 Closed end of a eudiometer | |
| Uses | Gas volume measurement |
|---|---|
| Notable experiments | Composition of water |
| Inventor | Marsilio Landriani |
| Related items | |
A eudiometer is a laboratory device that measures the change in volume of a gas mixture following a physical or chemical change.
Depending on the reaction being measured, the device can take a variety of forms. In general, it is similar to a graduated cylinder, and is most commonly found in two sizes: 50 mL and 100 mL. It is closed at the top end with the bottom end immersed in water or mercury. The liquid traps a sample of gas in the cylinder, and the graduation allows the volume of the gas to be measured.
For some reactions, two platinum wires (chosen for their non-reactivity) are placed in the sealed end so an electric spark can be created between them. The electric spark can initiate a reaction in the gas mixture and the graduation on the cylinder can be read to determine the change in volume resulting from the reaction. The use of the device is quite similar to the original barometer, except that the gas inside displaces some of the liquid that is used.
In 1772, Joseph Priestley [1] began experimenting with different "airs" using his own redesigned pneumatic trough in which mercury instead of water would trap gases that were usually soluble in water. From these experiments Priestley is credited with discovering many new gases such as oxygen, hydrogen chloride, and ammonia. He also discovered a way to find the purity or "goodness" of air using "nitrous air test". The eudiometer functions on the greater solubility of NO2 in water over NO, and the oxidation reaction of NO into NO2 by air oxygen:
A quantity of air is combined with NO over water, and the more soluble compound NO2 dissolves, leaving the remaining air somewhat contracted in volume. The richer the air was in oxygen, the greater was the contraction. [2]
Marsilio Landriani was studying pneumatic chemistry with Pietro Moscati when they attempted to quantify Priestley's nitric acid test for air quality. Landriani used a pneumatic trough in the form of a tall, graduated cylinder over water. As it measured the salubrity of air, he called it a eudiometer [1] An associate of Moscati's, Felice Fontana also designed a eudiometer on the same principles and quantified the salubrity of the air. [3]
The eudiometer with the nitrous air test was the way Jan Ingenhousz verified that the bubbles given off under water by plant leaves exposed to sunlight were oxygen bubbles. His description of photosynthesis was published in 1779, and in 1785 he wrote about eudiometers in Journal de Physique (v 26, p 339). According to a biographer, Ingenhousz indicated that "many instruments were called eudiometers although strictly speaking they didn't deserve the name ... misunderstandings could exist when not everybody was using the same instruments." [2] : 205
An electrified version of the eudiometer was developed by Count Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), [4] an Italian physicist who is well known for his contributions to the electric battery and electricity. [5] Aside from its laboratory function, the eudiometer is also known for its part in the "Volta pistol". [6] Volta invented this instrument in 1777 for the purpose of testing the "goodness" of air, analyzing the flammability of gases, or to demonstrate the chemical effects of electricity. Volta's Pistol had a long glass tube that was closed at the top, like a eudiometer. Two electrodes were fed through the tube and produced a spark gap inside the tube. Volta's initial use of this instrument concerned the study of swamp gases in particular. Volta's pistol was filled with oxygen and another gas. The homogeneous mixture was taped shut with a cork. A spark could be introduced into the gas chamber by electrodes, and possibly catalyze a reaction by static electricity, using Volta's electrophorus. If the gases were flammable, they would explode, and increase the pressure within the gas chamber. This pressure would be too great and eventually cause the cork to become airborne. Volta's pistol was made with either glass or brass, however due to the electricity the glass was vulnerable to exploding. Volta's extensive studies on measuring and creating high levels of electric currents caused the electrical unit, the volt, to be named after him. [7]
In 1785 Henry Cavendish used a eudiometer to determine the fraction of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere.
The name "eudiometer" comes from the Greek εὔδιοςeúdios meaning clear or mild, which is the combination of the prefix eu- meaning "good", and -dios meaning "heavenly" or "of Zeus" (the god of the sky and atmosphere), [8] with the suffix -meter meaning "measure". [9] Because the eudiometer was originally used to measure the amount of oxygen in the air, which was thought to be greater in "nice" weather, [10] the root eudio- appropriately describes the apparatus.
Applications of a eudiometer include the analysis of gases and the determination of volume differences in chemical reactions. The eudiometer is filled with water, inverted so that its open end is facing the ground (while holding the open end so that no water escapes), and then submersed in a basin of water. A chemical reaction is taking place through which gas is created. One reactant is typically at the bottom of the eudiometer (which flows downward when the eudiometer is inverted) and the other reactant is suspended on the rim of the eudiometer, typically by means of a platinum or copper wire (due to their low reactivity). When the gas created by the chemical reaction is released, it should rise into the eudiometer so that the experimenter may accurately read the volume of the gas produced at any given time. Normally a person would read the volume when the reaction is completed. This procedure is followed in many experiments, including an experiment in which one experimentally determines the Ideal gas law constant R.
The eudiometer is similar in structure to the meteorological barometer. Similarly, a eudiometer uses water to release gas into the eudiometer tube, converting the gas into a visible, measurable amount. A correct measurement of the pressure when performing these experiments is crucial for the calculations involved in the PV=nRT equation, because the pressure could change the density of the gas. [11]
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution, was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology. It is generally accepted that Lavoisier's great accomplishments in chemistry stem largely from his changing the science from a qualitative to a quantitative one. Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. He recognized and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), and opposed the phlogiston theory. Lavoisier helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature. He predicted the existence of silicon (1787) and discovered that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same.
Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an outcome of a particular chemical change, or vice versa. These reactions involve electrons moving via an electronically-conducting phase between electrodes separated by an ionically conducting and electronically insulating electrolyte.
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. Oxygen is Earth's most abundant element, and after hydrogen and helium, it is the third-most abundant element in the universe. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O
2. Diatomic oxygen gas currently constitutes 20.95% of the Earth's atmosphere, though this has changed considerably over long periods of time. Oxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's crust in the form of oxides.
The voltaic pile was the first electrical battery that could continuously provide an electric current to a circuit. It was invented by Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, who published his experiments in 1799. The voltaic pile then enabled a rapid series of other discoveries including the electrical decomposition (electrolysis) of water into oxygen and hydrogen by William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle (1800) and the discovery or isolation of the chemical elements sodium (1807), potassium (1807), calcium (1808), boron (1808), barium (1808), strontium (1808), and magnesium (1808) by Humphry Davy.
Joseph Priestley was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist who published over 150 works.
Henry Cavendish FRS was an English natural philosopher and scientist who was an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. He is noted for his discovery of hydrogen, which he termed "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper, On Factitious Airs. Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name.
Jean Senebier was a Genevan Calvinist pastor and naturalist. He was chief librarian of the Republic of Geneva. A pioneer in the field of photosynthesis research, he provided extensive evidence that plants consume carbon dioxide and produced oxygen. He also showed a link between the amount of carbon dioxide available and the amount of oxygen produced and determined that photosynthesis took place at the parenchyma, the green fleshy part of the leaf.
Jan Ingenhousz or Ingen-Housz FRS was a Dutch-born British physiologist, biologist and chemist.
The history of chemistry represents a time span from ancient history to the present. By 1000 BC, civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis of the various branches of chemistry. Examples include the discovery of fire, extracting metals from ores, making pottery and glazes, fermenting beer and wine, extracting chemicals from plants for medicine and perfume, rendering fat into soap, making glass, and making alloys like bronze.
Industrial gases are the gaseous materials that are manufactured for use in industry. The principal gases provided are nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, hydrogen, helium and acetylene, although many other gases and mixtures are also available in gas cylinders. The industry producing these gases is also known as industrial gas, which is seen as also encompassing the supply of equipment and technology to produce and use the gases. Their production is a part of the wider chemical Industry.
A bell jar is a glass jar, similar in shape to a bell, and can be manufactured from a variety of materials. Bell jars are often used in laboratories to form and contain a vacuum. It is a common science apparatus used in experiments. Bell jars have a limited ability to create strong vacuums; vacuum chambers are available when higher performance is needed. They have been used to demonstrate the effect of vacuum on sound propagation.
A Hofmann voltameter is an apparatus for electrolysing water, invented by August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818–1892) in 1866. It consists of three joined upright cylinders, usually glass. The inner cylinder is open at the top to allow addition of water which contains a low concentration of a compound such as sulfuric acid to improve conductivity and complete the circuit. A platinum electrode is placed inside the bottom of each of the two side cylinders, connected to the positive and negative terminals of a source of electricity. When current is run through Hofmann's voltameter, gaseous oxygen forms at the anode and gaseous hydrogen at the cathode. Each gas displaces water and collects at the top of the two outer tubes.
Electrochemistry, a branch of chemistry, went through several changes during its evolution from early principles related to magnets in the early 16th and 17th centuries, to complex theories involving conductivity, electric charge and mathematical methods. The term electrochemistry was used to describe electrical phenomena in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In recent decades, electrochemistry has become an area of current research, including research in batteries and fuel cells, preventing corrosion of metals, the use of electrochemical cells to remove refractory organics and similar contaminants in wastewater electrocoagulation and improving techniques in refining chemicals with electrolysis and electrophoresis.
A photosynthetic reaction center is a complex of several proteins, pigments and other co-factors that together execute the primary energy conversion reactions of photosynthesis. Molecular excitations, either originating directly from sunlight or transferred as excitation energy via light-harvesting antenna systems, give rise to electron transfer reactions along the path of a series of protein-bound co-factors. These co-factors are light-absorbing molecules (also named chromophores or pigments) such as chlorophyll and pheophytin, as well as quinones. The energy of the photon is used to excite an electron of a pigment. The free energy created is then used, via a chain of nearby electron acceptors, for a transfer of hydrogen atoms (as protons and electrons) from H2O or hydrogen sulfide towards carbon dioxide, eventually producing glucose. These electron transfer steps ultimately result in the conversion of the energy of photons to chemical energy.
Oxygenevolution is the process of generating molecular oxygen (O2) by a chemical reaction, usually from water. Oxygen evolution from water is effected by oxygenic photosynthesis, electrolysis of water, and thermal decomposition of various oxides. The biological process supports aerobic life. When relatively pure oxygen is required industrially, it is isolated by distillation of liquified air.
In the history of science, pneumatic chemistry is an area of scientific research of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. Important goals of this work were the understanding of the physical properties of gases and how they relate to chemical reactions and, ultimately, the composition of matter. The rise of phlogiston theory, and its replacement by a new theory after the discovery of oxygen as a gaseous component of the Earth atmosphere and a chemical reagent participating in the combustion reactions, were addressed in the era of pneumatic chemistry.
Air-free techniques refer to a range of manipulations in the chemistry laboratory for the handling of compounds that are air-sensitive. These techniques prevent the compounds from reacting with components of air, usually water and oxygen; less commonly carbon dioxide and nitrogen. A common theme among these techniques is the use of a fine (100–10−3 Torr) or high (10−3–10−6 Torr) vacuum to remove air, and the use of an inert gas: preferably argon, but often nitrogen.
A pneumatic trough is a piece of laboratory apparatus used for collecting gases, such as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
Marsilio Landriani was an Italian chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He became known with his first book, Ricerche fisiche intorno alla salubrità dell'aria, published in 1775. In it he described a new instrument, the eudiometer, which was later improved by Volta with the addition of spark wires. From 1776 he held the chair of experimental physics in the Brera Ginnasio (College). In 1781 he published his second book, Opuscoli fisico-chimici, which contributed to opening a new way to the theory of acidity.
