A common design for estimating the concentrations of compounds in biological samples is the serial dilution assay, in which measurements are taken at several different dilutions of a sample, giving several opportunities for an accurate measurement. Curren tly, serial dilution is a standard tool in the fields of toxicology and immunology. Serial dilution helps to choose a dilution which is relevant to our experiment. Often the standard which is given to you in the lab is far to strong for the experiment and it needs to be diluted. But equally the equipment has a detection limit so we can't dilute it to much, or if it is too diluted the experiment might not work.
Propagation of Errors in Dilution Problems When a calculation is done in lab, it is important to round the result to the number of significant figures indicated by the precision of the measurements used in the calculation. The smallest serial dilution process is three 1.00 to 10.0 dilution steps. This dilution sequence results in about twice the measurement uncertainty. However, three 5.00 to 50.0 dilution steps or three 10.00 to 100.0 dilution steps could also be used to achieve the same dilution.
Refer below to the formula of dilution: C 1 V 1 = C 2 V 2 Sample problem:. How much water and how much 12 M HCl must be used to prepare 500 ml of a 1 M HCl solution? Determine the volume of 12 M to be used using the dilution formula (12) (volume of 12 M) = (1) (500)volume of 12 M = (1) (500) / 12 = 41.7 ml 12 M.
Determine the volume of water to add to it Total volume after dilution = volume of 12 M + volume of water added500 = 41.7 + volume of water added500 - 41.7 = volume of water = 458.3 ml of water to be added to the 41.7 ml of 12 M. Regards, Dianne.