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How to avoid titration errors in your lab

Jul 15, 2024

Article

Have you ever wondered why your titration results are not reproducible? This blog post discusses the most common random and systematic errors that can happen during a titration. It should serve as a guide to help identify and minimize the sources of these errors in titration experiments.

Introduction

Titration, a common technique to analyze the content of a substance, was invented back in the 18th century. In brief, it is performed manually by using a glass buret (filled with a titrant) and either a beaker or Erlenmeyer flask which contains the sample.

The main sources of error during manual titration are parallax errors, visual perception, and the choice of the buret size. In modern times, these errors are often overcome by switching from manual titration to using autotitration. However, there are still some norms and standards which require the use of manual titration. 

Sources of errors in titration

What is needed to perform a titration? For manual titration only a buret, a beaker or Erlenmeyer flask, and an indicator are required. Error sources mainly come from the precision of the buret, the indicator, and from the titrant. These individual errors can add up to approximately ±0.2 mL which could be quite large depending on the volume of the endpoint. 

We will take a closer look at the most common errors in the next sections.