Investigation of Intermolecular Interactions by Determination of the Heat of Mixing of Organic Liquids: An Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Experiment

TCE

The Chemical Educator

ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)

Table of Contents

Abstract Volume 20 (2015) pp 25-29

Investigation of Intermolecular Interactions by Determination of the Heat of Mixing of Organic Liquids: An Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Experiment

Veljko Dragojlovic

Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, 5353 Parkside Drive, Jupiter, FL 33458, vdragojl@fau.edu
Received September 22, 2014. Accepted January 20, 2015.

Published: 6 February 2015

Abstract. In a hypothesis-based experiment students consider the structure of several common organic solvents and predict whether the mixing of each pair is going to be an exothermic or an endothermic process based on the types of intermolecular interactions present in each. Next, they test their predictions by monitoring the temperature change in the course of the actual mixing. Most students correctly predicted the outcomes of the individual experiments with an exception of toluene, which they treated as a typical non-polar compound.

Key Words: Laboratories and Demonstrations; organic chemistry; thermodynamics; intermolecular interactions; active learning; heat of mixing

(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: vdragojl@fau.edu )

Article in PDF format (210 KB) HTML format

Supporting Materials:

A list of chemicals and supplies, student handout and typical student results are available as supplemental material. (203 KB).