Copper and Zinc Composition Percentages in Pennies

Copper and Zinc Composition Percentages in Pennies

Introduction. The United States Mint sends copper and zinc to a fabricator, which creates coin-sized discs called planchets. The planchets undergo the coining press at the Mint where they are stamped as genuine United States legal tender coins. The purpose of this experiment is to determine the accuracy of the copper and zinc composition percentages in a random sampling of pennies. The penny was dissolved to make aqueous copper ions and four copper dilutions were made from stock solution. Each cuvette sample was measured in a colorimeter and the data was plotted linearly using Beer's law plot. Mass percent and percent error were found using calculations. Analysis of class data provided further data to determine the copper and zinc composition percentages.

Experimental Procedure. A penny was weighed on a digital scale. About 15 mL of 10 M HNO3 was measured and placed into medium sized beaker. The beaker was placed under the fume hood and penny was added to the solution. The solution was diluted to 25.00 mL in a 25 mL volumetric flask. The penny solution was put into the flask, covered and mixed to dilute the solution. Filled to line with disposable glass pipette, covered and mixed again. Four dilutions were made from the stock solution with de-ionized water using the concentration calculations in vials. Seven cuvettes were obtained. One cuvette was filled with de-ionized water and one cuvette with penny solution. Five cuvettes were filled with the copper standards. The computer was