Question

Imagine you are in a laboratory. You are exploring the following reaction: A + B → C When the product C is created, bubbles form. When 10mL of A is added to 10mL of B, the reaction takes twenty seconds. Your teacher gives you three unknown substances (X, Y, and Z), one of which is a catalyst for the reaction. Design an experiment to test substances X, Y, and Z to determine which one is a catalyst for the reaction.

Answer 1

Prepare three test tubes containing reactant A.  Prepare three test tubes containing reactant B.  Add one test tube of reactant B and one unknown to one test tube of reactant A. Repeat for the other two unknowns. Time the reaction until bubbling stops. The unknown that causes the reaction to occur the quickest is the catalyst.

Answer 2

Ok so in this experiment what we want to find is the catalyst for the reaction. Our original reaction is the following. A + B --> C, therefore to find which of the unknown substances (X, Y, and Z) is the catalyst reaction we simply have to do the following:

A + B + X --> C

A + B + Y --> C

A + B + Z --> C

The reaction that produces C much faster than our original reaction A + B --> C will be our catalyst. The reason being that one of the substances will increase the rate of the chemical reaction.

I hope it helps, Regards.