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Combustion Of Propane

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Furthermore, the combustion of propane is considered spontaneous because its ΔH is negative and its ΔS is positive. The enthalpy of the reaction is negative, since the heat is on the product side of the balanced chemical equation for the combustion of propane, C3H8(g) + 5O2(g) 3CO2(g) + 4H2O(l)+ heat. In addition, the entropy of the reaction is positive, which means it increases in disorder, because the number of gaseous particles on the product side is greater than the number of gaseous particles on the reactant side. Therefore, a process is spontaneous if its enthalpy is negative and its entropy is positive, which in this case proves that the combustion of propane is spontaneous since it satisfies both of these requirements.

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