CHEMISTRY INVESTIGATORY

PROJECT

OBJECTIVES :

To study the rate of evaporation of different liquids and to

study the effect of surface area on the rate of evaporation of given

liquids.

Presented By :
Bhavyadeep Purswani
Class- XII B
Board Roll No. :

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 <INDEX>

1. Acknowledgment
2. Certificate
3. Introduction
4. Objective of Project
5. Experiment No.1
5.l Aim
5.2 Materials Required
5.3 Procedure
5.4 Observation
5.5 Inference and conclusion
5.6 Result
5.7 Reason
6. Experiment No. 2
6.1 Aim
6.2 Materials Required
6.3 Procedure
6.4 Observation
6.5 Inference and Conclusion
6.6 Result
7. Additional Information

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8. Bibliography

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my

teachers Anju Mam and Neelanjana Mam as well as our
Principal Mr. R.K. Pandey who gave me the golden opportunity
to do this wonderful project on the topic "Rate of Evaporation of
Liquids", which also helped me in doing a lot of Research and I
came to know about so many new things. I am really thankful to
them.

Secondly, I would also like to thank my parents and friends

who helped me a lot in finalizing this project within the limited
time frame.

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Bhavyadeep Purswani, a student of

Class-XII in Delhi Public School, Varanasi with Board Roll
No. ____________, has successfully completed the research
project on the topic "Rate of Evaporation of Liquids".

This project is absolutely genuine and does not indulge in

plagiarism of any kind.

The references taken in making this project have been

declared at the end of this report.

Signature of HOD Signature of PGT Signature of

Chemistry Chemistry External Examiner
(Mrs. Anju) (Mrs. Nellanjan)

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 INTRODUCTION
Evaporation is the process whereby atoms or molecules in a
liquid state (or solid state if the substance sublimes) gain
sufficient energy to enter the gaseous state.

The thermal motion of a molecule must be sufficient to

overcome the surface tension of the liquid in order for it to
evaporate, that is, its kinetic energy must exceed the work
function of cohesion at the surface. Evaporation therefore
proceeds more quickly at higher temperature and in liquids with
lower surface tension. Since only a small proportion of the
molecules are located near the surface and are moving in the
proper direction to escape at any given instant, the rate of
evaporation is limited. Also, as the faster-moving molecules
escape, the remaining molecules have lower average kinetic
energy, and the temperature of the liquid thus decrease.

If the evaporation takes place in a closed vessel, the

escaping molecules accumulate as a vapour above the liquid.

Many of the molecules return to the liquid, with returning

molecules becoming more frequent as the density and pressure of
the vapour increases. When the process of escape and return
reaches equilibrium, the vapour is said to be "saturated", and no

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further change in either vapour pressure or density or liquid
temperature will occur.

Factors influencing rate of Evaporation :

1. Concentration of the substance evaporating in the air :

If the air already has a high concentration of the substance
evaporating, then the given substance will evaporate more
slowly.

2. Concentration of other substances in the air :

If the air is already saturated with other substances, it can
have a lower capacity for the substance evaporating.

3. Temperature of the substance :

If the substance is hotter, then evaporation will be faster.

4. Flow rate of air :

This is in part related to the concentration points above. If
fresh air is moving over the substance all the time, then the
concentration of the substance in the air is less likely to go
up with time, thus encouraging faster evaporation. In
addition, molecules in motion have more energy than those
at rest, and so the stronger the flow of air, the greater the
evaporating power of the air molecules.

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5. Inter-molecular forces :
The stronger the forces keeping the molecules together in
the liquid or solid state the more energy that must be input
in order to evaporate them.

6. Surface area and temperature :

Because molecules or atoms evaporate from a liquid's
surface, a larger surface area allows more molecules or
atoms to leave the liquid, and evaporation occurs more
quickly. For example, the same amount of water will
evaporate faster if spilled on a table than if it is left in a cup.
Higher temperatures also increase the rate of evaporation.
At higher temperatures, molecules, or atoms have a higher
average speed, and more particles are able to break free of
the liquid's surface. For example, a wet street will dry faster
in the hot sun than in the shade.

7. Intermolecular Forces :
Most liquids are made up of molecules, and the levels
of mutual attraction among different molecules help explain
why some liquids evaporate faster than others.
Attractions between molecules arise because
molecules typically have regions that carry a slight negative
charge, and other regions that carry a slight positive charge.
These regions of electric charge are created because some
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atoms in the molecule are often more electronegative
(electron-attracting) than others. The oxygen atom in a
water (H2O) molecule is more electronegative than the
hydrogen atoms, for example, enabling the oxygen atom to
pull electrons away from both hydrogen atoms. As a result,
the oxygen atom in the water molecule carries a partial
negative charge, while the hydrogen atoms carry a partial
positive charge.
Water molecules share a mutual attraction-positively
charged hydrogen atoms in one water molecule attract
negatively charged oxygen atoms in nearby water
molecules. Intermolecular attractions affect the rate of
Evaporation of a liquid because strong intermolecular
attractions hold the molecules in a liquid together more
tightly. As a result, liquids with strong intermolecular
attractions evaporate more slowly than liquids with weak
intermolecular attractions. For example, because water
molecules have stronger mutual attractions than gasoline
molecules (the electric charges are more evenly distributed
in a gasoline molecules), gasoline evaporates more quickly
than water.

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 APPLICATIONS
 Industrial applications include many printing and coating
processes; recovering salts from solutions; and drying a
variety of materials such as lumber, paper, cloth and
chemicals.
 The use of evaporation to dry or concentrate samples is a
common preparatory step for many laboratory analyses
such as spectroscopy and chromatography. Systems used
for this purpose include rotary evaporators and centrifugal
evaporators.
 When clothes are hung on a laundry line, even though the
ambient temperature is below the boiling point of water,
water evaporates. This is accelerated by factors such as low
humidity, heat (from the sun), and wind. In a clothes dryer,
hot air is blown through the clothes, allowing water to
evaporate very rapidly.
 The Matki/Matka, traditional Indian porous clay container
used for storing and cooling water and other liquids.
 The botijo, a traditional Spanish porous clay container
designed to cool the contained water by evaporation.
 Evaporative coolers, which can significantly cool a building
by simply blowing dry air over a filter saturated with water.

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Combustion Vaporization :

Fuel droplets vaporize as they receive heat by mixing with

the hot gases in the combustion chamber. Heat (Energy) can also
be received by radiation from any hot refractory wall of the
combustion chamber.

Pre-combustion Vaporization :

Internal combustion engines rely upon the vaporization of

the fuel in the cylinders to form a fuel/air mixture in order to burn
well. The chemically correct air/fuel mixture for total burning of
gasoline has been determined to be 15 parts air to one part
gasoline or 15/1 by weight. Changing this to a volume ratio
yields 8000 parts air to one part gasoline or 8,000/1 by volume.

Film Deposition :

Thin films may be deposited by evaporating a substance

and condensing it onto a substrate, or by dissolving the substance
in a solvent, spreading the resulting solution thinly over a
substrate, and evaporating the solvent.

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 OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

In this project, we shall investigate various factors that have

already been discussed such as nature of liquid, surface of liquid
and temperature and find their correlation with the rate of
evaporation of different liquids.

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 EXPERIMENT NO. 1
Aim :

To compare the rate of evaporation of water, acetone,

benzene and ethanol.

Materials Required :

 China dish
 Pipette
 Beaker
 Weighing Balance
 Measuring Flask
 Watch

Procedure :

1. Four china dishes where taken.

2. 10 ml of each sample was taken out through the pipette.
3. Dish A - Acetone
Dish B - Ethanol
Dish C - Water
Dish D - Benzene
4. There weights where recorded before beginning the
experiment.
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 5. The three dishes were left undisturbed for about 15 minutes.
6. The weights were recorded after the time.
7. Prior and present observations were compared.

OBSERVATION :

Acetone Ethanol Water Benzene

(Gm.) (Gm.) (Gm.) (Gm.)
Weight of dish 44.3 44.4 50.1 42.2
Weight of 61.0 61.0 70.0 59.0
(dish + substance)
before evaporation
Weight of 57.9 59.5 69.9 57.6
(dish + substance)
after evaporation
Weight of 3.1 1.5 0.1 1.4
substance
evaporated

Inference and Conclusion :

 The rate of evaporation of the given three liquids is in order.

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 PRECAUTIONS

1. China dish should be used of almost same size and shape.

2. The weight should be measured with very accuracy.
3. Clean and dry petridishes should be used for the
experiment.
4. The liquids should be kept under same physical conditions.

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 EXPERIMENT NO. 2
Aim :

To study the effect of surface area on the rate of

evaporation of a liquid (Acetone).

Requirements :

A china dish, a 100 ml beaker, one boiling tube, 10 ml

pipette, measuring flask and stopwatch.

Procedure :

1. The China dish, beaker and the boiling tube were cleaned
and dried.
2. 20 ml of Acetone was pipette out in each of the containers
and were covered immediately.
3. All the three containers were uncovered simultaneously,
and stopwatch was started.
4. The containers were left undisturbed for 15 minutes.
5. Then, the amount of liquid remaining in each container was
measured with the help of measuring flask.

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 OBSERVATION TABLE

Container Diameter Surface Decrease Rate of

Taken of area of the in volume evaporation
container liquid of acetone (mL/min)
(cms.) (cm2)

China-dish 4 4π cm2 0.6 0.04

Beaker 6 9π cm2 0.72 0.48

Big Beaker 8 16π cm2 0.9 0.06

Conclusion :

The rate of evaporation of a liquid increases with increases

in its surface area.

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 PRECAUTIONS

1. Measure the volume accurately.

2. Same measuring cylinder should be used for measuring the
volume.
3. Keep the containers in the same environment.
That is, all other parameters, like liquid, environment,
temperatures etc., should be same except the variation of
the surface area of liquid.

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 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For molecules of a liquid to evaporate, they must be located
near the surface, be moving in the proper direction, and have
sufficient kinetic energy to overcome liquid-phase intermolecular
forces. Only a small proportion of the molecules meet these
criteria, so the rate of evaporation is limited. Since the kinetic
energy of a molecule is proportional to its temperature,
evaporation proceeds more quickly at higher temperature. As the
faster-moving molecules escape. The remaining molecules have
lower average kinetic energy, and the temperature of the liquid
thus decreases. This phenomenon is also called evaporative
cooling. This is why evaporating sweat cools the human body.
Evaporation also tends to precede more quickly with higher flow
rates between the gaseous and liquid phase and in liquids with
higher vapour pressure. For example, laundry on a clothes line
will dry (by evaporation) more rapidly on a windy day than on a
still day. Three key parts to evaporation are heat, humidity and air
movement.

Evaporative Equilibrium :

It evaporation takes place in an enclosed area, the escaping

molecules accumulate as a vapor above the liquid. Many of the

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molecules return to the liquid, with returning molecules
becoming more frequent as the density and pressure of the vapor
increases. When the process of escape and return reaches an
equilibrium, the vapor is said to be "saturated", and no further
change in either vapor pressure and density or liquid temperature
will occur. For a system consisting of vapor and liquid of a pure
substance, this equilibrium state is directly related to the vapor
pressure of the substance, as given by the Clausius-Clapeyron
relation :

( PP 21 )=−∆ Hvap
ln ⁡
R ( 1 1
T 2 T 1)
−

Where, P1, P2 are the vapor pressures at temperatures T1, T2

respectively, ∆ Hvap is the enthalpy of vaporization, and R is the
universal gas constant. The rate of evaporation in an open system
is related to the vapor pressure found in a closed system. If a
liquid is heated, when the vapor pressure reaches the ambient
pressure the liquid will boil.

The ability for a molecule of a liquid to evaporate is based

largely on the amount of kinetic energy an individual particle
may possess. Even at lower temperatures, individual may
possess. Even at lower temperatures, individual molecules of a
liquid can evaporate if they have more than the minimum amount
of kinetic energy required for vaporization.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY
The research was done with the help of following sources :

 www.google.com

 Laboratory Manual Class 11th

 School Library

 Chemistry Department in DPS,Varanasi.

 www.wikipedia.com

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