What is Titration

I, as a person, enjoyed doing my chemistry practical classes back in those old days of schooling and college. The eagerness of waiting every week for a new practical to pop up so that I would do some mumbo-jumbo with various chemicals is a feeling which is quite intriguing for me to express, even today. I still remember all those titration practicals devising fancy colors and icky smells which were horribly breathtaking but fun to perform though. Do you still remember the definition of titration? Let me explain in brief. Titration is basically a process which is used to calculate the property (molarity) of one solution (say acid or base) to infer an unknown property of another solution. Got a gist of it right! Now let's the details get elaborated further in this article.

Titration in Chemistry

Titration is one the experimental methods used in chemistry classrooms and practical laboratories, where the solution of a known concentration is catered to influence the other unknown solution. In the books of the acid-base chemistry, the utilization of titration is employed just to determine the pH value of that particular solution. Most of the time, the determining solutions result into a base property, which means it has a pH value extending more than 7. Usually, the case is opposite for an unknown solution. It is an acid having a pH value below 7. Any general titration process simply functions in one definite way. That is: the acid solution is added to the base solution to obtain a neutral pH value 7. Until the solution reaches 7 the adding of acid continues. Once the pH indicator shows a color change, that's the hint for us to know that the solution has reached the desired pH value (7). You might want to know where titration fits in here? Well the acid-base titration is used to find the percent purity of chemical elements and are generally done with aqueous solutions of the compounds.

Procedure
The method of titration is simple, the apparatus contains a flask of unknown solution called titrand where in the known concentration called the titrant is reserved in a burette just above it. Burette is a vertically suspended calibrated tube with a stopcock right at the bottom of it. This helps in the regulation of the fluid (titrant) into the flask below. In the acid-base titration, as the fluid flows into the flask the pH indicator (phenolphthalein) changes the color. It gives a pink color. In many other types of titration, the color evolved is a methyl orange. Once you begin observing the color change in the indicator, understand that your titration has ended. The volume of the resultant would be same as the equivalence point or the volume of the added titrant. There will be a point of time in the experiment where the chemical agents and the reactants are going to neutralize each other. That is the time where you will have to read the scale on the burette and measure the volume of the reagent. Once the reagent concentration is measured, the reactant mole calculations could be done using the molarity formula: Molarity= number of moles/ volume (L). In this manner the concentration is calculated from the titration you performed.

What is Back Titration

So far heard of titration rather forward titration. but what is the whole idea of a back titration? Well there are times when using simple standard titration methods gets impossible. The reaction can be too slow between the reactants and the titrant or there can be an issue with some end point results. In such off cases, the technique of back titration comes handy. There are two reagents in this technique, one which reacts with the original substance and the other that reacts with the first regent. This process is used if the endpoint of the back titration is easier to determine than a normal titration.

Uses of Titration

• Acid Rain
• Nutrition
• Blood Sugar Testing
• Aquarium Water Testing
• Wine
• Wastewater Analysis
• Pregnancy Testing

Well, I must say that titration isn't solely used in the high-school chemistry labs but it's employed in many other fields like science industries and medicines too.