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P-Xylene Experiment

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The graph for the freezing point of pure p-xylene turned out the way that was expected. As the p-xylene was stirred, a steep drop in temperature until reaching the trough of the graph around twenty-seven seconds. The temperature of the graph began slowly increasing as the p-xylene began to freeze until reaching the freezing point of the pure p-xylene in a process known as supercooling. The freezing point of the pure p-xylene was the point in which the temperature became level and steady. This point was at 13.974°C. The data and graphs for the freezing point depression constant for p-xylene was calculated by measuring the difference in freezing point temperature when the solute toluene is added. The graph for trial three turned out the best …show more content…

The ethanol graph, similar to previous graphs, displays a drop in temperature of the solution before eventually evening out at the freezing point temperature of the solution. However, like the unknown solutes' graphs, the process of supercooling was not apparent since the temperature did not rise up from its trough. The calculated molar mass of ethanol was found to be much greater than the actual molar mass of ethanol with a percentage error of 296.31%. However, unlike the large percentage error with unknown A, this large molar mass is expected due to the polarity and hydrogen bonding of the …show more content…

This resulted in a 5.86% error. This percentage error is small enough to know that the usage of the calculated freezing point of pure p-xylene in future equations was going to lead to fairly accurate data relating to this value. The unknown solute A was identified as Octane with a molar mass of 1827.65 grams with an actual value of 114.23 grams. This produced an extremely large percentage error of 1499.97%. The unknown solute C was determined to be Decane with its calculated molar mass of 137.67 grams compared to the actual value of 142.29 grams. This led to a percentage error of 3.24%. The unknown solute D had a calculated molar mass of 78.28 grams and was identified to be Hexane with its molar mass close to the actual molar mass of 86.18 grams. This meant that there was a percentage error of 9.17%. Finally, the molar mass of ethanol was calculated to be 182.70 grams. When compared to the actual molar mass of ethanol of 46.07 grams, a percentage error of 296.31% is obtained. The reason that these two molar mass values are so different is because of the properties of the solute ethanol. Unlike the nonpolar solvent p-xylene, ethanol is a polar molecule. In chemistry, likes prefer to dissolve in likes. What this means is that nonpolar solutes dissolve in nonpolar solvents, while polar solutes dissolve in polar solvents. Since the polar ethanol is not able

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