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You are likely to come across statements that say that something is energetically more
stable than something else. For example, in the next page in this section you will find
that I have said that oxygen, O2, is more energetically stable than ozone, O3. What does
this mean?
If you plot the positions of oxygen and ozone on an energy diagram, it looks like this:
The lower down the energy diagram something is, the more energetically stable it is. If
ozone converted into ordinary oxygen, heat energy would be released, and the oxygen
would be in a more energetically stable form than it was before.
So why doesn't ozone immediately convert into the more energetically stable oxygen?
Similarly, if you mix petrol (gasoline) and air at ordinary temperatures (when you are
filling up a car, for example), why doesn't it immediately convert into carbon dioxide and
water? It would be much more energetically stable if it turned into carbon dioxide and
water - you can tell that, because lots of heat is given out when petrol burns in air. But
there is no reaction when you mix the two.
For any reaction to happen, bonds have to be broken, and new ones made. Breaking
bonds takes energy. There is a minimum amount of energy needed before a reaction
can start - activation energy. If the molecules don't, for example, hit each other with
enough energy, then nothing happens. We say that the mixture is kinetically stable,
even though it may be energetically unstable with respect to its possible products.
So a petrol and air mixture at ordinary temperatures doesn't react, even though a lot of
energy would be released if the reaction took place. Petrol and air are energetically
unstable with respect to carbon dioxide and water - they are much higher up the energy
diagram. But a petrol and air mixture is kinetically stable at ordinary temperatures,
because the activation energy barrier is too high.
If you expose the mixture to a flame or a spark, then you get a major fire or explosion.
The initial flame supplies activation energy. The heat given out by the molecules that
react first is more than enough to supply the activation energy for the next molecules to
react - and so on.
Enthalpy changes
The phrase "at constant pressure" is an essential part of the definition but,
apart from that, you are unlikely to need to worry about it if you are doing a
UK-based exam at the equivalent of A level.
Standard conditions
298 K (25C)
a pressure of 1 bar (100 kPa).
Standard states
That means that the standard state for water, for example, is liquid
water, H2O(l) - not steam or water vapour or ice.
For example, carbon exists in the solid state as both diamond and
graphite. Graphite is energetically slightly more stable than
diamond, and so graphite is taken as the standard state of carbon.
Note: Technically, the "o" in the symbol should have a horizontal line
through it, extending out at each side. This is such a bother to produce
convincingly without the risk of different computers producing unreliable
results, that I shall use the common practice of simplifying it to "o".
Note: When you are trying to learn these definitions, you can make life
easier for yourself by picking out the key bit, and adding the other bits on
afterwards. The key bit about this definition is that you are forming 1 mole
of a compound from its elements. All the stuff about enthalpy change and
standard conditions and standard states is common to most of these
definitions.
When you are writing one of these equations for enthalpy change
of formation, you must end up with 1 mole of the compound. If that
needs you to write fractions on the left-hand side of the equation,
that is OK. (In fact, it is not just OK, it is essential, because
otherwise you will end up with more than 1 mole of compound, or
else the equation won't balance!)
The equation shows that 286 kJ of heat energy is given out when 1
mole of liquid water is formed from its elements under standard
conditions.
For example, if you "make" one mole of hydrogen gas starting from
one mole of hydrogen gas you aren't changing it in any way, so you
wouldn't expect any enthalpy change. That is equally true of any
other element. The enthalpy change of formation of any element
has to be zero because of the way enthalpy change of formation is
defined.
Two examples:
Notice: