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NSC Home Page > EUAS Contents > Module: The chemistry of limestone

 

Appendices

12 Key Stage 3-4 example of theme: Limestone
The world's most useful rock

MODULE: THE CHEMISTRY OF LIMESTONE

Introduction

Limestone is a common rock. You may have seen it in spectacular cliffs such as Malham Cove or High Tor near Matlock.

It is also a very useful material. It is used for building and road making, for example, and also as a starting material for making many other products. This activity illustrates some of the chemistry of limestone (calcium carbonate) and other materials made from it.

What you will need

Apparatus

eye protection

3 test-tubes

Bunsen burner, tripod and gauze

test-tube rack

heatproof mat

dropping pipette

tongs

drinking straw

Chemicals

a few small lumps of limestone (each about 1cm3)

deionised / distilled water

Universal Indicator solution and colour chart

Safety notes

Wear eye protection

Do not touch the lime that is formed from heating limestone. It will be hot after heating and lime is an irritant even when it is cool.

What to do

1. Take about half a dozen lumps of limestone. Examine the stone and describe its colour, texture and any other notable features briefly. Things to look for include any evidence of fossils.
2. Place a couple of lumps on a tripod and gauze and heat with a roaring Bunsen flame for 15 minutes. Take care; the lumps will become extremely hot.
3. While the lumps are being heated, take two more lumps of unheated limestone. Add a few drops of water and note any reaction.
4. Returning to the lumps being heated, note any changes - particularly in colour. Take care; the lumps will be extremely hot.
5. If possible, darken the room and note what happens when the flame is trained directly on the lumps. It may be possible to see the lumps glowing - this is the origin of the term 'limelight'. Limelight was once used to illuminate theatre performances.
6. Remove the lumps from the heat and allow them to cool to room temperature on the heatproof mat. Then take one of the heated pieces with your tongs. Gently try to crush it on the heatproof mat with the tongs. Try the same with a lump that has not been heated. Record what you find.
7. Use tongs to place one of the lumps that has been heated in a test tube and then gently add a few drops of water with the dropping pipette. Make sure you are wearing eye protection. Note any evidence of reaction.
8. Now add more water to the test tube until it is about half full. Shake the test tube and pour off the clear liquid, half into one test tube and half into another. Add a few drops of Universal Indicator to one tube and record the pH using a colour chart.
9. Place a straw into the clear liquid in the second tube and blow gently into the liquid through the straw. What do you see?

The chemistry of limestone: teacher's notes

Level

This activity is most appropriate for students aged 14-16 to illustrate chemical reactions and useful materials made from rocks.

In Northern Ireland it also matches KS3 requirements for the above topic.

English National Curriculum reference 4.3.3k

CCEA (Northern Ireland) reference 3.4.1

CCEA (Northern Ireland) KS3 references 3CRc, 3CRd, 3CRg

ACCAC (Wales) reference 4.3.2.15

AQA modular 3468 reference 15.1

AQA linear 3462 reference 11.5

Edexcel modular 1536 references 4.26 and 4.27
Edexcel linear 1522 references 3.23 and 3.24

OCR A 1983 references 3.1.14 and 3.1.15

OCR C 1974 reference Sc3.2.3.4 and Sc3.3.6.1

Topic
This activity illustrates some of the simple chemical reactions of limestone (calcium carbonate, CaCO3) and lime (calcium oxide, CaO).

Description
The activity is suitable as a class practical or as a demonstration. The students (or, less preferably, the teacher) heat limestone (mainly calcium carbonate) to form lime (calcium oxide) and note the differences between the reactions of limestone and of lime with water, acids and carbon dioxide.

Context
Students should know about differentiation of materials, eg rocks, on the basis of physical properties, and the activity assumes that some work has already been done on the physical examination of rocks. Students should know that carbon dioxide is a gas and have simple ideas about reversible and irreversible changes. They should be aware of simple properties of acids, alkalis and indicators.

The activity concentrates almost exclusively on chemistry, but there are also important potential links with fossils and evolution in National Curriculum Key Stage 4 (References 4.2.4i and 4.3.2r).

Teaching points
The chemical and physical properties of limestone, especially when reasonably pure, make it highly sought after for hundreds of everyday uses. With salt and coal, it formed the main feedstock for the chemical industry until about 1914. It is still important today as shown by the wide range of uses in Tables 1 - 4 (Appendix). The chemistry is relatively straightforward and can be used to illustrate many types of simple reactions and properties. It is then possible to relate these to industrial and domestic applications (see Limestone in everyday life).

Timing
It should be possible to carry out the activity either as a class practical or as a demonstration within a teaching period of about one hour.

Apparatus

Each student (or group) will need:

eye protection

3 test-tubes

Bunsen burner, tripod and gauze

test-tube rack

heatproof mat

dropping pipette

tongs

drinking straw

Chemicals

Each student (or group) will need:

a few small lumps of limestone (each about 1cm3) (limestone includes chalk). Marble chips will do if no local source of limestone is available

deionised / distilled water

Universal Indicator solution and colour chart

Safety notes

Wear eye protection

Take care when heating as the lumps will become very hot

Calcium oxide (lime), the material formed when the lumps are heated, is corrosive. It causes burns and is irritating to eyes, skin and the respiratory system. The reaction of calcium oxide with water is vigorous and exothermic

It is the responsibility of the teacher to carry out an appropriate risk assessment

The activity
For fuller details of the experiment, see the student's material.

Students take about half a dozen small (about 1cm3) lumps of limestone. They examine the stone and describe briefly its colour, texture and any other notable features such as fossils. The colour of a piece of limestone may be misleading. For example coarse brown limestones may be wrongly described as sandstones. (Limestone comes in almost every imaginable hue - from white, through yellows, reds, oranges, blues, purples, olives to browns and black.) These colour variations are almost all due to iron content. Some of the darker colour may be due to carbon or possibly manganese. (If no local source of limestone is available, marble chips, available from the prep room, will do.)

Students heat a couple of lumps on a tripod and gauze with a roaring Bunsen flame for 15 minutes. If possible darken the room briefly to allow students to note what happens when the flame is trained directly on the lumps. It may be possible to see the lumps glowing - this is the origin of the term 'limelight'.

After allowing the lumps to cool, students compare the heated lumps with unheated ones.

Lumps that have been heated:

  • may appear whiter than the unheated ones

  • should crumble more easily than the unheated ones

  • will react exothermically when a few drops of water are added

  • will show an alkaline pH

Blowing through a straw into the clear solution formed by reacting the heated lumps with water will turn the solution cloudy.

Note. If it is necessary to spread the practical work over two teaching periods, teachers should be aware that, in the intervening period, the lime (calcium oxide) produced by heating the limestone may combine with carbon dioxide from the air to re-form calcium carbonate, thus reducing its reactivity very significantly. It would be worth making some fresh lime just before the second lesson.
The chemistry of the reactions is as follows:

Heating the limestone (calcium carbonate) drives off carbon dioxide gas leaving behind lime, the base calcium oxide.

CaCO3(s) g CaO(s) + CO2(g)

The lime is white and will have a more crumbly texture than the original limestone.

Calcium carbonate does not react with water.

Adding water to the lime produces slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) in an exothermic reaction.

CaO(s) + H2O(l) g Ca(OH)2(s)

Some of the calcium hydroxide dissolves in the water producing an alkaline solution called limewater.

Ca(OH)2(s) + (aq) g Ca(OH)2(aq)

On blowing into this solution through a straw, the calcium hydroxide solution reacts with the carbon dioxide in exhaled breath to form a cloudy precipitate of calcium carbonate (this is the basis of the limewater test for carbon dioxide). In effect, we have regenerated the original limestone.

Ca(OH)2(aq) + CO2(g) g CaCO3(s) + H2O(l)

Continuing to blow through the straw for some time will result in the calcium carbonate precipitate re-dissolving as soluble calcium hydrogencarbonate.

CaCO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(l) g Ca(HCO3)2(aq)

Appendix: limestone data for Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Use

Quantity / kt

Construction

 

Roadstone coated

9175*

Roadstone uncoated

22 481*

Railway ballast

99*

Concrete

15 309*

Other

29 262* (a)

Cement

9831

Building stone

301 (b)

Asphalt filler / mine dust

216

Building lime

460

Industrial

 

Agricultural / horticultural

795

Iron & steel

3239 (c)

Specialist fillers

875 (d)

Soda ash

1000 (e)

Sugar refining

250 (e)

Glass

203

Other lime n.e.s.

139

Other uses n.e.s.

666

Total

94 547 (f)

Table 1 The uses of limestone in Great Britain and Northern Ireland(1999)

Notes on Table 1

(a) mainly foundation and fill
(b) ie architectural, walling, dimension stone
(c) mainly iron- and steel-making flux
(d) powders + 'whitings' used in animal feeds, polymers (plastics, rubber) paint, paper, pharmaceuticals
(e) estimated
(f) in addition about 1.8 Mt of dolomite were used for industrial purposes (especially furnace linings and production of magnesium compounds, notably magnesia)

* construction aggregates total = 76 326
n.e.s. not elsewhere specified
Sources: British Geological Survey, Minerals Year Book; Office for National Statistics; National Stone Centre

Appendix: limestone data for Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Country

Quantity / kt

England

72 820

Wales

17 220

Scotland

1507

N.Ireland

4219 (a)

Total

98 766

Table 2 Production of limestone in Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1999) by country

Notes on Table 2

(a) almost all for aggregates – figure includes hard chalk

Producing area (a)

Quantity / kt

Derbyshire (inc. Peak National Park)

19 240

Somerset

11 550

N.Yorkshire

7528

Clwyd

7269

Mid Glamorgan

5076

Lancashire

5072

Avon

4948

Durham

4401

Cumbria

4389

Leicestershire

3419

Table 3 Production of limestone in Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1999) by producing area

Notes on Table 3

(a) N.B. recent data in some cases published for counties which were reorganised in 1990s

N.B. all figures in Tables 1 – 3 (except N.Ireland) are for limestone excluding chalk

Region

Quantity / kt

England

9667

Of which:

South East Region

4144

Yorkshire/Humber Region

3268

Of which:

cement

6345

construction

1021

Misc. uses (inc. fillers)

1701

Table 4 Production and uses of chalk in England (1999)