EXERCISE 3 JOULE-THOMSON COEFFICIENT

GROUP 1: Ignacio, Angelo Nico Adra, Hazzel Joy Evangelista, Licelle Leysa, Marielle Date Performed: June 25, 2013 Date Submitted: July 2, 2013 Submitted to: Paul Alvarez

I.

Introduction

Joule showed in 1843 that the expansion of gas within a vacuum was accompanied by no temperature change. In this experiment he showed that dw=0 and dq=0. dU=dq+dw=0 eqn (3.1) and ( ) eqn (3.2)

More careful measurements showed that ( ) is not equal to 0 so joule and thomson made improvements to the experiment done (fig 3.1). (Smith 2004) For a real gas, there is usually a decrease in temperate unlike an ideal gas. This accompanied change in temperature on change in pressure is expressed in terms of the Joule-Thomson coefficient, which is a measure of deviation of real gas from ideal behavior.

Fig 3.1 Schematic diagram of Joule-Thomson Experiment. Consider one mole of a gas which moves slowly through the porous plug being at equilibrium at all times. The gas enthalpy would be equal to zero since it does not change as it passes through the plug. The change in enthalpy considering infinitesimal change in pressure and temperature is, (3.3 ( Since ) and ( ( ) ) ( ( ) ) then (3.5) (3.6) (3.4)

Dividing both sides by dP ( ) Substituting ( ) (3.7)

( ) then rearranging yields

( )

(3.8) This expereminent aims to successfully determine the Joule-Thomson Coefficient of CO2 at 25C. using the Joule-Thomson experiment.

II.

Materials and Methods

Fig 3.2 Experimental set-up of Joule-Thomson experiment. The apparatus is set up (fig 3.2). A fritted glass disk sealed in a 30mm glass tube was used. The lower end of this tube was connected by a short length of pressure tubing to 100ft of copper tubing wound into 50 coils. The coiled and the lower end of the glass tube were submerged into a water bath at 25oC. The other end of the coil was connected to a gas tank, at a pressure of 1atm above atmospheric pressure. An open-tube mercury manometer was used to measure P. The upper end of the glass tube is always at atmospheric pressure but was insulated thermally using an outer jacket filled with polystyrene. And T was determined using the T meter. The bulb was opened till the rate of pressure is increasing at the rate of 5 cmHg per minute. The needle bulb is adjusted until 60cmHg is achieved. The temperature difference was recorded from the deltaT meter until there is no significant change in T over a 10 minute period. The needle valve is closed slowly to reduce the pressure drop to approximately 55cmHg. The T was recorded when a steady state is achieved. III. Results and Discussion