Comparing the Enthalpy changes of Combustion of different Alcohols.

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Amara Amjad

Comparing the Enthalpy changes of Combustion of different Alcohols

An experiment was given to us to do in class. We looked at 5 different alcohol’s that were given to us to test. These were the following alcohol’s given: methanol, ethanol, propan-1-ol, propan-2-ol and butan-1-ol.

We had to burn each alcohol completely in oxygen until the temperature recorded at the beginning was 20oc higher than it started it off as. Then everything was re-measured, which would help with the following calculations to work out the enthalpy changes of combustion for each alcohol, which will then be compared for a conclusion.

Analysis

I will first do my result table showing all the values I found after doing the experiment. I did the experiment twice in the time we had in class. So I have three results tables. Two contain the results I got from the two experiments and the third shows the average I got from the results. I will use the third table to calculate the enthalpy changes of each alcohol, as this table of results will contain the most accurate results.

Results

Table 1: Results from the experiment the first time round.

Table 2: Results from the experiment the second time round.

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Table 3: Average of the two above results from the experiments.

I am going to calculate the amount of heat absorbed by the water in each experiment and I will use these answers to calculate a value for the enthalpy change of combustion of each alcohol. I will all my values from table 3.

I will begin with methanol, as this is the smallest molecule, and has the smallest number of bonds. I will then do ethanol, propan-1-ol, propan-2-ol and then butan-1-ol, which has the most number of carbon bonds.

Methanol

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