Heat Capacity Ratio for Gases: Adiabatic Expansion Method

1/27/2015
Hannah Pennington

Introduction

Ideally, gases follow a set of laws which describe the changes they may undergo when subjected to various changes of their system. The Ideal Gas Law
relates various states of a gas: temperature, pressure, volume, and number of
moles. The relationship between each of these states can be used to understand other properties of matter, including heat capacity. Macroscopically,
this characteristic value quantitatively describes the ability of a substance to
change in energy in response to a change in the temperature of the system.
This value is dependent upon the identity of the substance, as well as its
system. Typically, heat capacity is described at both a constant pressure
and constant volume.
Heat capacity can be interpreted at the microscopic level, for which it defines
a relation for the heat contained per unit. The characteristic, which gives rise
to insulative or conductive properties, depends upon the degrees of freedom
that the substance can utilize for movement. The causal motion typically
falls into three categories. Translational motion describes the movement of
the molecule as a whole in the three planar directions. While monatomic
substances can only utilize this freedom, molecules have the additional ability to move rotationally and vibrationally. Rotational degrees of freedom
exist for both linear and nonlinear molecules. The vibrational degrees of
freedom depend upon the ability of each individual portion of the molecule
to move separate from the overall motion of the molecule.
The aim of this experiment is to determine the ratio of these two values for
various substances. By utilizing the Ideal Gas Law and its various related
equations, different scenarios can be used to attempt to determine this descriptive ratio for two gases of interest, argon (Ar) and nitrogen (N2 ), using
the adiabatic expansion method, which requires the manipulation of an apparatus controlling the pressure of the system. The calculation of the heat
capacity ratio allows for the determination of the nature of the process
whether the adiabatic expansion occurs reversibly, continuously at equilibrium, or irreversibly.
The conversion factor between pounds per square inch (psi) to atmospheres
(atm) is
1 psi = 0.06805 atm.

Data

Four trials were conducted for each gas. During each trial, the initial pressure,
the pressure during expansion and the final pressure were recorded in units
of psi, which were then converted to atm. To find the absolute pressure, the
observed gauge pressures were added to the recorded atmospheric pressure:
Patm
Pabsolute

= 759.4 mmHg = 0.9992 atm.

= Pgauge + Patm

Assuming the adiabatic expansion proceeds reversibly, the heat capacity ratio
can be calculated using the following formula.
P1
P2
=
P1
ln
P3
ln

rev

Contrastingly, if the adiabatic expansion proceeds irreversibly, the heat capacity ratio can be instead calculated using the following formula.

irrev

P1
1
P2
=
P1
1
P3

The heat capacity ratio was calculated for each trial of both gases assuming
both a reversible and irreversible adiabatic expansion.

1
2
3
4

P1
1.102
1.122
1.110
1.105

Argon
P2
P3
1.001 1.010
1.001 1.013
1.001 1.011
1.001 1.011
Averages:

rev
1.101
1.126
1.109
1.114
1.113

irrev
1.106
1.133
1.115
1.119
1.118

P1
1.130
1.123
1.108
1.114

Nitrogen
P2
P3
rev
1.001 1.011 1.098
1.001 1.016 1.141
1.001 1.013 1.144
1.001 1.011 1.112
Averages: 1.124

irrev
1.104
1.149
1.151
1.118
1.131

Table 1: Pressure values before, during and after the adiabatic expansion of
Argon and Nitrogen. Pressure values are listed in atm, while heat capacity
ratios are unitless.

Discussion

A comparison of the average heat capacity ratios for each gas can be used
to conclude on the nature of the adiabatic expansion. The formulas given
allow the approximation of the heat capacity ratio for each scenario based on
the pressures during the expansion process. For this experiment, the values
do not differ significantly. The expected heat capacity ratios for Argon and
Nitrogen are 1.6 and 1.4, respectively, whereas experimentally we obtained
values ranging from 1.113 to 1.131. The greater value for the irreversible heat
capacity ratio indicates a slightly higher likelihood that the expansion carried out occurred irreversibly. Logically, the idealized nature of a reversible
adiabatic expansion and the lack of time given to allow equilibrium over the
course of the expansion gives more evidence to support that this experiment
occurred irreversibly.