Measurement of Ring Strain Using Butanols: A Physical Chemistry Lab Experiment

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

Publication Title

Journal of Chemical Education

Abstract

In this article, a bomb calorimeter experiment and subsequent calculations aimed at determining the strain energy of the cyclobutane backbone are described. Students use several butanol isomers instead of the parent hydrocarbons, and they manipulate liquids instead of gases, which makes the experiment much easier to perform. Experiments show that the estimated strain energy is reasonably close to literature values for cyclobutane.

DOI

10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00651

Volume

93

Issue

9

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