Question

How does this experiment (Heats of Reaction) illustrate the Law of Conservation of Energy? Explain using your experimental results. (I got experimental data of 57,671.2J; adding together experiment 1 and 2, while experiment three got a total of 64,486.3J. Yes, I know, a lot of experimental error) but I'm confused on what this has to do with Law of Conservation of Energy?

Answer 1

The law of conservation of energy states that energy is indestructible, i.e, energy can neither be created, nor destroyed; however, energy can be transferred into other forms, for example, heat energy can be converted to mechanical work or electrical energy, etc. The heats of neutralization lab demonstrates the law of conservation of energy. The sum of the heats of the reaction for reactions 1 and 2 is 57,671.2 J while the heat of reaction for reaction 3 is 64,486.3 J. Offcourse, the results show deviation due to experimental errors. However, if all sources of experimental errors are minimized, then it will be found that sum of the heats in 1 and 2 will equal the heat of the reaction in 3. The difference can be accounted for by the fact that during neutralization reaction, work is done to dissolve the chemicals in water to form ions and the ions combine to form the neutral salt and water. Thus, the sum total of the energy will be constant; however, energy can be converted to work.