Jesse Duhan Chemistry 102 Friday afternoon

I41816 Friday April 4, 2014

Determining the Equilibrium Constant for the Dimerization of N02
Calculations:
Table 1. Data and calculated gas volumes, pressures and equilibrium
constants following the synthesis and dimerization process of NO, NO2, and N2O4.
This experiment was performed at 25 degrees Celsius, and the highest quality
purest chemicals were purchased to ensure relatively high purity in our reactants.
Additi
on
#
Volume (mL) Pressure
(atm)
Kp
02
adde
d
Total
Syrin
ge
Exce
ss
V(NO
)
Exce
ss
V(02)
V(N02)
expect
ed
V(NO
2)
V(N2O
4)
PNO2 PN2O
4
0 0 20.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 0.0 -
1 3 18 14.0 0 6 2 2 0.11
1
0.11
1
9
2 6 16.5 8 0 12 5 3.5 0.21
2
0.30
3
2.3
1
3 9 13.5 2 0 18 5 6.5 0.48
1
0.37
0
3.5
1
4 12 14.8 0 2 20 5.6 7.2 0.48 0.37 3.4
6 8 0
5 15 17.5 0 5 20 5 7.5 0.42
8
0.28
6
5.2
5
6 18 20.5 0 8 20 5 7.5 0.36
6
0.24
4
6.1
5
7 21 23.5 0 11 20 5 7.5 0.31
9
0.21
2
7.0
5
8 24 26.5 0 14 20 5 7.5 0.28
3
0.18
8
7.9
5
9 27 29.5 0 17 20 5 7.5 0.25
4
0.16
9
8.8
5

We calculated our Kp thusly:
Kp= ((Volume of N2O4)/(Volume of NO2)) X (Volume of syringe)
Kp= (Expected Volume of NO2 observed amount of (NO2 +N2O4)) /((observed
amount of (NO2 +N2O4) (Volume of N2O4)) X (Observed Volume in tube)
Kp = (6 -4) / (4 2) X (18)
Kp = 9

Results and Analysis:
The total syringe volume changes very drastically with the first few additions
because all of the added oxygen causes a significant amount of NO to become a
smaller amount of NO2. As there is less and less NO to react, with each successive
addition of oxygen, less and less oxygen is reacting, and more and more is directly
adding to the volume.
The mean calculated Kp was 5.94 m
-2
S
-1
, with standard deviation of 2.48 m
-
1
S
-1
. The relative error in this experiment was 0.417, which Im relatively dubious of
given how much variance there was in our calculated Kp and in our standard
deviation. Our Kp of 5.94 m
-2
S
-1
was significantly smaller than our expected Kp,, given
that our calculated change in Gibbs free energy was 46.49kj/mol. There were
several systemic errors in this lab, however the most prevalent was the error
involved in this lab was the use of the small syringes to transfer oxygen. Some of the
volume of oxygen was undoubtedly lost to the environment during the transfer
causing an artificially low Kp value.