Discussion

We have conducted an experiment on Joule Thomson effect on 18 th of March, 2016

in order to achieve two main objectives which are to determine Joule Thomson
coefficient of Carbon Dioxide gas and the Joule Thomson coefficient of Nitrogen gas.
The Joule Thomson effect can be defined as the increase or decrease in the
temperature of a gas or a liquid when allowed to expand freely through a valve or
other throttling device while being kept insulated so that no heat is transferred to or
from the fluid, and no external mechanical work is extracted from the fluid in other
words kept in an adiabatic state.
When a non ideal gas suddenly expands from high pressure state to low pressure
state, there will be temperature change. The ratio of T/P is known as the Joule
Thomson coefficient. For many gases at room temperature, the T/P ratio is
positive. Thus, a pressure drop always coupled with a temperature drop. Joule
Thomson expansion is also known as free expansion. It is an irreversible process
where a gas expands into an insulated evacuated chamber. Real gases usually
result in a temperature change during free expansion. On the other hand, for ideal
gas, the temperature doesn't change. This can be explained with:

A free expansion is in theory can be achieved by opening a stopcock that allows the
gas to expand into a vacuum. Although it would be difficult to attain in reality, we
simply have to imagine a free expansion caused by moving a piston is faster than
virtually any atom. No work is done because there is no pressure on the piston. No
heat energy leaves or enters the piston. Nevertheless, there will always be entropy
change. At the same time the whole process is adiabatic. Therefore the general
entropy equation:

Are not satisfied because based on thermodynamic second law, the process is
considered a reversible process. Therefore for Joule Thomson effect, the entropy
balance follows the same principle as ideal gas entropy balance:

An experiment such as Joule Thomson effect requires some precautions that we

have to take care in order to avoid and reduce errors in our final results. First and
foremost, we have to make sure the all the valves are sealed as tightly as possibly
to avoid gas leakage. Gas leakage will definitely affect the result of our experiment.
Besides, the experimenting room and the experimental apparatus must be in
thermal equilibrium at the start of the measurement in order to avoid any sudden
change in temperature for our adiabatic system. Last but not the least, temperature
meter must be switched on at least 30min before performing the experiment to
avoid thermal drift.

Conclusion
The objectives for our experiment are successfully achieved and we managed to
acquire the Joule Thomson coefficient for both Carbon Dioxide gas and Nitrogen gas.
Both Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen gas were fed to a throttling point, where the gas
undergoes adiabatic expansion. The Joule Thomson coefficients are calculated
based on the differences in temperature produced between the two sides of the
throttle point that measured at various pressures. The margin of error between the
theoretical value and experimental results are not too large. Based on the
percentage difference between the value obtained from the graph and the values
calculated earlier, which is 29.9% for Carbon Dioxide and 44.66% for Nitrogen, we
can say that the objectives of the experiment is successfully achieved.

References
1) BTE 2222 Thermal Science Lab Manual, 2016 edition
2) Engineering Thermodynamics, 1st edition by Tarik al-Shammeri
ISBN: 978-87-7681-670-4
3) Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach, 8th edition by Yunus A. Cengel
and Michael A. Boles
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2014
ISBN 10: 0073398179 ISBN 13: 9780073398174