The Process of Research in Chemistry
The aim of science is the betterment of humanity. Scientists are constantly
working with the same aim in their minds. The term scientist certainly rings
the names of great scientists like Einstein, Newton, Archimedes, Lavoisier,
Galileo, etc. They are obviously great scientists.
However, the naming of the term scientist has the scope for you too to be
called so. Indeed, science is that knowledge that is gleaned out of systematic
experimentation. The process to glean knowledge by experimenting is known as
research. One who carries out such research is a scientist.
Therefore, if you carry out research, you can also be a scientist.
Experimenting through a perfect and systematic process in order to learn
something is called research. It means, there is a certain procedure. Now we
shall learn the steps of this procedure.
In the first step of research, you need to determine what you want to learn or
what new thing you want to invent. Suppose, you want to learn whether the heat
will be produced or absorbed as ammonium chloride is dissolved in water. This
is known as topic selection.
In the second step, you have to investigate the matter. At this stage, you
will read some books or some papers from the internet and other sources in
order to learn how such kind of an experiment was carried out by someone else
and what result it did yield. Suppose, you have learned that another chemical
compound calcium oxide, when dissolved in water, produces heat.
You will also be able to learn what kind of apparatus, chemicals, and steps
were followed in this experiment. That will give you an idea about what things
you will require to conduct the test yourself. Besides, you will have an idea
about the probable result-in this case, if you dissolve ammonium chloride in
water, heat will be produced.
Again, you will be able to decide what kind of materials you are going to use
and what will be the steps of the experiment. You came to know that you would
need a beaker, water, ammonium chloride, thermometer, glass rod, balance, etc.
First, you will take water in the beaker. You will record the temperature of
the water in the beaker with the thermometer. Then, you will weigh ammonium
chloride using the balance and mix and dissolve that with the glass rod in the
water, a number of times.
Each time, you need to check the temperature of the water. This is the
procedure of your experiment. Now you can start your experiment.
Take 250 mL of water in the beaker and check the temperature. Suppose, the
present temperature. Suppose, the temperature is 25°C. Record it in your
notebook. Now, with the help of the balance, weigh 5 g ammonium chloride and
mix it in the water. Use the glass rod to stir so that it gets dissolved. As
soon as the chemical is dissolved, measure and record the temperature. Now the
temperature is 20°C.
Add, mix and dissolve another 5 g of ammonium chloride in the beaker. See what
the temperature is with 10 g chemical in the water. Follow the same procedure
again.
Now the beaker’s water has 15 g of dissolved ammonium chloride and let’s
suppose the temperature is 10°C. Record the data in your notebook.
If you analyze the data shown above, you will see, the more ammonium chloride
is dissolved in water, the less the temperature of the water becomes. You will
decide since dissolving ammonium chloride in water decreases the temperature
of the water, ammonium chloride absorbs heat from water in order to get
dissolved.
The result is dissolving ammonium chloride in water results in absorption of
temperature. The steps followed by you in the above experiment can be shown in
the following flowchart:
When you are dealing with some research in chemistry, you are required to
follow the same steps.
