Totally stumped on lab, anybody?
Suppose that the volatile impurities in the crucible are not burned off while cleaning the crucible but are removed during the experiment. Is the reported mass percent of water in the hydrated salt too high or too low?

Question

aaronq · Answer

okay, pretend you have 0.1 g of impurities in the crucible.

when you heat it up you lose the water from the hydrate + the 0.1 g of impurities.

so you would think more water was present than there actually was.