Abstract:
The purpose of this experiment is to determine the standard heat of formation of a
pure substance from its heat of formation. This was done through bomb calorimetry and
the use of naphthalene as the “pure s
...
Abstract:
The purpose of this experiment is to determine the standard heat of formation of a
pure substance from its heat of formation. This was done through bomb calorimetry and
the use of naphthalene as the “pure substance”. The results obtained for the standard heat
of formation of naphthalene were 858.2, 894.2, and 885.2 kJ/mol for the three trials.
These precise, but inaccurate results suggested a non-random error in the heat of
combustion process. The significance of these results is that the standard heat of
formation of a pure substance can be calculated with high precision, and applied to many
different fields like the food industry and various fuels.
Introduction:
In this experiment, bomb calorimetry was used to determine the standard heat of
formation of a pure substance, in this case, naphthalene. This was achieved by using the
heat of combustion of naphthalene that was measured through the temperature increase of
the water contained within the bomb calorimeter. The principles of bomb calorimetry are
that a certain mass of a substance is placed in a bomb that is then filled with oxygen at a
certain pressure and temperature. When the combustion is completed the heat obtained
per unit mass is a product of the mass, volume of the bomb used, the initial concentration
of the oxygen, and the mass of water initially placed in the bomb (Washburn). The
standard heat of formation is one of the most useful thermodynamic quantities as it
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