Measuring the Van der Waals constants for Freon 13 and Sulfur Hexafluoride Gases

by Derek Kverno and Cabell Fisher

January 25 -February 12 1999

 

Abstract:

        Using  the following equipment:

  1. Central Scientific Company Thermal Equation of State and Critical Point Apparatus No. 32019.
  2. A vacuum pump
  3. Thermocouple with pressure meter
  4. A water pump/heater
  5. Several feet of rubber tubing
  6. Sulfur Hexafluoride and Freon 13 gas

we were able to measure the Van der Waals constants for the Freon 13 and Sulfur Hexafluoride gases.  Although we ran into several limitations due to our apparatus breaking several times, we were still able to acquire data that adhered to the ideal gas law at low pressures and to Van der Waals equation of state at high pressure.   Our data was analyzed by using the Mathmatica program to fit a curve to our data while varying the a and b Van der Waals coefficients.  These Mathmatetica notebooks can be viewed in our Data and Results section.

 

Table of Contents:

  1. Introduction and Theory
  2. Experimental Setup
  3. Data and Results
  4. Conclusions