Operating Instructions Oxygen Bomb Calorimeter

Figure 1. 3 The instrument that was provided to each group in the lab. The naming of what each part of the instrument is.

The experiment was conducted for 3 weeks. The purpose of the first week was to familiarize ourselves with the equipment and actually conducting the experiment. The second week of the experiment was focused on gathering data for benzoic acid and for the third week, Naphthalene was experimented on. Upon entering the lab, the parts of the cathetometer were already unpacked and ready to be assembled. Since the experiment took 3 weeks, the majority of the procedure was the same with some slight differences. The procedure for the experiment was from a handout provided by the instructor. The handout title was “Operating Instructions
For all 3 weeks, the calorimeter oval bucket (#13) was filled up with roughly 2.000 kg of DI water. The temperature of the water was roughly around room temperature (depending how long it was sitting in the room). The bucket was then placed in the calorimeter in a certain way. At the bottom of the bucket, there were 3 “dents” which were aligned with the dents at the bottom of the calorimeter jacket (#14). The oxygen combustion bomb (#15) was then opened and roughly 10 cm of the wire (metal wire provided by the instructor) was cut and attached to the arms of the cup so the pellet of choosing (which was either the Naphthalene or the Benzoic Acid) would ignite with the wire and thus causing the temperature to increase. The wire was not in contact with any of the sides of the cup, it was only in contact with the pellet itself. During week 1, the purpose of the experiment was to familiarize ourselves with the equipment and conducting the actual experiment. The mass of the Benzoic Acid pellet (Parr Instrument Co., CAS Reg No. 65-85-0) was roughly 0.9g. During the second week, a Benzoic Acid pellet was also provided and placed