Testing For The Presence Of Oxygen

Testing For The Presence of Oxygen

Aim: To carry out a test for the presence of oxygen gas. (O₂)

Equipment: A pea-sized amount of manganese dioxide (‎MnO₂₎ , boiling tube, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂₎ , safety glasses, wooden splint, Bunsen burner, and a test tube rack.

Method:

1. Light your Bunsen burner.
2. Add the manganese dioxide to the boiling tube and place it in your test tube rack.
3. Add 2mL of hydrogen peroxide.
4. Light a splint and let it burn for a while.
5. Blow the splint out and insert the glowing embers into the mouth of the boiling tube.

Observations:

                    When we have put/insert a glowing splint. The reaction with Hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide that created oxygen; it relighted the glowing splint.

Manganese dioxide in a test tube.

First try adding the hydrogen peroxide
into the test tube with manganese peroxide.

What happens if you combine Manganese dioxide
and Hydrogen peroxide? It causes a rise of black bubbles
with oxygen gas.

The glowing splint was re-ignited by the
presence of oxygen gas inside the test tube. 

More example and reaction!

After this experiment, we made sure that we've cleaned all the
equipment (especially the test tubes) with a little scrubber.

While cleaning the equipment, we saw a test tube that has oxygen
gas inside it. We managed to take a click before cleaning it.