrotoluene involves a much less distinctive colour change at the endpoint of the titration and method 3 involves a more annoying colour change to monitor (orange —> pale yellow), so spotting the endpoint is more challenging. You could always try adding another ligand to the iron(III) nitrate in advance to make the colour change more obvious (salicylic acid I believe forms a red complex with iron(III) ions) but this will end up diluting the analyte and making the calculations more tricky.

Reply 3

Original post
by TypicalNerd
Personally I’d use the first of the three methods suggested by Nitrotoluene. The chemistry involved is quite straightforward- Zn reduces Fe^3+ to Fe^2+ and then the acidified potassium permanganate oxidises the iron(II) back to iron(III) with a very distinctive colour change (the purple solution of KMnO4 in conical flask goes virtually colourless since Fe^3+ and Mn^2+ are both pale and the concentrations of both will be low):
2Fe^3+ + Zn —> 2Fe^2+ + Zn^2+
5Fe^2+ + MnO4^- + 8H^+ —> 5Fe^3+ + Mn^2+ + 4H2O
For this, you will want to use sulphuric acid solution to make up the standard solution of KMnO4 (HCl oxidises to Cl2 with KMnO4, HNO3 is itself oxidising and leads to side reactions and many alternative acids like CH3COOH are too weak). All the chemicals you’ll need should be readily accessible in a high school laboratory.
As for why I’d pick it over the other methods, I’d say method 2 proposed by Nitrotoluene involves a much less distinctive colour change at the endpoint of the titration and method 3 involves a more annoying colour change to monitor (orange —> pale yellow), so spotting the endpoint is more challenging. You could always try adding another ligand to the iron(III) nitrate in advance to make the colour change more obvious (salicylic acid I believe forms a red complex with iron(III) ions) but this will end up diluting the analyte and making the calculations more tricky.

ok thank you very much this is really helpfull!

Reply 4

Original post
by Nitrotoluene
-Method 1: Reduction with Metallic Zinc (as powder) and Titration with Permanganate.
-Method 2: Reduction with SnCl2 and Titration with Dichromate.
-Method 3: (without reduction) Complexometric Titration with EDTA.
Which method would you like to choose? If you let me know, I can provide more details on the selected method.
Ciao,
Sandro

ok I will try to use the first method to improve on my result however due to the time constraints of my experiment and my teacher still not teaching us unit 3 I had to leave out the titration from my experiment. However I will be adding it into my evaluation as something that could definitely improve the experiment. But thank you so much for all the help!

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