Imagine that you are given two metal oxides to study in the lab. You heat each o
ID: 1060880 • Letter: I
Question
Imagine that you are given two metal oxides to study in the lab. You heat each oxide in a small test tube and then insert a glowing splint into each. You observe that the splint in tube 1 immediately ignites and burns with a steady flame before it dies, but the splint in tube 2 does not. What happened to the metal oxide in tube 1 when it was heated? Do both metal oxides decompose when heated? Provide evidence to support your answer. What can you conclude about the stability of the 2 oxides based on these observations?Explanation / Answer
(a) Some metal oxides decompose to oxygen and metal while other don't do anything.
(b) The glowing splint test for oxygen. ONly one decomposes when heated because only one splint glowed meaning that only one metal oxide forms oxygen.
2 Hg2O --------------> 4 Hg (s) + O2 (g)
Fe2O3 ------------> no decomposition.
(c) Some metal oxides are stable while other are not and decopose into metal and oxygen.
Some metal oxides are stable while others are not and decompose into metal and oxygen.