Combustion Heat Lab

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Tammy Thanaporn Amornkasemwong 1st September 2011 Science Period 8 Introduction: How much energy can be released from fuels? Combustion is the process of burning fuel in order to produce heat. The intention of this experiment is to find whether different fuels produce different amount of energy. In the process of combustion in this experiment, cheeto, half a cashew nut, wax candle and ethanol are used as fuels combust with lighter, as heat and oxygen. When the fuels combust, oxygen and fuels react, and heat released. The water then absorbed the heat from the combustion. In this experiment the calorimeter of energy is used to measure the temperature of the heat that is released from the cashew. The equation to find the energy produce during…show more content…
Pour the water in the graduated cylinder in to a soft drink can. Then set up the ring stand. Hang the soft drink can on the ring of the ring stand using a glass rod. Set the ring to about 3cm above the can. Put on a safety goggles. Use a thermometer to measure the initial temperature of the water in the soft drink can. Measure the initial mass on a mass scale. Place the fuel under the soft drink can (If the fuel is half a cashew nut or cheetos stick it to a wine cork using a pin, then wrap the wine cork with a sheet of aluminum foil). Set the stopwatch to 1 minute. Use a lighter to light the fuel. Blow out the fire when the timer reaches 1 minute. Measure the final temperature of the water using a thermometer. Then measure the final mass of the fuel using a mass scale. Record all the results. Repeat all the steps again, but change fuel (Cheetos, half a cashew nut, wax candle and ethanol) every three trials. Data Collection and Processing: Fuel | Trials | Mass H2O (ml) ±1 | Change in Water Temperature (°C) | Mass Loss of Fuel (g) ±0.02 | Energy Produced (J) | Energy Produced per grams (J/g) | Cashew | T1 | 200 | 5 | 0.31 | 4180 | 13483.87…show more content…
As stated by the results above, different fuels produced different amount of energy. According to the data, out of the four different fuels, Cheetos, Wax Candle, Ethanol and Cashew nut, Wax candle produced the most energy (J/g). During the process of the combustion of cashew, there is an error. The flame that is burning the cashew during the second trial is bigger than the other trials, taking less time in burning fuels, causing the results to be inaccurate. If I were to do this experiment again, I would change the number of trials to increase the accuracy of the results. On the other hand, I would want to make sure that the fuel and flames are both exact so the results become more
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