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Myung-Hoon Kim*
Department of Science, Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody Campus, Dunwoody, GA 30338;
*mkim@gpc.peachnet.edu
Michelle Song Kim
Roswell High School, Roswell, GA 30075
Suw-Young Ly
Department of Fine Chemistry, Seoul National University of Technology, Seoul 139-743, Korea
Background
Several laboratory experiments evaluating absolute zero
in degrees Celsius have been used in freshman and upperlevel (physical) chemistry courses (15). They serve well in
proving the existence of the lowest possible temperature,
273.15 C, and in demonstrating several gas laws such as
Charless law. These subjects are covered in the textbook chapter dealing with the gaseous state. The methods are based on
extrapolations of either volume (13) or pressure (4, 5) of a
given amount of a gas to zero volume or pressure after the
volume or the pressure of the gas is measured at several
temperatures. According to the gas laws,
V = kT
or
P = kT
(1)
T = 1V
k
or
T= 1P
k
(2)
Thermometer
Beaker
Water
Air and
water vapor
Inverted graduated cylinder
Hot plate
238
(3)
In the Laboratory
VH
2O
= Vtotal
PH
2O
(4)
Ptotal
V air = Vtotal VH
= Vtotal
2O
Ptotal PH
Ptotal
2O
= Vtotal
P air
(5)
Ptotal
7.25
6.00
5.75
5.15
4.80
4.50
4.40
4.20
4.10
3.98
3.90
3.80
P(air )
(torr)
254.60
161.50
149.40
92.50
66.51
41.25
28.68
21.58
15.67
8.44
6.45
4.60
481.90
575.00
587.10
644.00
669.99
695.25
707.82
714.92
720.83
728.06
730.05
731.90
4.7438
4.6843
4.5836
4.5032
4.3665
4.2480
4.2287
4.0769
4.0128
3.9344
3.8658
3.7763
0.0000
-276.01
INTERCEPT
(6)
P
slope R
slope = P
nR
2.13
2.01
1.44
1.18
3.81
2.44
1.91
1.68
0.78
0.94
0.9907
No. of Observations
12.00
Degrees of Freedom
10.00
X Coefficient(s)
72.84
2.23
(7)
2.47
3.50
2.41
R Squared
SLOPE
150
100
Results
Typical experimental data and results of data analysis
with a QuattroPro spreadsheet are presented in Table 1.
The temperature vs raw volume data are given in the first
two columns (bold and italicized); the barometric pressure is
given in the first row, 736.5 torr. The room temperature was
19.7 C. Twelve volumes were read in a temperature range
of 0 to 80 C. All calculations were done with the spreadsheet.
Theoretical temperature at each volume was calculated from
the slope (m) and the intercept (b) from the least-squares
method; these are given in the 6th column along with the
associated errors in the 7th column.
Plots of temperature vs raw volume (total) and corrected
volume (air only) from the trial are given in Figure 2. As
expected, the plot of temperature vs raw volume is curved
because of the increased vapor pressure (hence vapor volume)
at higher temperature. When the temperature is plotted against
the corrected volume (total volume minus vapor volume), a
well-defined straight line is obtained with an intercept (the
constant) of 276.01 C. This yields an absolute error of about
3 C and a relative error of 1%. The slope (m, the X coefficient)
was determined to be 72.84, from which the amount of air
trapped was calculated to be 1.62 104 mol using eq 7.
The data for this trial are obtained while the water bath
is being cooled. It is found, however, that one can obtain a
good result even from data collected while the cylinder is being
Temperature / C
n=
69.53
65.20
57.87
52.01
42.06
33.42
32.01
20.96
16.29
10.58
5.58
0.94
-276.01
Regression Output:
Constant
T = P V air
nR
X-axis
V(air)
Least Sq. Error in T
(mL)
T (deg C) (deg C)
-corrected-
VP(H2O)
(torr)
50
0
-50
-100
-150
-200
Least Squares of
Air Volume
-250
-300
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0
Volume of Air / mL
Figure 2. Plot of the raw volume (total) and corrected volume (air
only) of the trial. Twelve volumes are read in a temperature range
of 0 to 75 C.
239
In the Laboratory
Acknowledgments
We thank Dale Manos for assistance with QuattroPro
and Maureen Burkart for editing the manuscript. MSK
thanks Ned Granville (RHS) for guiding the Science Fair
Project. This work won in the Physics Division at the Georgia
Science and Engineering Fair (University of Georgia, Athens,
GA, April 911, 1999). MSK also thanks Alice Schutte for
the use of the chemistry laboratory and the equipment for
the project. This paper was partially supported by the research
fund of Seoul National University of Technology.
W
Supplemental Material
150
Temperature / C
100
50
0
-50
-100
-150
at 2 deg/min
-200
at 0.5 deg/min
-250
-300
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
Volume of Air / mL
Figure 3. Effect of rate of the heating. The dashed lines are from
the least squares method with the data from the entire temperature
range, from 20 to 80 C. The solid lines are obtained with data
from a lower temperature range, from 20 to 50 C.
150
100
Temperature / C
50
0
-50
-100
-150
-200
-250
240
-300
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
7.0
Volume of Air / mL
Figure 4. Plots from other trials with various volumes of air. Trials
with larger volumes of air yield more accurate results in general.