Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Titration Vs Density

curious_jorge - 12-8-2010 at 13:33

George was bored of slinging poo the other day so he started reading one of the 'Man in The Yellow Hat's chemistry manuals. George wants to determine the concentration of solute in solution. Titration seems hard[George scowls] but density through a hydrometer seems easy-er[big smile!].

Can George determine concentrations of say... acids, through their specific gravity? If so, what would the formula for that look like/involve?

Help a monkey out!

bahamuth - 12-8-2010 at 14:05

Concentration found by density is much more inaccurate than by titration.

But for simplicity non accurate measurements it works just fine as long you have the density/concentration table/chart. Just read off/calculate the value on the instrument (Pyknometer is one of them, hydrometer another) and compare it to the chart/table.

Anyway, if you want to do chemistry I think you should read up on titration and the different types of it, as it gives fairly accurate values.

And it is a wonderful tool for us home chemists as many compounds may be quantified easy and cheap.


Usually not the one to rant but this is one of the first things I learned at practical lab and so should it be yours... Read up on the different methods and make up your mind what fits your experiment best.

curious_jorge - 12-8-2010 at 14:47

Quote: Originally posted by bahamuth  
Concentration found by density is much more inaccurate than by titration.

But for simplicity non accurate measurements it works just fine as long you have the density/concentration table/chart. Just read off/calculate the value on the instrument (Pyknometer is one of them, hydrometer another) and compare it to the chart/table.

Anyway, if you want to do chemistry I think you should read up on titration and the different types of it, as it gives fairly accurate values.

Fair enough, thank you for your input. I will say that although I admit I do not completely understand titration yet, I recently wanted to determine if the 35% H2O2 I had purchased six months ago had degraded(it had not been stored in the fridge).

I found a titration workup online but did not possess all of the reagents required. I also found a chart that stated what the density of 35% h2o2 should be(1.135). I do possess a simple hydrometer for beer brewing, and when tested it showed a density of 1.32. The hydrometer was calibrated first with dH2O at room temp.

It just seems so much simpler. This monkey likes simple things.

xwinorb - 14-8-2010 at 05:48

My suggestion :

Try peroxide test strips. I am not an expert on the subject, I think titration is the more accurate way, but titration of H2O2 is complex.

This shall give you a fast and more or less quantitative measure of your peroxide strenght in %.

Also, you might have to dilute your peroxide in order to have it on a concentration range suitable to the test strip, but that's easy to do.

You can buy test strips online.