Introduction:
Alcohols are used in everyday life and as a result they are of great interest to chemists, specifically in regards to energy output. Energy output is extremely important when it comes to classifying a compound’s uses. For example, a compound with an explosive energy output can be implemented as a fuel for cars or other vehicles. This is the very reason that accurate information about the heat and/or energy output of alcohols are in high demand in many industries.
Fuels release heat whilst they are burning due to the breaking of the reactant and the bond-making of the product. Energy is absorbed to break bonds and energy is released to make bonds between the molecules and atoms in the reaction. A typical thermochemical equation of the burning of ethanol is as follows.
C2H5OH + 3O2 -----> 2CO2 + 3H2O
This chemical reaction is named …show more content…
The designed calorimeter and experiment was roughly 9.55 times more efficient than the control experiment. The designed calorimeter was also 48.99% closer to the accepted value (value obtained by industrial calorimeter accepted in industry). This is a huge improvement for how inexpensive and easy the calorimeter was to design and build, showing how inefficient the original experiment was.
The calorimeter was designed based on the fact that heat permeates out of the flame in all directions and thus the most efficient calorimeter will surround the flame in order to absorb the most heat through conduction. This proved very effective as shown by the values in the results. Our calorimeter was, at the lowest value, 43.99% closer to the accepted value than the control (49.72% of accepted value) and, at the highest value recorded, 59.03% closer (64.76% of accepted value). This shows clearly that our calorimeter was vastly more accurate even in the least efficient of the seven tests
Alcohols are used in everyday life and as a result they are of great interest to chemists, specifically in regards to energy output. Energy output is extremely important when it comes to classifying a compound’s uses. For example, a compound with an explosive energy output can be implemented as a fuel for cars or other vehicles. This is the very reason that accurate information about the heat and/or energy output of alcohols are in high demand in many industries.
Fuels release heat whilst they are burning due to the breaking of the reactant and the bond-making of the product. Energy is absorbed to break bonds and energy is released to make bonds between the molecules and atoms in the reaction. A typical thermochemical equation of the burning of ethanol is as follows.
C2H5OH + 3O2 -----> 2CO2 + 3H2O
This chemical reaction is named …show more content…
The designed calorimeter and experiment was roughly 9.55 times more efficient than the control experiment. The designed calorimeter was also 48.99% closer to the accepted value (value obtained by industrial calorimeter accepted in industry). This is a huge improvement for how inexpensive and easy the calorimeter was to design and build, showing how inefficient the original experiment was.
The calorimeter was designed based on the fact that heat permeates out of the flame in all directions and thus the most efficient calorimeter will surround the flame in order to absorb the most heat through conduction. This proved very effective as shown by the values in the results. Our calorimeter was, at the lowest value, 43.99% closer to the accepted value than the control (49.72% of accepted value) and, at the highest value recorded, 59.03% closer (64.76% of accepted value). This shows clearly that our calorimeter was vastly more accurate even in the least efficient of the seven tests