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Temperature Change of Dissolving Salt

Keywords: Thermo & Stat Mech, Energy and Entropy, Enthalpy, Specific Heat, Internal Energy

eedissolvesalt.jpg

Highlights of the activity

  1. Students are placed into small groups and asked to calculate the change in temperature of a cup of water due to the dissolution of NaCl.
  2. Each group will practice finding the change in temperature of a substance after finding the energy transfer resulting from a thermodynamic process.

Reasons to spend class time on the activity

This activity provides a solid mathematical computation that introduces the idea that a process such as dissolution results in a transfer of energy. Students are also given the opportunity to analyze how the entropy of water-salt system changes in the dissolution process.

FIXME This experiment has never been done, so think of it as no more than an interesting idea at this stage. I didn't have time for it in class, and thus haven't tested it. – David Roundy

Reflections

Instructor's Guide

Student Handouts

eedissolvesalthand.pdf

eedissolvesalthand.tex


Authors: Corinne Manogue
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