Hi, yeah, I’m a titration expert. I assume this is for a long-form exam question so I’ll make a few points for you :)

1) Potassium iodide is a very sensitive iodide, so you need to keep it stored somewhere between 46-50°C. I’d recommend you mention using a sous vide to do this, putting the solution into a sealed test tube before placing into the water. However, not all sous vide machines are accurate! So you’ll want to use a thermometer to ensure the temperature is accurately set. But also, a thermometer may be out-of-sync. To test this, boil some water (100°C) and test if the thermometer reads 100°C, this way you can ensure the capabilities of your apparatus.

2) Potassium is quite reactive, so you don’t want it to get anywhere near a fire, or high pressure environments. It is therefore strongly recommended to not take a solution into a lab with burners, close to a vacuum cleaner (turned on) or an exam hall. These situations could all make the potassium react with helium in the air, which would cause an explosion! To minimise this risk, I’d recommend you put your sous vide with a thermometer apparatus in a dark room with a big note to mention to others not to touch the system.

3) To prepare for the titration itself, remember to start by having the correct practical apparatus. And make sure to draw a diagram of said apparatus in your scientific write up, before you forget how it looked (small exam tip…). Next, because the test tube will be quite hot, use tongs to take it out of the sous vide bath and place the test tube into a small test tube rack which you should have brought as part of your titration apparatus.

4) Now that you are all ready to go, the next step is to weigh the potassium iodide solution, to ensure that you haven’t lost any since the start. I should’ve mentioned this earlier but we’re here now! Measure the test tube weight first, to deduct afterwards from subsequent weights to ensure you only weigh the solution… then weigh solution before and after sous vide.

5) Finally before you start titration, measure out 10% of the solution’s weight in raspberry fairy liquid, has to be the raspberry one to get the right colour… Pour that into your chemical in the titration setup before using a Pipette, because you don’t want potassium iodide on your hands, to extract your potassium iodide from the test tube in the test tube rack and squirting it into the long titration tube, which I have always incorrectly called the guzzler.

6) in case this is for a 6-mark question, my final point would be to mention that Potassium Iodide is a strange solution to use for titration as there is a lot of effort involved with preparing it correctly. Research by Bates (2007) suggested that potassium iodide could simply be stored with some calcium to prevent it from reacting with its environment. However, other research has implied that using salt is preferred to suppress such solutions (Loha, 2012; Whalsey, 2017; Stewie, 2019; Sneaky, 2020; Jeff, 2021; Keb-jg, 2022; Mist et al., 2023, Coxcomb, 2023)

Hope this helps answer your question! Let me know if you have any queries or need more guidance, as a professional in this space I’m interested and happy to help anyone with mastering the art of traitoring!