In this project, you will showcase your research and chemical calculation capabilities, conceptual understanding of the behavior of gases, and your understanding of the nature of thermochemistry, as related to explosions.
You will be creating and submitting a single document that will have all answers clearly labeled, along with any sources you used with APA citations.
Instructions
For this project, you’ll continue working with the explosive you engaged with in Discussions #1-2 of this module. Now, you are going to present the information a bit more formally, because you are now playing the part of an explosive substance salesman. Pretend your company has just created this new explosive compound and you want to sell it. A potential buyer has written to your company asking about the explosive power of your substance. Note that images are welcome and might help you make the sale!
Write a letter to your prospective client, in which you will address the following elements:
Provide some background information (a 4-5 sentence paragraph). Note: you can use some of the information you found in Discussion #1, but re-work it in a way that “sells” your explosive to your client.
Showcase your substance by giving the chemical structure of your compound in a figure, the systematic IUPAC name. Give the figure a caption.
Write the balanced chemical equation that illustrates your explosives decomposition.
In Discussion # 2, you determined the theoretical enthalpy of your explosive reaction. This is can also be termed the heat of explosion, but when it is termed heat of explosion, the units are traditionally kJ/kg of substance. Convert your enthalpy of reaction (kJ/mol) to heat of explosion (kJ/kg) using the molar mass of your explosive. List that value here and use it to calculate the explosive energy of 5.00 kg.
In Discussion #1, you calculated the volume of gas that your explosive would produce if 1 g of it was used, assuming standard temperature and pressure (STP)and any water produced in the gaseous state. Is this actually accurate, as the gas is usually heated as a result of the explosion, resulting in a much larger volume of gas? But what temperature will the gas reach? Calculate the final volume of the gas produced from 1.00 g of your explosive using Charles’ Law, and assuming your explosion reaches a temperature of 3000 K.
Remember Charles’ law? V1/T1 = V2/T2
The prospective buyer wants to know the actual explosive power of your substance. Explosive power is defined as the heat of explosion (kJ/kg) x the volume of gases (L/g) produced (at final temperature). Calculate the explosive power of your substance. Use the volume of your gas produced after heating by “heat of explosion”.
Write a 1-3 sentences summary saying why you think your explosive compound should be chosen for their project based on the information you obtained above.
