Mia Alexa Ellinor Dagum

Jose Ende

EXPERIMENT 3
VISCOSITY AS A FUNCTION OF TEMPERATURE

INTRODUCTION

Viscosity (η) is the state of being thick, sticky, and semifluid in consistency, due to internal
friction which is measured by the force per unit area resisting a flow in which parallel layers unit
distance apart have unit speed relative to one another (dictionary.com (n.d.)). Basically, it is the
resistance of a liquid to flow. It is one of the properties of liquid that depend on the nature of
intermolecular interactions or IMF with surface tension and capillary action. One way of evaluating
liquid’s viscosity is by measuring the time it takes for a quantity of liquid to flow through a narrow
vertical capillary tube from point A to point B. It is expressed in units of the poise (mPa*s) and the
higher the magnitude of the poise, the higher the viscosity of the liquid is. Viscosity of the liquid
correlates with IMF. Liquids can flow only if molecules can move past each other with minimal
resistance but if IMFs are strong, it is more difficult for molecules to move resulting to slower liquid
flow. For example, with ethanol and ethylene glycol, the presence of the added hydroxyl group at
the bottom carbon of ethanol (Figure 1), increases the viscosity of the molecule. This is because of
the increased number of hydrogen that can form H-bonding with adjacent ethylene glycol molecules
which also increases the IMF of the liquid (chem.libretexts.org, (June 2019)).

Viscosity also has a correlation with the shape of the molecule. Liquid molecules with long
flexible structure tend to be more viscous while those which are spherical or shorter-chain molecules
are less viscous. Because of the molecular shape, the longer ones are easier to ‘tangle’ with another
causing for the difficulty to past each other increase. In addition, those which have longer chains
have higher LDF or London dispersion forces. Due to these effects, long-chain hydrocarbons have
higher viscosities (chem.libretexts.org, (June 2019)).

Temperature is measurement of the warmth or coldness of an object or substance with

reference to some standard value (dictionary.com, (n.d.)) and is often correlated with the kinetic
energy of the molecules in the substance. It can change the time by which the liquid flows from
point A to B which basically says that viscosity of a liquid is also determined by the temperature—
higher temperature decreases viscosity of a liquid. As the molecules of the liquid absorb more kinetic
energy, friction between molecules decrease causing for even long-chained molecules to move
around more freely. The increase in temperature, causes the molecules to move faster enabling the
molecules to overcome the forces that hold them together, and also causes the disentanglement of
the long chains creating a faster flow of liquid (chem.libretexts.org, (June 2019)).

Water Benzene
Molecule

Boiling Point (C) 100 80.1

Numerous expressions have been proposed for representing the liquid viscosity () us a
function of temperature (T) through available experimental data for an interpolation purpose. For
the linear behavior, it is found that the temperature dependence of dynamic viscosity can be fitted
frequently with the Arrhenius type equation for numerous classic solvents, which can be rewritten
in the logarithmic form:
𝐸 1
ln(𝑛) = (𝑅)(𝑇) + ln(𝐴) (1)
 Where R, E and A are the gas constant, the Arrhenius activation energy and the pre-
exponential (entropic) factor of the Arrhenius equation for the liquid system respectively. Thus, the
relationship between the logarithm of viscosity (ln and the reciprocal of absolute temperature
(1/T) for numerous liquid systems is assumed to be linear. In addition, the Arrhenius parameters,
which are the activation energy (E) and the pre-exponential factor (lnA), are thus independent of
temperature.

RESULTS AND CALCULATIONS

Table 1. Average Elution Time of Water and Benzene at 30°C, 50°C, and 70°C.

Table 2. Density and Viscosity of Water and Benzene at 30°C, 50°C, and 70°C.
Water Benzene
Time 1 (s) Time 2 (s)
Temperature (°C ) Average
30 294.0 278.7
50 242.7 220.3
70 200.0 196.7
Water Benzene
Temperature (°C) Density(kg/m3) Viscosity(mPa*s) Density(kg/m3) Viscosity(mPa*s)
30 995.7 0.7978 868.0 0.6593
50 988.9 0.5471 847.0 0.4253
70 977.6 0.4044 826.0 0.3339

Table 3. Values for the Slope, Arrhenius Activation Energy, and Gas Constant.
Benzene
m 35.226 °C
R 8.314 J/mol K
E 2.564 kJ/mol
 ln η vs 1/T Graph
0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035

-0.2
y = 35.226x - 1.5835
R² = 0.9962
-0.4
ln η

-0.6

-0.8

-1

-1.2
1/T

Fig. 1. The linear relationship between viscosity and time.

Calculations for finding the viscosity of benzene:

1. T=30°C
η1 𝑑 𝑡
= 𝑑1 𝑡1 (2)
η2 2 2
𝑑1 𝑡1 η2
η =
1 (3)
𝑑2 𝑡2
(868.0kg/m3)(278.7s)(0.7978mPas)
η1 = (995.7kg/m3)(294.0s)
η1 = 0.6593mPas

2. T=50°C
(847.0kg/m3)(220.3s)(0.5471mPas)
η1 = (988.9kg/m3)(242.7s)
η1 = 0.4253mPas

3. T=50°C
(826.0kg/m3)(196.7s)(0.4044mPas)
η1 = (977.6kg/m3)(200.0s)
η1 = 0.3339mPas

Calculation for the Arrhenius activation energy:

𝐸 1
ln(𝑛) = (𝑅)(𝑇) + ln(𝐴) (1)
𝐸
m=
𝑅
E = mR
1kJ
E = (35.226 + 273.15K)(8.314J/molK) ( )
1000J
E = 2.564kJ/mol
DISCUSSION

In the experiment, in an average, it was observed that benzene flows faster than water making
it less viscous, as shown in Table 1 and 2. The difference in flow of the molecules of water from
benzene was caused by the presence mainly of H-bonding that water has in its surrounding
molecules. The hydrogens strongly attract the oxygen molecules of the other water molecules to be
able to stabilize forming hydrogen-bonding. The two hydrogens found connected to the oxygen atom
in the molecule creates strong IMF which in turn delays the liquid flow compared to the hydrocarbon
benzene ring. The benzene ring is more stable than water. Though it is a large molecule compared
to water, its structure has no branch chains that may cause for entanglement with other benzene
molecules. This explains why benzene flowed faster and is therefore less viscous. The viscosity of
benzene,η2 , was calculated using eq. 1,
η1 𝑑 𝑡
= 𝑑1 𝑡1 (2),
η2 2 2
where η1 and d1 are the viscosity and density of distilled water, respectively.

It was also observed that for liquids water and benzene, as temperature increased from 30C,
which is the room temperature of the laboratory, to 50C, after heat, and then 70C, temperature below
boiling point of benzene which is 80C, there was a significant change in the flow of the liquids. Both
the water and the benzene flowed faster when temperature was increased. This is so because
temperature is a measurement of kinetic energy of the system and with the increase of energy,
molecules mover faster and more freely than when temperature is lower. The increase in the kinetic
energy of the system decreases the friction or the resistance between molecules to move which
therefore increases the rate of movement of the liquid.
The decreased viscosity as the temperature increased can be attributed to the energy
needed to overcome the resistance to flow. This energy is due to the attractive forces among the
benzene molecules. The higher the energy indicates a viscosity that is more sensitive to
temperature. In order to calculate the energy needed to overcome elementary flow process in
benzene, slope of the line of the eq. 1 was plotted, as shown in Fig. 1. From the results shown in
Table 3, this energy is equal to 2.564 kJ/mol which is quite a high value. Thus, this indicates that the
change in viscosity of benzene is highly influenced by the change in temperature.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, by measuring the rate at which liquid flows through a narrow tube, viscosity
was measured. With higher IMFs between molecules, flow of liquid decrease and liquid becomes
more viscous. The effect of temperature in the viscosity of the liquid benzene was determined
using correlation between the natural logarithm of the viscosity and the reciprocal of the
temperature. The relationship between viscosity and temperature was attributed to the energy
needed to overcome elementary flow process of the benzene which is due to the attractive forces
among its molecules. Therefore, the high value of E indicates that benzene have viscosity that is
more sensitive to temperature.

REFERENCES
Libretexts. (2019, June 3). 11.4: Intermolecular Forces in Action: Surface Tension, Viscosity, and
Capillary Action. Retrieved October 7, 2019, from
https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Map:_A_Molecular_Approach_(Tro)/
11:_Liquids,_Solids,_and_Intermolecular_Forces/11.04:_Intermolecular_Forces_in_Action:_Surfa
ce_Tension,_Viscosity,_and_Capillary_Action.

Libretexts. (2019, June 5). 10.6: Viscosity. Retrieved October 7, 2019, from
https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Book:_ChemPRIME_(Moore_et_al.)/
10Solids,_Liquids_and_Solutions/10.06:_Viscosity.

Llc. (2014, May 1). Water - Density Viscosity Specific Weight. Retrieved October 7, 2019, from
https://www.engineersedge.com/physics/water__density_viscosity_specific_weight_13146.htm.

Temperature. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/temperature?s=t.

Viscosity. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2019, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/viscosity?s=t.