Copper II Chloride and Iron Lab Reflection

For a couple days during this past week in class, we did the Copper II Chloride and Iron lab. It was by far one of the coolest labs we have done thus far. On day 1, we roughed up an iron nail with steel wool and put it in a baby food jar filled with water and Copper II Chloride. We then let it sit overnight. Here is what it looked like in the beginning:

Here is what it looked like after I checked in on it later that day, after the Copper had begun to form and the solution changed colors:

Here is what it looked like the next day, when we came back to the lab and a lot more Copper had been formed:

We took the nail out of the solution and look what had happened to it overnight:

I did not expect anything like this to happen to the nail so quickly! The lab is still ongoing, as we still have to go back next week and weigh the Copper that was made from the reaction. Overall, this lab was really cool, and calculating the amount of moles of each substance made and the percent yield was educational and really good practice. Here is a website that I found that tells you how to do this same experiment, but using lemon juice as your solution instead, so you can do it at home: Coating a Nail With Copper