How Does The Carbon Chain Affect The Heat Of Combustion Of Water When Heated

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Research question Does changing the length of the carbon chain effect the heat of combustion of water when heated for 2 minutes? If so, which fuel reaches the highest temperature during that time?
Aim
To investigate the relationship between three different alkanols in terms of their carbon chain length, rate of increased temperature, and heat of combustion, in order to determine which is the most efficient at heating water to a certain temperature whilst reducing time and effects on the environment.

Hypothesis
If the length of the carbon chain within an alkanol is increased, then the heat of combustion will also increase due to a greater amount of intermolecular forces between molecules, as there are more carbon-hydrogen molecules being added to the homologous series. Thus the amount of energy required to break those bonds will be much higher, causing a greater amount of energy being released during the reaction. Therefore enhancing the mass of the hydrocarbon and change in enthalpy which will consequently increase the heat of combustion.
Introduction
It …show more content…

What this means for the reaction is that there isn’t as much bonds being produced which will ultimately affect the amount of energy released in the form of heat, thus decreasing the overall heat of combustion whilst also effecting the reliability of the calculations.
There are four different types of hydrocarbons each having a different homologous series (formula for carbon chain). These being an alkane (formula = CnH2n+2), alkene (formula = CnH2n), alkyne (formula = CnH2n-2), and an alkanol which has the same formulae as an alkane only that is has a hydroxide molecule which replaces one of the hydrogen atoms (refer to figure 3 and

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