04/13/2016

Iodine Clock Reaction

Brandon Dean, Marita Bos, Matthew J. Ruppel
High Tech High North County, San Marcos, CA 92078
Introduction
Chemical reactions are important because we need to understand why things change and how
they change. Chemical reactions occur when two particles collide with one another with the right amount
of force and in a certain position. This is what is called collision theory.
For the lab that was had done, the requirements were to mix together a string of chemicals and
record the reactions, what took place, and at what time. The chemicals that were used in this process were
ascorbic acid, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, starch, and water was used to mix all of the chemicals together.
10 mL of water was used for the first 6 experiments, of which different combinations of chemicals were
done to try and get the reaction to take longer. The time that was required to get the reaction to start on
was 2 minutes, or as close to two minutes as possible (preferably no more than a 5 second gap).
The reactions in this experiment were H2O2 + I- + H+ => I2 + 4H2O which created C6H8O6 + I2 =>
C6H6O6 + 2H+ + 2I-. The process continued until the vitamin C (C6H8O6) was gone, which then left us
with: I2 + I- => I3- which created the yellow-purple color. Knowing all of this and knowing that iodine
stains easily we thought, if we changed the amount of iodine by putting less iodine in, the reaction would
happen slower.
Experimental
The first combination of chemicals was the listed amounts on the lab paper; 10 drops of ascorbic
acid, 25 drops of iodine, 60 drops of hydrogen peroxide, and 10 drops of starch. The time that was yielded
from the first experiment was 33 seconds, so it was concluded that something had to be changed to
increase the time elapsed.
The second experiment used 10 drops of ascorbic acid, 18 drops of iodine, 30 drops of hydrogen
peroxide, and 15 drops of starch which yielded a time of roughly 5 minutes, far too long. In response to
the previous experiment, the amount of drops used was returned to what was on the lab sheet, except for
iodine, of which 15 drops were used. This experiment put out a time of about 4 minutes, which then
showed that iodine seemed to play an important role in the amount of time it takes the chemicals to react.
The third experiment used 10 ascorbic acid, 20 iodine, 60 hydrogen peroxide, and 10 starch,
which had a reaction time of 2 minutes 20 seconds, which proves the prediction that was made.
Experiment four used 10 ascorbic acid, 23 iodine, 60 hydrogen peroxide, and 10 starch, yielding a
time of 2 minutes and 5 seconds which was finally within the range of time that was required. To

conclude, one of the chemical combinations that seems to work only involved changing the amount of
iodine by 2 less than the original.
Results and Discussion
Ascorbic Acid Stock Solution

Iodine Solution

Distilled water

Times

10 drops

23 drops

5mL

2:05 minutes

10 drops

24 drops

5mL

1:37 minutes

3% Hydrogen Peroxide Solution

Starch Solution

Distilled Water

Time

60 drops

10 drops

5mL

2:05 minutes

60 drops

10 drops

5mL

1:37 minutes

When the amount of iodine was 23 drops and the amount of everything else stayed the same. The
time that the reaction happened was at 2:05 minutes. Since the reaction happened a little too late, it was
figured that if more iodine was put in the reaction would happen at an earlier time. The next experiment
had 24 drops of Iodine and everything else was the same. The reaction happened at 1:37 minutes. This
made the experiment happen way too early and it turned out the first experiment was the closest to 2:00.
Conclusion
For this experiment the concentration of the solution determines how fast the reaction occurred.
The concentration of iodine solution was so high that there was so many possibilities of bonds forming.
This means that 24 drops of iodine solution was too much and the reaction happened too quickly. With 23
drops of iodine solution the the concentration wasnt as high, which means the possibility of a reaction
happening wasnt as high, which means that a reaction happened later than it did with 24 drops of iodine
solution.