Section 1 Experiment Title

The aim of this experiment is to determine the vapour pressure of gasoline and white spirit.
1.1 Introduction

The vapour of a liquid sample can be generated by either increasing its temperature or reducing its pressure. The vapour pressure is the pressure of a vapour in equilibrium with its non-vapour phase. The equilibrium vapour pressure also gives us the information of a liquid evaporation rate. The vapour pressure is directly proportional to volatility of a sample the higher the pressure more volatile the sample is and more readily it will evaporate. Vapour pressure is highly affected by temperature. According to Le Chatelier's principle a system disturbed by rise in temperature will react to relieve this stress. A liquid will boil, when the temperature is increased enough to raise the vapour pressure to atmospheric pressure. The liquid will boil much more when the atmospheric pressure is zero as in a vacuum system. This is the basis for obtaining pure samples of liquid with high boiling points in a vacuum distillation process .The presence of dissolved substances in liquid or solid also affects vapour pressure. In this experiment two samples was used for analyse one is white spirit also known as mineral spirit and naphtha and the other is gasoline.
Section 2 1.2 Description of Apparatus

The apparatus used for this experiment was known as Setavap Tester. The main components of tester are explained below. Solvent Gasoline consists of aliphatic hydrocarbons obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enriched with iso-octane or the aromatic hydrocarbons toluene and benzene to increase its octane rating. Setavap Tester The vapour pressure of a substance or solvent is determined by this apparatus. It consists of chamber centrally located and an electrical register which displays pressure.

Septum Holder It is a screw provided at the top of the vapour pressure tester which allows access to the tester cylinder. It is used to hold the septum. Vacuum Pump This is attached to the vapour pressure tester. The function of vacuum pump is to drain out all the liquid in the tester and evacuates the air so that a vacuum exist in the vacuum tester. Septum This is a small round rubber attached to the top of the screw nub which helps to guarantee complete vacuum. Silicon Grease The function of silicon grease is to lubricate the septum and ensure a tight fit. Hamilton micro litre Syringe The function of syringe is to measure and pour the exact volume of test fluid in to the cylinder of Setavap Tester.

Fig 1: Important parts of vapour pressure test

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Fig 2: Shows Setavap apparatus and compressor

1.3 Experimental Procedure

Placed the waster container under the drain and turned on the pump and Setavap Tester. By unscrewing the septum holder the septum is removed and the system is allowed to drain for ten seconds. After the system is completely drained purging started and it took 120 second. The silicon grease is exposed to new septum and inserted as instructed by the system. After this septum holder is firmly tighten. In a properly cleaned syringe 3.0ml of sample is prepared and injected in to the cylinder after the instruction displayed on system. The Setavap Tester analysed the sample for 300 second and at every five seconds interval the reading was recorded. When the sample was analysed Ptot, DVPE and EPA were also noted. For every sample three tests were taken and same procedure was repeated for every time. Same process is repeated for gasoline as well.

1.4 Results

Temperature of Vacuum=37.8 C Pressure of Vacuum=0.2 KPa Table 1: DVPE and EPA for white spirit Vapour Pressure KPa P-tot (KPa) Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 4.3 4.6 4.7 DVPE ( KPa) 0.4 0.7 0.8 EPA (KPa) 1.7 2.0 2.1

Table 2: Vapour pressure measurement for white spirit test. Time seconds 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 60 90 120 150 180 1st Pressure Kpa 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.3 4.3 4.3 4.3 2nd Pressure Kpa 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.6 3rd Pressure Kpa 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.7

Graph 1: Relationship b/w pressure and time for white spirit test

Graph b/w Pressure and Time

4.8 4.7 4.6 Pressure 4.5 4.4 4.3 4.2 4.1 0 50 100 Time 150 200 1st Pressure Kpa 2nd Pressure Kpa 3rd Pressure Kpa

Test condition for gasoline Temperature of Vacuum=37.8 C Pressure of Vacuum=0.1 KPa Table 3: Vapour pressure measurement for gasoline test. Time seconds 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 1st Pressure Kpa 70.1 70.1 70.1 70.7 70.8 70.9 71 71.1 71.1 71.2 71.2 71.4 71.6 71.7 71.7 71.8 71.8 71.8 71.9 2nd Pressure Kpa 67.2 67.4 67.5 67.6 67.8 67.8 67.8 67.9 68 68.1 68.1 68.2 68.4 68.6 68.7 68.8 68.9 68.9 69 3rd Pressure Kpa 68.6 68.8 68.8 69.2 69.3 69.4 69.4 69.5 69.6 69.6 69.6 69.8 70 70.2 70.2 70.3 70.5 70.4 70.4
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Fig 3: Graph relationship b/w pressure and time for gasoline test
73 72 71 70 69 68 67 66 0 100 200 300 400 1st Pressure Kpa 2nd Pressure Kpa 3rd Pressure Kpa

Table 4: DVPE and EPA for gasoline Vapour Pressure KPa P-tot (KPa) Test 1 71.9 Test 2 69 Test 3 67 DVPE ( KPa) 65.6 62.8 60.2 EPA (KPa) 66.3 63.6 61.2

Graph 3: Vapour pressure of gasoline and white spirit w/s time

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Gasoline pressure lines

1st Pressure gasoline Kpa 2nd Pressure gasoline Kpa 3rd Pressure gasoline Kpa 4th Pressure W spirit Kpa 5th Pressure W spirit Kpa 6th Pressure W spirit Kpa

White spirit pressure lines

Sources of Error

Error due to parallax in measuring the quantity of the solvent

Section 3 Discussion and conclusion

It can be seen from test condition that the pressure of vacuum was 0.2kpa which shows us that no air is passing in to the cylinder. The vapour pressure for gasoline is higher than that of white spirit as clear indication that whit spirit is less volatile than gasoline. By comparing the graph of both samples both have straight lines. The pressure lines w.r.t for gasoline has some irregularities which showed the volatility of gasoline. White spirit and gasoline have different vapour pressures because they are different solvents and have different cumulative pressure.

Reference

Petroleum and gas engineering laboratory manual Vapour Pressure of Petroleum Fractions.