EXPERIMENTS IN PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY 2nd YEAR
2PA3 runs first term and deals mainly
with thermodynamics, 2PB3 runs in the second term and deals mainly with
kinetics. The students perform an experiment once a week and work
in pairs. Each term one formal lab report is required based on an
experiment chosen from that term.
-
THE JOULE-THOMSON EXPERIMENT:
-
Measure the Joule-Thomson
coefficient of carbon dioxide. Compare with that calculated from the equation
of state.
-
HEAT CAPACITY RATIO FOR GASES:
-
Measure the speed of sound in various gases, and determine the
heat capacity ratio for nitrogen, carbon dioxide, helium, argon and air
by both the adiabatic expansion (Clement and Desormes)
and speed of sound (Kundt's tube) methods.
-
ENTHALPY OF A REACTION:
-
Determine the enthalpy of reaction,H,
for the system MgO(s) + 2H+ (aq) ---> Mg+2 (aq) + H2 O
-
ENTHALPY OF COMBUSTION:
-
Determine the enthalpy of combustion, ²H,
of an organic compound using a bomb calorimeter. From known enthalpies
of formation of carbon dioxide and water calculate the enthalpy of formation
of the compound.
-
PURE LIQUID-VAPOUR EQUILIBRIUM:
-
Determine the vapour pressure of an organic liquid as a function of
temperature by the isoteniscope method.
-
BINARY SOLID-LIQUID PHASE DIAGRAM:
-
Obtain the solid- liquid phase diagram from
cooling curves of binary mixtures.
-
ACTIVITY COEFFICIENTS OF LIQUIDS:
-
CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIUM - DISSOCIATION OF DINITROGEN TETROXIDE:
-
(N2O4 to 2NO2 EQUILIBRIUM) From gas density measurements determine the
equilibrium constant at various temperatures and hence derive values o
of G, H and S at 25 C.
-
ACTIVITY COEFFICIENTS OF ELECTROLYTES:
-
Determine the activity coefficients of HCl at a variety of concentrations
from electrochemical measurements. Compare to the predictions of Debye-Hückel
Theory.
-
KINETICS OF BROMINE - FORMIC ACID REACTION:
-
From measurements of emf determine the rate constant of the reaction.
-
ACTIVATION ENERGY OF A REACTION:
-
Determine the activation energy of a reaction from rate measurements
at different temperatures.
-
OSCILLATING CHEMICAL REACTIONS:
-
Explore experiments of the oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction
between bromate, bromide and malonic acid.
-
FLASH PHOTOLYSIS OF BENZOPHENONE:
-
Determine the rate of decay of the ketyl radical ion of benzophenone
produced by the photo reduction of benzophenone.
-
STOPPED FLOW KINETICS:
-
Use a stopped flow apparatus coupled to a uv-visible spectrophotometer
to measure the kinetics of a fast ligand replacement reaction.
