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Nargis786
Jun 18, 2009, 01:28 PM
Determine the concentration of sodium hydroxide (in bleach) by titration with results. Include step-by-step calculations with the units.

Perito
Jun 18, 2009, 01:36 PM
Sodium hydroxide is a base, and it's in bleach, sodium hypochlorite -- NaOCl. What are you going to titrate it with?

Things to consider:

NaOCl is also a base, so if you simply titrate with an acid, you'll form HOCl, hypochlorous acid. You'll then be titrating both the sodium hydroxide and the hypochlorite and you won't be able to tell which. In addition, if you use hydrochloric acid, HCl, as the acid, you'll form chlorine gas and you'd never want to do that in a chemical laboratory (very dangerous). This would also consume acid.

Cl^- + OCl^- + 2H^+ \,\rightleftharpoons\, Cl_2 + H_2O

or, you can write

HCl + HOCl \,\rightleftharpoons\, Cl_2 + H_2O


Therefore, you have a number of questions to answer before I can answer your question.