Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Calorimetry
Calorimetry is the process of measuring the amount of heat given off or taken in
during a chemical reaction
Experimental values of enthalpy changes often differ from those found in data
books because: the reaction may be incomplete, incomplete combustion of the fuel
may occur, the heat capacities and densities of the solutions are only
approximates, heat may be lost from the water to the surroundings, the
experimental conditions may not be standard and some of the fuel or water may
evaporate before reweighing.
q = mc∆T
q is the heat change (J)
m is the mass of the substance (g)
c is the specific heat capacity (Jg^-1 K^-1)
∆T is the temperature change (K or °C)
q can be calculated using ∆T and converting the volumes of the solutions into
masses using their densities (assumed to be 1 g cm^-3)
Hess’s Law
Hess’s law is that the enthalpy change of a reaction is independent of the route
taken
Bond enthalpies provide us with information about how much energy is needed to
break a bond.
Mean bond enthalpy is the enthalpy change when one mole of covalent bonds is
broken to give the free atoms, averaged over a range of compounds
Some bonds can only occur in one environment, such as Cl-Cl and H-Cl, as Cl and
H can only form one bond.
Some bonds can occur in multiple environments, such as C-H and C=O, as C can
form multiple bonds with a wide range of elements – resulting in different
environments
The strength of these bonds will vary according to the environment in which they
are found, so an average value is taken
The actual bond enthalpy is specific to each individual molecule
Bond breaking is endothermic, while bond making is exothermic.
Enthalpy change can be predicted using bond enthalpies
The enthalpy change values calculated from bond enthalpies are approximate and
not as accurate as those calculated from Hess’ Law cycles