Surface Tension Experiment and Data Analyze

Group 01, 06/16/2022

Member: 林自均

Abstract
In this report, we mainly measured the surface tension and tried to figure out the
relationship between the amount of the surface tension and the temperature of the water.
To measure the surface tension, we studied the measurement method and the theory,
and we also designed a set-up to measure it. Based on our experiment, we found that
the surface tension had a negative correlation with the temperature, which matched our
theory. However, we also found that the rate of descent of the surface tension is smaller
than the theory, so we also discussed the reason for this result is that there are still other
resources to influence the amount of surface tension.

I. Introduction
Most people know the surface tension, and it is also a useful phenomenon that has
many applications, such as electrowetting. However, if we want to understand this
interesting phenomenon, we need to have more studies on it. Therefore, we decided to
figure out the relationship between the surface tension and the temperature.

II. Theorem
Surface tension is caused by the attraction among liquid molecules. A molecule
inside the liquid is pulled by all the other molecules around it. However, molecules on
the surface have a part of the liquid molecules replaced by gas molecules or solid
molecules, as (Fig. 1(a)) shows. This makes those molecules on the surface have an
attractive force inward.

The main attractive forces are the Van der Waals force and the hydrogen bond
force. Generally, the hydrogen bonds cause bigger forces than Van der Waals force, so
we think that the hydrogen bonds play the main role in surface tension.

From the view of chemistry, we can know that the maximum number of hydrogen
bonds in a single water molecule is 4. However, when it is close to the surface, this
situation changes. As I said above, the gas or the solid molecules replaces the water

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molecules, so we need to figure out how many hydrogen bonds disappear, so we can
calculate the surface tension. Since the surrounding molecules’ geometry is a regular
tetrahedron, we can use this geometrical characteristic to turn this molecule and
calculate the integral, so that we can get the relationship between the average hydrogen
bond’s maximum amounts and the distance to the surface
𝜋 2𝜋
1
𝑌𝑖 (𝑥) = ∫ ∫ Γ𝑖 (𝑥, 𝜃, 𝛾) sin 𝜃 𝑑𝜃 𝑑𝛾 𝐸𝑞. 1
4𝜋
0 0

where the 𝑖 is the amount of the hydrogen bonds, the Γ𝑖 is the characteristic bond
function, and the 𝑌𝑖 (𝑥) is the probability that this molecule’s hydrogen bond’s
maximum amounts. The Eq. 1 is presented in (Fig. 1(b)).

(a) (b)
Figure 1. (a) The geometrical model of water molecules and the hydrogen bond.
(b) The relationship between the average hydrogen bond’s maximum amounts and the
distance to the surface.

If we suppose that the number density of water molecule is 𝜌𝑤 , the number

density of hydrogen bond is 2𝜌𝑤 . However, the number density of the hydrogen bond
reduces on the surface according to this equation
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1 𝑥
𝜌(𝑥) = 𝜌𝑤 ∑ 𝑖𝑌𝑖 (𝑥) = 𝜌𝑤 (1 + ) 𝐸𝑞. 2
2 𝑑
𝑖=0

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where 𝑑 is the thickness of the surface, and according to (Fig. 1(b)), we can find that
𝑑 is about 0.3 (nm). Integrating
𝑑 𝑑

𝐼 = ∫[2𝜌𝑤 − 𝜌(𝑥)] 𝑑𝑥 = 0.25 ∫ 2𝜌𝑤 𝑑𝑥 = 1.5 × 10−8 (𝑐𝑚) 𝐸𝑞. 3

0 0

it turns out that the maximum number of hydrogen bonds is reduced by about 25%.

The above only shows the maximum number of the hydrogen bonds, so we need
to calculate the actual number. If we separate the volume into two parts, 𝑉1 and 𝑉0,
which are areas of the hydrogen bond formed and broken. Also, there are only two
energy levels: 𝐸1 = 𝐸 < 0 for the formed bond and 𝐸0 = 0 for the broken bond. The
possible bond rate for all can be written as
𝑉1 𝑒 −𝛽𝐸 1
𝜔1 = = 𝐸𝑞. 4
𝑉1 𝑒 −𝛽𝐸 + 𝑉0 𝑒 −𝛽0 1 + 𝛼𝑒𝛽𝐸

where 𝛽 = 1/𝑘𝑇 , 𝑘 is the Boltzmann constant and 𝑇 is the absolute temperature,

and 𝛼 = 𝑉0 /𝑉1. So the free energy to form a bond is −𝑘𝑇 ln(𝑉1 𝑒 −𝛽𝐸 + 𝑉0 ), but if the
location is on the surface, this value increases to −𝑘𝑇 ln(𝑉1 + 𝑉0 ), and the difference
is
𝑉1 + 𝑉0
Δ𝐹 = −𝑘𝑇 ln ( −𝛽𝐸 )
𝑉1 𝑒 + 𝑉0
1+𝛼
= −𝑘𝑡 ln ( ) 𝐸𝑞. 5
𝑒 −𝛽𝐸 + 𝛼

And we can do a partial differential to a little area 𝑎:

𝜕𝐹 1+𝛼
( ) = −𝑘𝑇 ln ( −𝛽𝐸 )𝐼 𝐸𝑞. 6
𝜕𝑎 𝑉,𝑇 𝑒 +𝛼

This is surface energy, which has the same value as the surface tension. If we plot the
curve as (Fig. 2) shows, we can find that the surface tension and temperature would be
negative correlation. [1]

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 Figure 2. The theoretical curve.

III. Methods
There were many methods to measuring surface tension, and we chose the Du
Noüy ring, which was the most possible way to achieve. This method needed a ring and
a force measurer. If we pull the ring slowly out of the water, as (Fig. 3) shows, there is
a force pulling back when the ring is at the surface of water. When the ring is on the
edge of leaving the liquid, the contact angle is about zero, which means almost all the
surface tension contributes to resisting the force. At that time, the force includes the
weight of the ring and the force caused by surface tension
𝐹 = 𝑊𝑟 + 4𝜋𝑅𝛾 𝐸𝑞. 7

where 𝛾 is the surface tension, and 𝑊𝛾 is the ring’s weight. After some calculation,
the surface tension can be written as
𝑓
𝛾= 𝐸𝑞. 8
𝐿

where 𝑓 = 𝐹 − 𝑊𝛾 , and 𝐿 is the length contacting the water. So what we need is the
force and the ring’s length. [2]

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 Figure 3. The schematic diagram of the du Noüy ring method.

Set-up
We designed a set-up to measure the force on the ring. As (Fig. 4(a)) shows, we
can separate the set-up into the water part and the ring part. The reason we pulled the
water down was that the ring will be stabler than we pulling the ring up. The water part
is simple: we used the step motor to control the lift of the water plate, and used the
thermocouple to record the temperature. The reason we used the step motor was that
the rotating speed of it was regular, so we could decrease the error. On the other hand,
we used a lever to increase the force done by the surface tension and the load cell to
record the force. The ring’s length contacting the water was 102.4𝜋 (cm) (Fig. 4(b)),
and the lever could amplify the force by 4.978 times.

(a) (b)
Figure 4. (a) The schematic diagram of the set-up. (b) The ring.

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 Experimental method
We used a plate of hot water and let it natural cooling. And if the thermocouple
recorded the target temperature, the computer made the step motor decline the water.
At the same time, the load cell kept recording, so we could get the force on the ring.

IV. Results and Discussion

The data from the load cell is as (Fig. 5) shown. The first stable value was when
the ring was under the water, so the force included the weight of the ring and the
buoyancy. Then, when the water was declined, the ring started to touch the water
surface, which caused a surface tension. This surface tension offered a force on the ring,
so the force on the load cell started to increase. As the force raised to the maximum, the
ring was at the edge of the water’s surface, so that the value we got was the weight plus
the full force from the surface tension. Last, the final stable value was only the weight
of the ring. So what we needed to do was that to find the difference between the
maximum and the final stable value, and that was the 𝑓 in Eq. 8. In this way, we could
calculate the surface tension, 𝛾.

Figure 5. The result from the load cell.

After doing the experiment five times, we dealt with the data and calculated the
average and standard deviation, as (Fig. 6) shows. You can see that the higher the
temperature was, the lower the surface tension was, which was the same as the theory.
However, the gap between the theory and the experimental data was about 20 (mN/m),
and we thought the reason was because of the difference of the environment.

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 Figure 6. The experimental data and the theoretical curve.

Since the difference of the environment, we normalized the data and tried to tell
the difference of the decreasing rate, as (Fig. 7) shows. We used the linear function to
approximate the theoretical curve, fitted the experimental data, and compare the
declining rate. The declining rate of the experimental data is 0.187 (%) per degree, and
the one of the theoretical curve is 0.382 (%) per degree. With the result, we could find
that the experimental data still had a difference from the theory. After some discussion,
we thought that the reason of this difference is mostly that we did not consider the other
attractive force, such as Van der Waal force.

Figure 7. The normalized experimental data and the theoretical curve.

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V. Conclusion
1. Surface tension has a negative correlation with temperature.
2. The hydrogen bond has the same trend as our result.
3. There are still other reasons to affect the surface tension, such as Van der Waals force
or set-up’s error.

Reference
[1] A. LUZAR, S.SVETINA, and B.ZEKS (3 January 1983), The contribution of
hydrogen bonds to the surface tension of water, Chemical Physics Letters.
[2] Du Noüy ring method, Wikipedia, Retrieved from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Noüy_ring_method