Physics Internal Assessment

Candidate code: ghp024

Investigating Charles Law and deducing the

absolute zero temperature

Pu

Word count: 1534

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 Physics Internal Assessment
Candidate code: ghp024

Introduction

Charles's law is an experimental gas law that describes how gases tend to expand when
heated.1 This means that a fixed mass of gas at constant pressure, the volume (V) is
directly proportional to the absolute temperature (T), or V T at constant pressure. This law
describes how a gas expands as the temperature increases; a decrease in temperature will
lead to a decrease in volume. 2 French physicist Jacques Charles discovered this in 1787,
and showed that the volume changed by approximately 1/273 of the volume at zero degrees
for each 1 C temperature change, which implied that at negative 273.15 degrees Celsius
the volume of the gas becomes zero.3 As an active scuba diver, I often consider how air
changes under pressure in scuba tanks, and have wondered how the temperature of the gas
affects this pressure. I want to explore this using Charles law as it describes this relationship.
Thus, my research question is; how does the volume of air change with temperature
under constant pressure, and how can Charles Law be used to deduce the absolute
zero temperature? This exploration will investigate Charles law, and attempt to confirm
Charles value for the absolute zero temperature.

Kelvin is measured as 0 K being this absolute zero temperature, or the Celsius degrees
minus 273.15, so when plotting the degrees of a gas in Kelvin versus its volume under
constant pressure, we would expect the trend line to meet the origin as the volume reaches
zero.

Experimental
The equipment used included a digital thermometer with an uncertainty of 0.1 degrees
Celsius, a capillary tube with a 0.10 cm 0.01 cm bore, a 15.00 cm 0.05 cm ruler, rubber
bands, a tripod, a 650 cm beaker, a glass rod, a bunsen burner and a stopwatch.

The experimental setup was designed to measure the volume of a set mass of air under
different temperatures. The pressure was held constant under the assumption that the
atmospheric pressure is constant. By placing a beaker on a tripod, and placing a capillary
tube that was attached to a ruler in the beaker, the beaker could be filled with water with
various temperatures and the changes in volume of the air inside the capillary tube could be
recorded from the ruler, and from this the volume of the air in the capillary tube could be
calculated. The tube was placed into the beaker with the open end pointing downwards, so
that it was free to adjust as the volume changed without affecting the pressure to a great
extent. Sulphuric acid is hydrophilic, meaning it is a molecule that is attracted to water
molecules, and was therefore used to remove water vapour from the air trapped in the

1
"Charles's law." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 21 Mar. 2017.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%27s_law>.
2
"Charles's law." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 21 Mar. 2017.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%27s_law>.
3
Ib Physics Online Course Book 2014. N.p.: Oxford Univ Pr, 2014. Print. Page 102
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capillary tube to ensure it was dry.4 The approximately 5 mm of sulfuric acid functioned as
an index that trapped the air column to both make measurements easier and to make sure
the air remained as dry as possible.5 A digital thermometer was also be placed inside the
beaker to record the temperature. A bunsen burner was placed under the tripod to heat up
the water when necessary, and a stirring rod was used to stirr to ensure an even
temperature of the water. The experimental setup is presented in the figure below:

Experimental setup

Procedure
The capillary tube used was 3.00 cm long and has a 0.10 cm 0.01 cm bore, closed at one
end and open at the other. When inserting the sulfuric acid the tube was placed into a deep
beaker of strong brine and boiled. This ensured that the tube were dry internally as well as
hot. While still hot, the open end of the tube was dipped into a small beaker containing
concentrated sulfuric acid, so that approximately 5 mm length of acid was drawn into the

4
"Hydrophile." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Mar. 2017. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophile>.
5
"Brainshare." Brainshare. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.
<http://en-brainshare.cloudapp.net/open_content/notes/2216-the-gas-lawsthe-gas-laws>.

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tube as it cooled. For safety reasons glasses and gloves were used at all times when
handling the sulfuric acid. The tube was then left to cool further.

The capillary tube was attached to the ruler with rubber bands, so that the capillary tube was
completely underwater while fixed in place so that the end on the top of the air column inside
the tube was made to coincide with the 10.00 cm mark on centimetre scale on the ruler to
make measurements easier. Water was added to the beaker. When a higher temperature of
water was wanted, the bunsen burner was turned on and placed under a tripod with the
beaker placed on top, and turned on. The water was then stirred with a glass rod to ensure a
constant temperature throughout. The water held at constant temperature for about 30
minutes, which were timed with a stopwatch, before the temperature and length of the air
column in the capillary tube was recorded. This was repeated for all the trials with different
temperatures of water.

The raw data obtained from these trials are presented in the table below:

Table 1

Measured height of air

Temperature of water
Trial column
( 0.1 C)
( 0.05 cm)

1 6.6 2.06
2 10.2 2.08
3 19.6 2.14
4 30.5 2.25
5 42.0 2.36

The way the length of column changes reveals how the volume of the air alters as the
volume (V) is equal to the length measured multiplied with the area of the cross section of
the tube. The volume in trial 1 was found from the calculation below:
V olume of air = 2.06 cm 0.05 cm ( 0.10 cm 2 0.01 cm )
= 0.0161 cm 22.52% cm = 0.0161 0.0036 cm

The following volumes were calculated in a similar matter for all trial, and the temperature
was converted from degrees Celsius to Kelvin. The values obtained from these calculations
are presented in the table below:

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Table 2

Trial Temperature of water ( 0.1 Volume of air

K) (cm)

1 279.8 0.0161 0.0036

2 283.4 0.0163 0.0037
3 292.8 0.0167 0.0037
4 303.6 0.0176 0.0039
5 315.2 0.0185 0.0040

A linear trend-line was plotted for all the data points, so that a continuation of this trend-line
could be used to find a value for the absolute zero temperature as the volume becomes
zero. The data from table 1 was used to plot the following graph:

Graph 1

Temperature of air (K) vs. volume of air (cm)

The error bars on the x-axis are too small to visible the graph at this scale. Using linear
regression the correlation-coefficient for this graph was found to be 0.993, indicating that we
can be confident that this is a linear relationship. The graph will only be theoretical in the
negative y-direction as the volume can not be negative, but contributes to showing the
degree of error and precision in the experiment. The graph also indicated that the value for

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the absolute zero occurs at approximately 44 Kelvins, as seen in the close up version of the
trend-line as the volume approaches 0 cm:

Graph 2

Temperature of air (K) vs. Volume of air (cm)

Since the temperature was given in Kelvin, we would expect a perfect experiment to give
exactly 0 K when the volume becomes zero so that the volume and temperature meets at
the origin of the graph. As we can see from Graph 2, my experiment gave the absolute zero
temperature to be 44.21, indicating that the experiment was flawed as it gave inaccurate
results.

Evaluation
There are several ways I could have improved my experiment to achieve a more accurate
result. I did not consider that the pressure will have increased some from the assumed
atmospheric pressure when placed under water, but this should not have an effect on the
final result as it only changes the slope of the straight trend-line.

However, since only the temperature of the water surrounding the air and not the air itself
was measured there may be some uncertainty in the temperature of the air, as I assumed
the two temperatures were the same. The heat may not have transferred through the
capillary tube to give the air the same temperature as the water in the time of the trials. This
was however controlled for to some extent, as a considerable amount of time was spent with
the water held at constant temperature before the volume was recorded.

The experiment also builds upon the assumption that the capillary tube had the exact same
diameter inside throughout, which has not been explored or confirmed. Even small

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fluctuations in the diameter could have had an effect on my experiment as the diameter was
so small in the first place. Also, there may have been some measuring error when
measuring the position of the index because of the viscosity of the nitric acid when moving
from one position to another.

I could have used a longer tube and a greater mass of air to obtain a higher precision in the
measurement of the volume. Also, if more data points were obtained that would also have
increased the certainty of the data, which may have given more accurate results, so I could
have done more trials at a greater range of temperatures to increase the accuracy of the
experiment.

My deduction of the absolute zero temperature value gave very limited results as I was off by
44.21 Kelvins, but I did manage to effectively demonstrate the directly proportional
relationship between temperature and volume under constant pressure with a high
correlation coefficient.

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Bibliography

"Thermal expansion of air - Charles' law." Welcome to practical physics. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar.
2017. <http://practicalphysics.org/thermal-expansion-air-charles-law.html>.

"Charles's law." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 21 Mar. 2017.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%27s_law>.

IB Physics Online Course Book 2014. N.p.: Oxford Univ Pr, 2014. Print. Page 102

"Hydrophile." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Mar. 2017. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophile>.

"Charles' Law." Meh RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2017.

<http://editthis.info/meh/Charles%27_Law>.

"Brainshare." Brainshare. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.

<http://en-brainshare.cloudapp.net/open_content/notes/2216-the-gas-lawsthe-gas-laws>.

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