Class: BE-210
Group: W4
Members: Kate Guterl, Soe Ahn, Laura Swibel, William Altman
Date: Spring 1998
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Abstract:
A high sulfur containing amino acid, cysteine was used to determine the accuracy of the non-adiabatic Parr Bomb Calorimeter in measuring the heats of combustion of such compounds. The result shows that sulfur-containing compounds could be accurately measured using the bomb calorimeter. Our measurements had a .02% deviation, showing the precision of our technique. The heat of combustion was found to be 449 kcal/mole. This value was calculated taking into account all corrections that needed to be made for the burning of the fuse wire and the formation of nitric and sulfuric acid. When calculating the heat of formation without making these corrections, the heat of combustion was within 0.6% of the reference value. We assume that the reference value was calculated without any corrections. To verify that our measurements were accurate, we tested a sucrose and sulfur mixture with a similar sulfur composition to cysteine. The value was within 0.53% of the theoretical value. When pure sucrose was tested it was within 0.7% of the given literature value. This verified the accuracy of the Parr bomb calorimeter in measuring the heat of combustion of sulfur containing compounds.