Mihret Gelan 9 August 2016

Estimating the activation energy of the rate-limiting step in the combustion of the first
six straight-chain primary alcohols

Aim
To investigate the rate of combustion of the first six straight-chain primary alcohols (methanol, ethanol,
propanol, butanol, pentanol, and hexanol) at various temperatures in order to deduce an estimation of the
activation energy for the combustion using the Arrhenius equation.

Variables
1. Dependent: rate of combustion of alcohol (s-1), activation energy for combustion of alcohol
(kJ/mole)
2. Independent: temperature (°C) – 45, 35, 25, 15
3. Controlled
Factor Method of Control
pH Standard buffer solution
Concentration of Serial dilution
reactants
Physical state of Alcohol solutions – already controlled
reactants
Presence of
catalyst/competitors
Pressure

Materials & Equipment

 Alcohols (methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol)
 Timer
 Graduated gas syringe
 U-tube
 Laboratory water bath
 Bunsen burner

Mihret Gelan 9 August 2016

Method
I want to measure the reaction time of the combustion of the various alcohols at varying constant
temperatures (i.e. using a laboratory water bath) using the gas syringe method. I’m not sure how I can set
this up because I need to put the container of the alcohols in a water bath to maintain a constant
temperature but I also need to combust the alcohols at the same time. I don’t know how I could do this.
Maybe I could take the method from this study: http://gw-chimie.math.unibuc.ro/anunivch/2009-
1/AUBChXVIII13541.pdf

Alcohol burns here

Hot lab Graduated gas syringe for CO2

water bath released

Bunsen