Soda Can Calorimeter Lab
Mofu Lin
Ms. Conte
15/3/12
IB Chemistry
Soda can calorimeter(Energy content of food)
Lab report
Introduction
We, human needs energy to live and for movements. Thus, we eat and combust food to release its heat energy in our bodies. In this experiment, we will determine how much heat energy released when we eat snack foods such as popcorn or potato chips. This lab includes three burning tests of different foods with different energy contents. Calorimetry is the science associated with determining the changes in energy of a system by measuring the heat exchanged with the surroundings(Calorimeters and Calorimetry). It requires us to create a soda can calorimeter which is a soda can with water inside in order to absorb heat energy and determine the temperature changes of water in soda can. These three different foods with different measurement of energy contents that participated in this lab are potato chips, popcorns, and raw pasta noodle. All three participants are all flammable. Because of the Law of Conservation of energy which states that energy cannot …show more content…
One of the major errors that might affect the results, is even though we used a metal annular sheet iron to prevent the heat energy released from the food samples to the air, we couldn 't really lock all the heat energy in there, and there was a big hole for us to place burning food samples under the soda can. Thus, the heat energy released from the food samples would not equal exactly to the heat energy absorbed by water. In addition, the water in the soda can could evaporate as the water absorbing the heat energy which was a experimental methodology error caused the inaccuracy of the measurement of mass of water. Another major error should be the uncertainty exist in this lab. Unless we have collected and calculated exact numbers, we will have inexact numbers, and as we do calculations with these inexact numbers, It will increase the possible of uncertainty in this
Ms. Conte
15/3/12
IB Chemistry
Soda can calorimeter(Energy content of food)
Lab report
Introduction
We, human needs energy to live and for movements. Thus, we eat and combust food to release its heat energy in our bodies. In this experiment, we will determine how much heat energy released when we eat snack foods such as popcorn or potato chips. This lab includes three burning tests of different foods with different energy contents. Calorimetry is the science associated with determining the changes in energy of a system by measuring the heat exchanged with the surroundings(Calorimeters and Calorimetry). It requires us to create a soda can calorimeter which is a soda can with water inside in order to absorb heat energy and determine the temperature changes of water in soda can. These three different foods with different measurement of energy contents that participated in this lab are potato chips, popcorns, and raw pasta noodle. All three participants are all flammable. Because of the Law of Conservation of energy which states that energy cannot …show more content…
One of the major errors that might affect the results, is even though we used a metal annular sheet iron to prevent the heat energy released from the food samples to the air, we couldn 't really lock all the heat energy in there, and there was a big hole for us to place burning food samples under the soda can. Thus, the heat energy released from the food samples would not equal exactly to the heat energy absorbed by water. In addition, the water in the soda can could evaporate as the water absorbing the heat energy which was a experimental methodology error caused the inaccuracy of the measurement of mass of water. Another major error should be the uncertainty exist in this lab. Unless we have collected and calculated exact numbers, we will have inexact numbers, and as we do calculations with these inexact numbers, It will increase the possible of uncertainty in this