The Relationship of Dispersion Forces and Hydrogen Bonding Forces in Intermolecular Attractions

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The objective of this experiment was to investigate the relationship of dispersion forces and hydrogen bonding forces in intermolecular attractions through the evaporation of different substances. Using temperature probes, the endothermic process of evaporation is measured by inserting the probes into the substance and then taking them out to allow the substance to evaporate, the change in temperature of the substances showed if a lot or not a lot of evaporation occurred and over how long the evaporation took place depending on if the change in temperature was high or low.
Figure 1 compared the change in temperature in Celsius during evaporation for ethanol and 1-propanol over a time period in seconds. Due to its higher molecular mass, 1-propanol (60.09 g/mol) was harder to evaporate than ethanol (46.06 g/mol). Both substances had very low changes in temperature because of their hydrogen bonds and dispersion forces as well as relatively high molecular masses, those factors made it hard to break their bonds and make them evaporate.
Figure 2 shows the process of evaporation for 1-butanol - an alcohol, and pentane - an alkane. In this figure a big difference in temperature change can be seen between the two substances. Due to its hydrogen bonds and dispersion forces, 1-butanol had a smaller temperature change compared to pentane, the hydrogen bonds of 1-butanol made it much harder to pull its molecules away from each other, thus making it evaporate slower. Since pentane only has weak dispersion forces it evaporated much faster once the probe was taken out of the test tube and had a higher change in temperature.
Figure 3 illustrates the change in temperature during evaporation for the alcohol methane and the alkane hexane. The ...

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...ces and high molecular weights make a substance harder to evaporate, while weak intermolecular forces and low molecular weights make it easier to evaporate, resulting in a change in temperature that was either low or high. Possible errors that could have occurred during the experiment could be from incorrectly calibrating the temperature probes at the start of the experiment, which would throw off the temperature readings and make them too high or too low. Another error could have come from starting the data collection too late and missing the beginning of the evaporation, thus resulting in a maximum temperature that was too low and a change in temperature also too low. Also, two of the test tubes had to be rinsed to be used for the second part of the experiment and water could have clung to the inside of the test tube and contaminated the substance put inside it.

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