The Determination of Thermodynamic Functions of the Reactions in Commercial Alkaline-Manganese Dioxide Galvanic Cell (Duracell )

Written By: Elizabeth Swisher Lab Partners: Amethyst Vozar, Michael Clear, Brittany Yang

Discussion/ Results: In this lab, a Duracell Procell AA alkaline battery was placed into a dewar filled with ethanol. Ethanol was used instead of water because it is not a good conductor, so it will not carry a charge, which would lead to shorting the circuit, which would make the battery unusable. The battery was then hooked up to a circuit consisting of the measured and the reference battery. This circuit was designed with precision in mind. When a single battery circuit is made, the highest the precision can be in 10mV. When using a reference battery, the highest precision that can be measured is 1 V. Using a reference battery results in more precise measurements. The voltage of the battery was then recorded at various temperatures as shown below.

T(ref) (Celsius) 25.5 25.3 25.2 25.1 25.2 24.8 24.5

T(measured) (Celsius) 25.2 21 17 13 9 5 1

T(fixed) (Celsius) 25.2 20.8 16.7 12.6 8.7 4.3 0

V (mV) -10.901 -10.392 -9.936 -9.482 -9.070 -8.603 -8.242

Table 1. Shows the reference temperature, the measured temperature, the adjusted or fixed temperature and the recorded corresponding voltage (V). The adjusted temperature is needed because we used a reference cell that was not kept constant at 0C. Each

temperature was held constant for 10 minutes to allow the system to equilibrate. If the temperature rose 0.1 C above the temperature it should have been, dry ice was used to cool it down. Dry ice was used instead of regular ice because regular ice will make the solution slightly ionized, which will make the solution carry a charge. If the solution went 0.1 C below the target temperature, a heating coil was used. The hot plate was not usable since the system was in a dewar, which is double-walled, vacuum- sealed vessel, which does not support heat transfer.

The Relationship between Voltage and Temperature

-8 -8.5 Voltage (mV) -9 -9.5 -10 -10.5 -11 Temperature (Celcius) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

y = -0.1065x - 8.1745 R = 0.9982

Figure 1. Shows the relationship between the measured voltage and the adjusted temperature. This relationship was made to determine the slope to use in equation # to find the entropy of the cell.

Equations and Sample Calculations:

Equation 1:

( )(

)(

Equation 2:

( )( (

)( )( )

Equation 3:

( )(

Equation 4:

)(

Equation 5:

*(

)+

*(

)+

[(

)]

[(

)]

was negative because this was a successful reaction and happened spontaneously. was negative because the reaction had great disorder. was negative (exothermic) and

we decreased the temperature of the system throughout the entire experiment. The equilibrium constant, K, was found to be extremely large, which shows the reaction went to completion.

Uncertainties: The uncertainty of the slope was found using the LINEST function:

Slope: -0.106504112 Uncertainty of the Slope: 0.001997618 R^2: 0.998244104 Uncertainty of R^2: 0.04402328 Y- Intercept: -8.1745267 Uncertainty of Y- Intercept: 0.030196518

The uncertainty of

was then found using equation 6 below:

Equation 6:

( (

) )

Acknowledgements: Id like to give a lot of thanks to Dr. M for going above and beyond to make sure we understood exactly what was going on throughout the entire experiment.

Literature Cited: 1) Dr. Bratoljub H. Milosavljevic Lab Packet for Chem 457 Experimental Physical Chemistry Spring, 2014.