Water and Electrolytes

A solution is a mixture of a solute and a solvent. An electrolyte is an ionic compound composed of anions and cations that conduct electricity. Here is a particle diagram of the salt solution.

I created two different concentrations of the salt solutions. Here are the qualitative demonstrations of this difference.

                                           My teacher's results                     My results

Beaker 3

Beaker 1

Beaker 2

You can mathematically show the difference in concentration by measuring the amount of electrolytes in each beaker. You can tell which beaker is D.I. water, tap water, or salt water by measuring the amount of electrolytes by putting in the copper wires to see whether it conducts electricity or not. I took advantage of the appearance of the solution and the way it conducted (or didn't conduct) electricity to find out which one was which. I recreated my teacher's results by using D.I. water for no light, tap water for dim light, and D.I. water with a few grams of salt added for bright light. I had an error in my calculations; I had used tap water plus salt at the beginning for beaker 2, but I ended up having D.I. water plus salt for the final trial. The final concentrations were 700ml of D.I. water for beaker 3, 600ml tap water for beaker 1, and 760ml of D.I. water combined with 3.16g of salt for beaker 2. My results came very close compared to my teachers, as shown above.