Osmosis Experiment

Introduction In chemistry, substances require a certain amount of energy in the form of average kinetic energy (temperature) to freeze. To reach the temperature a substance requires to freeze, it must lose a certain amount of heat energy (a form of energy transferred from one object to another, because of a temperature difference). When a substance reaches its freezing point and begins to freeze, its temperature remains constant until it is completely frozen. However, in order to melt a substance must go through a energy change, creating the problem, “What energy changes occur when a liquid solidifies?”. To solve the problem, a hypothesis was proposed, stating “When a substance begins to solidify, it releases heat energy, because a substance …show more content…
To perform the experiment, first the calorimeter was filled with 100 mL of water using a graduated cylinder, and the temperature of the water was found and recorded. Next, the beaker was filled 3/4 full with water and placed on the stand of the ringstand above a gently burning flame from the Bunsen Burner. Then, the mass of the test tube and wax was found and recorded, and the tube was placed in the beaker. After the wax in the tube melted, the tube was placed in the calorimeter, using a wire gauze. Lastly, once the wax in the tube solidified, the temperature of the water in the calorimeter was measured and …show more content…
After the corresponding values were plugged in, the equation: 100g(4.18 J/g * ºC.)(26ºC-16ºC) was created and solved for an answer of 4180 J of heat gained. After the amount of heat gained was found, the heat released per gram of wax (heat of solidification) was calculated using the equation: 4180 J/20.2g, giving an answer of 206.93 J released per gram of wax. Although the heat released per gram of wax, found through the calculations, was 206.93 J, the accepted value was 150.0 J/g, because of this, the percent error was calculated using the formula:(measured -