NATIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL

ITPL, BENGALURU

INVESTIGATORY PROJECT IN CHEMISTRY

Determination of the Rate of Evaporation of Different
Liquids

SESSION: 2022-23
CLASS – XI-C

Made By:
Ojas Taori
Roll number:19

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my gratitude to Ms. Archana M. Kunchu, my chemistry teacher, for

her advice and unwavering support as I worked on my project.
I appreciate my parents and friends for the inspiration and direction necessary,
without which this project would not have been possible.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who was directly or indirectly involved in the
project's successful competition.

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 NATIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL
ITPL, BENGALURU

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

CERTIFICATE
Certified that the work in this file is the bonafide work of
Ojas Taori of grade XI C
Roll Number 19 recorded in the school laboratory during the
academic year 2022-2023.

Date:

----------------------------------- ------------------------------
Teacher in charge External Examiner

School Seal

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INDEX

Introduction 5

Theory 6-8

Objective 8

Experiment 9-10

Bibliography 11

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INTRODUCTION

When a liquid is placed in an open vessel, it slowly escapes into gaseous phase
eventually leaving the vessel empty. We observe such phenomenon everyday in
our lives be it on a hot day when rain water collected in a puddle ‘vanishes’ or
when wet clothes dry in the sun and they are no longer damp. The liquid water
in these cases does not vanish or disappear but changes its state from liquid to
gas to the form of water vapour and seemingly disappears. This process is called
evaporation. Such a process can be defined as when an element or compound in
its liquid state transitions into a gaseous state by gaining sufficient energy below
the temperature at which it boils. The converted gaseous equivalent of a liquid
is called the liquids vapour. It is an endothermic process.

Evaporation is an essential part of the water cycle. Solar energy drives

evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, moisture in the soil, and other sources
of water. In hydrology, evaporation and transpiration (which involves
evaporation within plant stomata) are collectively termed evapotranspiration.
Evaporation is caused when water is exposed to air and the liquid molecules
turn into water vapour which rises up and forms clouds.

For a molecule to evaporate, its thermal motion must be sufficient to break

through the liquid's surface tension, which means that its kinetic energy must be
greater than the surface’s work function of cohesion. Therefore, at higher
temperatures and in liquids with lower surface tension, evaporation happens
more quickly.

The rate of evaporation is constrained because only a tiny part of the molecules
are present at the surface and only a small number of molecules move in a
manner that will allow them to escape. Furthermore, as the faster-moving
molecules flee, the average kinetic energy of the molecules that remain falls,
lowering the temperature of the liquid.

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THEORY

Rate of evaporation:
The rate at which a liquid vaporizes into its vapour. It is often represented as a
ratio where the rate of evaporation of a given volume in specific time is
compared to the rate of evaporation of a known liquid.

Factors influencing rate of evaporation:

• Concentration of the substance evaporating in the air;
If the air already has a high concentration of the substance evaporating,
then the given substance will evaporate more slowly.

• Concentration of other substances in the air;

If the air is already saturated with other substances, it can have a lower
capacity for the substance evaporating.

• Temperature of the substance;

If the substance is hotter, then evaporation will be faster.

• Flow rate of air;

This is in part related to the concentration points above, if fresh air is
moving over the substance all the time, then the concentration of the
substance in the air is less likely to go up with time, thus encouraging
faster evaporation. In addition, molecules in motion have higher energy
than those at rest, and so the stronger the flow of air, the greater the
capacity for evaporation of the air molecules.

• Inter-molecular forces;
The stronger the forces keeping the molecules together in the liquid or
solid state the more energy that must be input in order to evaporate them.

• Surface area;
As molecules or atoms evaporate from a liquids surface, a larger surface
area allows more molecules or atoms to leave the liquid, and evaporation
occurs more quickly. For example, the same amount of water will

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 evaporate faster if spilled on a table than if it is left in a cup.

• Temperature;
Higher temperatures also increase the rate of evaporation. At higher
temperatures, molecules or atoms are more excited, have a higher average
speed, and more particles are able to break free of the liquids surface. For
example, a wet cloth will dry faster in the hot sun than in the shade.

• Intermolecular Forces;
Since molecules make up liquids, their levels of mutual attraction can be
used to explain why some liquids evaporate more quickly than others.
Because molecules often have parts with a slight negative charge and
other regions with a slight positive charge, these regions interact with one
another and generate attraction. Some atoms in a given molecule are
frequently more electronegative (electron-attracting) than others, these
areas are where electric charge is produced. For instance, the oxygen
atom in a water (H2O) molecule is more electronegative than the
hydrogen atoms, enabling the oxygen atom to pull electrons away from
both hydrogen atoms. As a result, the oxygen atom in the water molecule
carries a partial negative charge, while the hydrogen atoms carry a partial
positive charge. Intermolecular attractions affect the rate of evaporation
of a liquid because strong intermolecular attractions hold the molecules in
a liquid together more tightly. As a result, liquids with strong
intermolecular attractions evaporate more slowly than liquids with weak
intermolecular attractions. For example, because water molecules have
stronger mutual attractions than gasoline molecules (the electric charges
are more evenly distributed in gasoline molecules), gasoline evaporates
more quickly than water.

• Whether the liquid is enclosed in a container;

If the evaporation takes place in a closed vessel, the escaping molecules
accumulate as a vapor above the liquid. Many of the molecules return to
the liquid, with returning molecules becoming more frequent as the
density and pressure of the vapor increases.

• Density;
The evaporation rate increases with increasing the heat flux density
because of raising the number of molecules of a liquid the effective
kinetic energy of the molecules increases becoming sufficient to
overcome the attraction of neighbouring molecules and move to a vapour.
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 • Pressure;
In an area of less pressure, evaporation happens faster because there is
less exertion on the surface keeping the molecules from separating from
one another and vice versa for higher pressure.

Saturation of vapor:
After the process of evaporation has continued for a period of time it is
observed that eventually evaporation slows down and appears to stop. When the
process of escape and return reaches equilibrium, the vapour is said to be
‘saturated,’ and no further change in either vapour pressure and density or liquid
temperature will occur. A vapour whose temperature and pressure are such that
any compression of its volume at constant temperature causes it to condense to
liquid at a rate sufficient to maintain a constant pressure is known as saturated
vapor.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of this project is to investigate the varying rates of evaporation of
different liquids and how their varying characteristics affect this by observation.
The rate of evaporation in this case is calculated by dividing the change in
weight of the liquid(in grams) by the time taken(in minutes), Δm/t

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EXPERIMENT

Aim:
To compare the rate of evaporation of water, acetone and diethyl ether.

Materials required:
Watch glass, Pipette, Beaker, Weighing scale, Measuring flask, Acetone,
Distilled water, Diethyl ether, Stopwatch.

Procedure:
1. Take three clean watch glasses.

2. Pipette out 10 ml of each sample. Label them as; A-Acetone, B-Water, C-

Diethyl Ether.

3. Record the weight of each sample at the beginning of the experiment.

4. Leave the three watch glasses undisturbed at room temperature for half an
hour.

5. After 30 minutes, carefully weigh the samples again.

6. Note the observations in a table.

Observations:

Liquid(10 ml) Water Acetone Diethyl Ether

Weight before 10 7.85 7
evaporation(g)
Weight after 8.8 5.55 4.35
evaporation(g)
Difference in 1.2 2.3 2.65
weight(g)

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 Rate of 0.04 0.076 0.088
evaporation
(change in
weight/time)

Result:
The rate of evaporation of the given three liquids is in order; Diethyl Ether >
Acetone > Water.
Water has extensive hydrogen bonding in between oxygen atom of one
molecule and hydrogen atom of another molecule. But this is absent in the case
of acetone.

Precautions:
• The samples must be in shade.

• The samples must remain undisturbed.

• The watch glasses must be of similar size and shape.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Icbse.com

Byjus.com

Brittancia.com

Seminarsonly.com

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