Saturday, August 13, 2011

Which sample of ethanol will have the highest vapor pressure?

A)10 mL at 62 degrees celsius will have the highest vapor pressure. The vapor pressure of a substance increases with increasing temperature. It is important to remember that just because the volume of the liquids vary, this has NO effect on the vapor pressure. Having "more" of a particular substance does not increase the vapor pressure. Only a certain number of vapor molecules can evaporate from the liquid at any given temperature and exhibit a given pressure so increasing the volume has no effect on vapor pressure. By increasing the temperature, however, vapor pressure is increased because as temperature is increased, the kinetic energy of the molecules also increases. As a result, more molecules have enough energy to break intermolecular forces and escape into the gas phase thus adding to the vapor pressure of the container.

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