Question

Iron is more reactive than copper. Can you write an activity to show this?

Answer 1

Take about 50 mL of water in a beaker and dissolve 5 g of copper sulphate in it to obtain copper sulphate solution (which is blue in colour). Put a clean iron nail in this solution and keep the beaker undisturbed for some time.

We will find that the blue colour of copper sulphate solution starts fading gradually and the iron nail gets covered with a red-brown layer of copper metal. It is because iron is more reactive than copper, so it displaces copper metal from its solution of copper sulphate.

It is the copper metal set free from its compound which forms a red-brown layer on the surface of iron nail. This shows that iron is more reactive than copper.

\[\ce{\underset{(Blue solution)}{Copper sulphate} + \underset{(Grey)}{Iron} -> \underset{(Greenish solution)}{Iron Sulphate} + \underset{(Red - Brown)}{Copper}}\]