April 10, 2014

Peter Fenger
Experiment 15.1
A Demonstration of Equilibrium
I. Purpose
Chemical equilibrium is the point at which both the forward and reverse reactions in a chemical
equation have equal reaction rates. When a chemical reaction first begins, the rate of the forward and
reverse reactions will not be equal, but eventually will equalize if it reacts long enough. This is why it
takes time for a reaction to achieve equilibrium. To see a demonstration of chemical equilibrium our
group did the following experiment.
II. Hypothesis
If two substances react long enough, then the reaction will eventually reach equilibrium.
III. Materials/Supplies

Three plastic two liter bottles

four small cups (coffee cups)
two bowls that are taller than the small cups
A serrated knife (a steak knife will work)
Small Phillips-head screwdriver
Water
A person to help you
A kitchen counter
Beach towels and paper towels
Safety Goggles

IV. Procedure
1. Carefully use your knife to cut the tops completely off of the plastic bottles so that there is an
opening at the top.
2. Carefully use your screw-driver to make holes in each of your bottles, labeling each of these
bottles in your head as bottle #1 and bottle #2. In the first bottle make the hole two inches from
the bottom of the bottle, and on the second bottle make the hole about an inch from the bottom.
3. Put the two bowls on the counter facing upside down.
4. Stand each of the bottles on a bowl with the holes from the bottles pointing toward you.
5. Place a small cup under each hole, and place the other two cups right next to those cups.
6. Now fill the two-liter bottle that is not cut up with water.
7. Have your helper stand in front of bottle #2.
8. You need to stand in front of bottle #1.
9. Have your helper hold bottle #1 as you pour water into it from the two-liter bottle you filled in
step #6, filling bottle #1 with as much water as possible without risking spillage.
10. When bottle #1 is as full as you can get it, stop pouring water into bottle #1. In the same

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Peter Fenger
motion pull the coffee cup that is being filled out from under the hole and then quickly replace
it with an empty coffee cup.
11. Tell your helping to let go of bottle #1.
12. Pour the water of the full coffee cup into bottle #2.
13. When the cup that is currently being filled with water gets pretty full pull it from under the
stream of water and replace it with the cup in your other hand.
14. Once again, take the full cup and pour its contents into bottle #2.
15. When the water levels in bottle #2 reach the hole so that water begins coming out of bottle #2,
have your helper catch the water with one of the cups, and hold another cup in his free hand to
replace the other cup when he is pouring the water into bottle #1.
16. Once both you and your partner are catching water start counting how many times you pour
water into the respective bottles. When you reach 20, count to 20 again and repeat the process.
17. Keep doing this for a few more minutes, and observe what happens.
18. Clean up your mess.
V. Observation and Data
1-2. The bottles we had where empty orange soda bottles. We cut the very top off of each of
them so that the rounded portion of the top of the bottle was cut off.
3. The bowls where placed under the cut up bottles so it looked like a couple of large trees on
top of a small hill.
4-15. The water began pouring out of the bottles at a fast paced stream. Quickly our
demonstrators tried as hard as they could to contain the steady streams of water so that the counter
would not get soaked. Quickly shifting cups around, our demonstrators in effect moved the water from
one bottle to the other back and forth back and forth.
16-17. Eventually after shifting the cups back and forth for a few minutes, the water in the
bottles started to stay constant. The average water level got to a point to where it did not seem to
change significantly. Despite the fact that water was leaving each bottle through the hole and entering
each bottle through the top, the water level in each bottle stayed constant!
VI. Conclusion
It appeared as if the two bottles of water where reacting. Bottle #1 represented the reactants in a
chemical equilibrium, while bottle #2 appeared to represent the products of a chemical equilibrium. At
first there was a lot of water in bottle #1, and there was no water in bottle #2. However, bottle #1
began losing water, when this happened there was water being moved to bottle #2. So in effect, the
reactants started to make products. Eventually, the water level in bottle #2 rose to a point where it
began to lose water. As a result, some of the contents of bottle #2 started going back into bottle #1.
Since the holes of the bottles where at different heights in the bottles, and since the water levels in the
bottles were different, the bottles lost water at different rates. This is because the forward and reverse
reactions in equilibrium have different rates. Eventually, the rate of water loss in bottle #1 decreased,
and rate of bottle #2 increased to a point to where the two rates were equal. At that point the average
amount of water in the bottles did not change. So the reaction eventually reached chemical
equilibrium. Just like when forward a reverse actions in a chemical reaction are both running but the
average amounts of the reactants and the products rates do not change. So this experiment proved my
hypothesis correct. It proved that: If two substances react long enough, then the reaction will

April 10, 2014

Peter Fenger
eventually reach equilibrium. The reason my hypothesis is proven correct is because after a while
bottle #1 and bottle #2 reached chemical equilibrium.