Oxidation - Reduction. Range the metals copper, lead, silver and zinc together with hydrogen to find the strongest reducing agent.

EXPERIMENT 1: Aim: To range the metals copper, lead, silver and zinc together with hydrogen. Start with the strongest reducing agent. Hypothesis: The nobler a metal is, the worse reducing agent. Apparatus/requirements: Sandpaper, strips of; zinc, lead, silver and copper, solutions containing aqueous; Zn2+, Pb2+, Cu2+ and Ag+ ions (0.2 M), hydrochloric acid (5.0 M), emery paper, test-tubes. Method: Burnish the three metal strips to get a shiny surface, after drop a drop of each of the …

…agent is therefore Cl2. Conclusion: The halogens, organised in falling oxidising ability are: chlorine, bromine and iodine. This is arrived at since only the aqueous Cl2, Br2 and I2, i.e. not ions, is soluble in the non-polar hexane. Hence the colour will show which of the two halogens will most readily be oxidised, since it will not be in ion form. Dissolved in hexane bromine was brown, iodine - purple and chlorine - green.