33. At the Lab Table
Remembering the book she just acquired, Amy decides to go with something she can at least look up information on.
“Botany.” Amy pauses for a moment, “Or horticulture, if you will.” The doctor looks at her suspiciously. Amy clears her throat. “Yes, I, ahem, specialize in the… larger species. Those exhibiting gigantism, as it were.”
The doctor seems mollified. “Well, I certainly have need of someone who can wrangle large plants. I’m afraid old Audrey upstairs has gotten a bit unruly. We’ll need to terminate her, or at least trim her down to a more manageable size. Why don’t you make up some herbicide? There’s a lab table in back with all the equipment you’ll need. Tell me when you’re done; I should have more tasks for you by then.” The doctor waves dismissively in the direction of a table laden with lab equipment. Amy walks over and has a seat on a convenient stool.
Amy inspects her new work area. A nice clean work space, numerous flasks, tubes, pipettes, and bottles of chemicals surround the edges of the table. A small Bunsen burner sits to the side. Amy pulls out the book and begins leafing through it. She finds an index at the back and looks up herbicides. Page 33. She flips forward and finds a likely candidate, Hexametaphosphate. Just a matter of following the instructions.
She begins measuring, draining, mixing, and titrating the various ingredients. Suddenly she runs into an issue; the measure for hydrochloric acid (HCl) is given in cubic centimeters, but all the other quantities are given in milliliters! There must have been some mistake in editing the book. All of her equipment gives measurements in liters. Hmmmm. For the amount she’s making, the recipe calls for 50 cubic centimeters of HCl.
How much hydrochloric acid should Amy use?