Isomers Lab Report

The findings of this experiment indicate the hypothesis to be partially correct and partially incorrect. As was predicted, the experimental results did support the concept that as the carbon number increased so would the energy level. When comparing the energy levels of other isomers to straight chain alcohols, the graph shows the first part of the trend line for the other isomers to have a higher energy, while the less steep trend gradient means this switches over between 3 and 4 carbon, indicating that isomers with a carbon atom number greater than that will have increasingly lower enthalpy levels.

This variance in results when performed under near identical experimental conditions, suggests that energy produced during the combustion reactions
One key one was the data sample size, which was restricted by limited resources and time constraints. While five straight chain alcohols were tested over a spread of carbon chain lengths, only three other isomers chain length variants were available for use, which were all in a row. This meant that anomalies and individuals results would have had a larger impact on the trend line, and the results were a lot less accurate than the straight chain as individual results had a larger impact as the sample was smaller. Saying this, by repeating each variable three times the results were more accurate than if just tested once, but in general the experiments showed a fairly large difference between specific tests for the same variable. This meant that results weighed down a particular end of the spectrum, had a larger impact on of the averages that were used for calculations. Due to this variance, to get a credible result a large number of tests should ideally be
When comparing the predicted theoretical values to those achieved in this experiment, a 35% efficiency was achieved overall. This suggests that while the insulation worked to some extent, it was not as high as it could have been. Achieving an efficiency that is as high as possible is important to maximise the amount of energy transferred into the water (or alternate substance which the temperature difference is being measured), meaning that less heat escapes. While the hood worked well, there are several ways it could be improved. Firstly, would be to have the bottom of the hood lower down, so it completely covered the top of the shrowd meaning more of the hot air which rises will be pushed up towards the water barrel and there will be less lost into the environment. Secondly would be to increase the surface area of the barrel touching the hot air by having a narrow skinnier barrel. Thirdly, by using a retort stand with rubber clamps to hold the drum above the flame instead of sitting it on a tripod stand, loss of heat into the tripod instead of the water would be