Replacement Reaction: Copper onto Zinc

Summary

A piece of zinc is placed in a copper sulfate solution.

Chemicals and Solutions

• Piece of zinc foil
• 0.5 or 1M copper sulfate

Materials

Beaker

Procedure

Hint: Metals can be cut into interesting shapes, and the demo done on the overhead.

Discussion

Copper is plated out simply by placing the zinc in the copper sulfate solution.

$\mathrm{Zn}{\phantom{A}}_{(\mathrm{s})}+\mathrm{CuSO}{\phantom{A}}_4{\phantom{A}}_{(\mathrm{aq})}⟶\mathrm{Cu}{\phantom{A}}_{(\mathrm{s})}+\mathrm{ZnSO}{\phantom{A}}_4{\phantom{A}}_{(\mathrm{aq})}$