Beer's Law Lab

This simulation explores the Beer's Lambert Law. It allows you to make colourful concentrated and dilute solutions and explore how much light they absorb and transmit using a virtual spectrophotometer.

Curriculum links include:

• Beer's law
• Solutions
• Concentration
• Molarity
• Light
• Absorbance
• Transmittance
• Spectrophotometry

Sample learning objectives include:

*Describe the relationships between volume and amount of solute to solution concentration.

*Explain qualitatively the relationship between solution colour and concentration.

*Predict and explain how solution concentration will change for adding or removing: water, solute, and/or solution.

*Calculate the concentration of solutions in units of molarity (mol/L).

*Design a procedure for creating a solution of a given concentration.

*Identify when a solution is saturated and predict how concentration will change for adding or removing: water, solute, and/or solution.

*Describe the relationship between the solution concentration and the intensity of light that is absorbed/transmitted.

*Describe the relationship between absorbance, molar absorptivity, path length, and concentration in Beer’s Law.

*Predict how the intensity of light absorbed/transmitted will change with changes in solution type, solution concentration, container width, or light source, and explain why.