Heat of combustion

Matthieu Schaller et Xavier Buffat

matthieu.schaller@epfl.ch
xavier.buffat@epfl.ch

19 avril 2008

Table des matières

1 Introduction 2

2 Theoretical part 2
2.1 Gibbs free energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2 Theorical value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.3 Calorimetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

3 Method 4

4 Results 5
4.1 Constants used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2 Ethanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.3 Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

5 Discussion 6

6 Conclusion 7

7 Appendix 8

1
1 INTRODUCTION 2

1 Introduction
The first energy to be used by men comes from chemical reactions, in
fact, most of the energy we can use still come from chemical reactions.
Indeed, we use gazoline to make our car move, different fuels for power
plants, even wood to heat our houses up, etc. Each of these reaction is in
principle the same is based on the heat created by a chemical reaction called
combustion. The heat provided by the combustion depend on the enregy
contained in the combustible, this quantity of heat is called calorific value
and can be determined by calorimetry. We are going to study the calorific
value of some usual combustible using a simple calorimetry method and
compare the results with theory.

2 Theoretical part
2.1 Gibbs free energy
The Gibbs free energy, also called free enthalpy, is a thermodynamical
function that provides a way to determine what is the stable state in which
the system is going to go. Indeed, in a spontaneous reaction this function
can only be lower in the final state than in the starting state and function
is minimal in an equilibrium. In our case, the reaction is happening slowly
under constant atmospheric pressure, the Gibbs free energy is

G=U −T S+P V

and so, by making total differenciation, we have

dG = dU − T dS − SdT + P dV + V dP

And this, of course, is equal to zero at equilibrium. A consequence of this,

which is called Berthelot law is that the reaction that is going to happend is
the one which will liberate the most heat, and thus lowing to the minimum
its chemical energy.

2.2 Theorical value

There is a way to determine the calorific value of a combustible with
theory. Indeed, there are ways to determine precisely the energy needed to
create a chemical component, which is called enthalpy of formation. There-
fore, we can determine the energy it is going to liberate then it is destroyed,
using the Hess law. The energy dissipated in heat by a chemical reaction
is equal to the difference of the total enthalpy of formation between final
and starting componens. In our case we are going to consider the combus-
tion of four different combustibles, one of which is the ethanol, C2 H6 O. The
3 METHOD 3

reaction is the following :

C2 H6 O + 3O2 −→ 2CO2 + 3H2 O

Therefore we can deternime the heat dissipated by this energy, using stan-
dard enthalpy of formation form the table. We have :
kJ
∆H = −2 · 394 − 3 · 242 − (−278 + 3 · 0) = −1236 (2.1)
mol
This calculations can be made in the same way for the other reactions, this
give us a way to measure the accuracy of our experiment.

2.3 Calorimetry
The experimental device is composed by and heat exchanger between a
flow of cooling liquid and a reference liquid. The reference stays in a box
that bind around a hole. In this hole goes the suitable burner adapted to the
combutible we would like to study. This box is insulated from the outside
except for the cooling liquid flowing in. Therefore, we can assume that, if the
system is in a stationary state, all the energy produce by the chemical reac-
tion is used to heat up the cooling liquid. Thus, by mesuring the difference
of temperature between the in and out going water, and also the quantity
of water heated, we can deduce the energy that was produce. Knowing the
specific heat of water c, and noting Tin and Tout the temperature of the
water and M the mass of water heated, we have :

∆H = c M (Tout − Tin )

Therefore, measuring m the quantity of combustible burned, we have the

relation :
Tout − Tin
H = cM
m
This is right assuming the water produce during the reaction stays in the
state of steam, but this is not the case, this water condensate on the side of
the box. Because this state transformation require a lot of energy, we have
to take it under consideration (∆Hsteaming (H2 O) = 549kcal/kg). Finally we
have this formula :
c M (Tout − Tin ) − Mc ∆Hsteaming kcal
H= (2.2)
m kg
where Mc is the mass of condensation water.
3 METHOD 4

Fig. 1 – experimental device schema

3 Method
We power up the combustion in the device, while cooling water is flo-
wing through it and wait until the system is in a stationary state, in which
the temperatures stay stable. These temperatures are measured by thermo-
couple inserted in the water incomming and outgoing. We begin the expe-
riment by opening a valve that direct the cooling water into a box, in order
to measure precisely the quantity of water that flew through during the time
of the experiment. In the mean time, we do the same with the condensation
water. We also need to know precisly the mass burned during this laps of
time, in order to do that there is two ways depending on the nature of the
combustible. If the combustible is a gaz, we measure the flow, and the time
of the experiment, therefore we can deduce the quantity of gaz burned. It
is even simplier if the combustible is a liquid, we measure the mass of the
burner before and after and then deduce the difference.
It is important to insure that there is enough air flowing into the hole of the
burner, otherwise the combustion would not be complete. in other words,
there will not be enough oxygen to make the complete reaction and therefore
the combustion equation (eg. ??) is not the one expected. This generate two
problem, the calorific value measured will be lower than it should be, and it
is possible that the chemical product are harmful, like CO for instance.
We carry out this experiment for liquid ethanol, a fifty-fifty mix of liquid
4 RESULTS 5

butane and propane that is generally used for common burner, the gaz that
is provided for Lausanne town, and finally with methan.

4 Results
4.1 Constants used
For these experiment we need some physical constants. We used the one
that are listed in the table 4.1.

Name Symbol Value Value (other units)

Specific heat capacity of water c 4180 J/˚kg 1 kcal/˚kg
Latent heat of water Hsteaming 2.44 ∗ 106 J/kg 585 kcal/kg

Fig. 2 – Physical constants we used

4.2 Ethanol
We made three different mesuerement with ethanol. The results are sum-
marized in the following table.

Measure Heat of combustion [J/kg] Heat of combustion [kcal/kg]

1 2.16 · 107 5174
2 2.55 · 107 6092
3 3.01 · 107 7211

Fig. 3 – Ethanol’s heat of combustion

These three measures lead to a mean value of :

6159 ± 833 kcal/kg (4.1)

This value is not far from the theoretical value, which is 6460.

4.3 Gases
The mesurement for Methane and for (( City Gas ))are a little bit more
complex. In order to know the mass of gas we burned, we need to measure
the flow of gas and the duration of the experiment. This will give us the
volume of gas burned in the burner. A multiplication of this value with the
gaz density leads us to the burned mass.

The case of the (( City Gas ))is special. This gas is a mixture of ethan, me-
than, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. the proportion are given in the following
table.
5 DISCUSSION 6

Gas Proportion [%] Density [kg/m3 ]

Methan 86 0.72
Ethan 5 1.36
Nitrogen 5 1.25
Carbon dioxide 1.4 1.98
Others 2.6 –

Fig. 4 – Composition of the (( City Gas ))

The density of this gas is then : 0.77 kg/m3 .

For each of the gas we made three measures in order to reduces the
errors. The values we obtained are summarized in the table 5

Gas Heat of combustion [kcal/kg] Precision [%] Theoretical value

Methan 13098 ± 212 1.6 14050
City Gas 7505 ± 1004 8.7 9135
Camping burner 11632 ± 1012 13.6 11960

Fig. 5 – Gases heat of combustion

The values obtained are correct despite of the little precision we got. The
theoretical values are systematicly higher than those we got.

5 Discussion
Globally, the values we got are accurate but not very precise. This is
often the case in thermodynamics. In order to get better measures there
are some improvement that could be done. For example, the measure of the
combustible mass we burned, is made with a balance which is not very pre-
cise. The last digit of the balance’s screen corresponds to a value of 0.1 g.
We measured masses from 3 to 10 g. This means that the precision of the
measure was not better than 3%. The same problem appears with the mea-
sure of the temperautre difference. The precisions of this value is not better
than 1%.
The amount of water that is changed in steam is also a big source of im-
precision. The mass is very small (about 3 to 4 grams) but it requires a
huge quantity of energy to get some water to steam. This quantity of energy
is nearly the same as the energy needed to heat up the water that flies
through the whole system. This means that every imprecision on the steam
mass causes an important error ( about 5% )on the final heat of combustion
value.
These two points could be imporved by using a bette balance or by doing
6 CONCLUSION 7

the experiment during a longer time in order to burn a a bigger mass of fuel.

Another big source of errors is the haet that is lost in the system and
which doesn’t growths the water’s temperature. A certain part of energy
heats up the system, the air around it, the thermometer and all the other
things in the area. This implies that a part of the burned fuel’s energy did
not heat up the water nor the steam. This causes an error on ouf final value
which makes it be too low. It’s pretty difficult to evaluate quantitatively
how much energy is lost, but it must not be a big value because the system
is very good isolated.

To be in acoord with the theory, the flow of energy must be constant.

During the experiment we found that the temperatures were not constant.
This also causes a little error. This is probably not the main problem of this
experiment.

6 Conclusion
With this experiment, we were able to measure the heat of combustion
of different fuels used in every-day’s life. The results are in agreement with
the theory but are not very precise. An experiment made on a longer time
with a better isolation would have improved the precision of the result.
7 APPENDIX 8

7 Appendix
Measure 1 Measure 2 Measure 3
T0 [˚C] 21.9 20.7 18.5
T1 [˚C] 29.1 53 59.9
Water mass [kg] 2.01 1.05 1.93
Burned mass [kg] 0.0028 0.0052 0.0105
Steam mass [kg] 0.0000 0.0036 0.0070
Heat of combustion [kcal/kg] 5174.23 6092.27 7211.83

Fig. 6 – Measures for ethanol

Measure 1 Measure 2 Measure 3
T0 [˚C] 21.8 20.7 17
T1 [˚C] 41.9 47.1 30.4
Water mass [kg] 1.86 1.78 1.88
Gas flow [l/s] 0.03 0.04 0.02
Time [s] 201.24 192.11 203.5
Burned mass [kg] 0.005 0.006 0.003
Steam mass [kg] 0.005 0.010 0.003
Heat of combustion [kcal/kg] 6924.9 6673.67 8917.26

Fig. 7 – Measures for (( City Gas ))

Measure 1 Measure 2 Measure 3

T0 [˚C] 14.8 14 13.8
T1 [˚C] 39 58.9 48.1
Water mass [kg] 2.05 2.03 1.97
Gas flow [l/s] 0.02 0.04 0.03
Time [s] 222 221.9 214.78
Burned mass [kg] 0.003 0.006 0.005
Steam mass [kg] 0.006 0.012 0.009
Heat of combustion [kcal/kg] 13305.08 13182.23 12807.6

Fig. 8 – Measures for methan

Measure 1 Measure 2 Measure 3
T0 [˚C] 15.9 15.2 15.3
T1 [˚C] 43.5 51 40.7
Water mass [kg] 1.7 1.83 1.81
Burned mass [kg] 0.0035 0.0052 0.0042
Steam mass [kg] 0.0040 0.0060 0.0046
Heat of combustion [kcal/kg] 12705.6 11916.96 10275.23

Fig. 9 – Measures for the camping burner