1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000 The following content is provided by MIT OpenCourseWare 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:06,000 under a Creative Commons license. 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:10,000 Additional information about our license and MIT 4 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:15,000 OpenCourseWare in general is available at ocw.mit.edu. 5 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:21,000 Last time, we went through the same arguments that Maxwell and 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:27,000 Boltzmann did to understand the microscopic origin of the ideal 7 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:32,000 gas law, PV equal nRT. 8 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:38,000 And we saw how Maxwell had hypothesized that the pressure 9 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:45,000 of a gas on the walls of some container, if the molecules were 10 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:51,000 moving and they collided onto the walls, that pressure must be 11 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:59,000 due to the individual impacts of the molecules on the wall. 12 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:04,000 That must be due to the change in the momentum of the wall when 13 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,000 the molecules slammed right into it. 14 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:12,000 And that change in momentum over some change in time is this 15 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,000 force. That force divided by the total 16 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:20,000 area is the pressure. And it was using that argument 17 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:25,000 that we came up with an expression, just like Maxwell 18 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:30,000 did for the pressure times the volume. 19 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,000 And we see that we were able to write it in terms of the 20 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:39,000 velocity of the molecules that were moving in this gas. 21 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:44,000 Well, that is very nice because if we have this theoretical 22 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:48,000 expression P times V, and we know experimentally that 23 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,000 P times V equal nRT, if this theory is 24 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:57,000 correct, then this quantity n M, average of the velocity 25 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:01,000 squared, over three, that better be equal to nRT. 26 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:07,000 Or, solving for what we call 27 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:11,000 the root mean square velocity, that better be equal to the 28 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,000 square root of 3RT over M. 29 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:19,000 That kinetic theory made a prediction for what the velocity 30 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,000 ought to be. It took, of course, 31 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,000 another hundred years before somebody could measure that. 32 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:28,000 And, of course, it is correct. 33 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,000 But what is interesting here is that this model gave us an 34 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:37,000 understanding for what temperature is. 35 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:41,000 Temperature is a measure of the speed of the molecules in the 36 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:44,000 gas. It is also, as we saw last 37 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,000 time, a measure of their kinetic energy. 38 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:52,000 We saw that the kinetic energy is one-half M average of the 39 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:56,000 velocity squared. We put 40 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:00,000 in our result from kinetic theory. 41 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:05,000 That shows us that the average energy is three-halves RT. 42 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:08,000 Temperature is the measure of 43 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:12,000 the kinetic energy of these molecules in the gas. 44 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,000 For the first time, there was a microscopic 45 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:18,000 understanding of what temperature was. 46 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:22,000 Now, what we looked at also, last time, was the 47 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:27,000 Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of velocities or speeds and 48 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:32,000 talked about this particular functional form. 49 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,000 How there was this quadratic dependence right here, 50 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:39,000 a low v because of the v squared here and then an 51 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:44,000 exponentially decaying tail. There were two parameters, 52 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:48,000 the mass and the temperature. We talked about that last time. 53 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:52,000 But, of course, if there is a distribution here 54 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,000 of speeds where this distribution is a probability of 55 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:01,000 finding a molecule with a particular speed between v and v 56 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,000 plus dv, -- -- then there also has to be a 57 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:09,000 distribution of energies because the velocity is related to the 58 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:11,000 energy. What do we have to do? 59 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,000 We have to take that Maxwell-Boltzmann speed 60 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,000 distribution and change the variable to energy. 61 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:22,000 We know how to do that. We know how to equate those two 62 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:26,000 distribution functions. And, using the Jacobean of the 63 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,000 transformation that we talked about last time, 64 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:34,000 we can calculate what the energy distribution is. 65 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:37,000 f of E is our Maxwell-Boltzmann energy 66 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,000 distribution. It is the probability of 67 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:45,000 finding a molecule with a kinetic energy E to E plus dE. 68 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,000 It also has a decaying exponential term, 69 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:53,000 here, with the energy in the argument, and it is multiplied 70 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:57,000 by E of the one-half. Let's take a look at what that 71 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,000 distribution function looks like. 72 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,000 Here it is. Notice, as we learned last 73 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:09,000 time, that the energy has nothing to do with the mass of 74 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,000 the particle. The only parameter that is 75 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:17,000 important is the temperature. At a given temperature, 76 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:21,000 all particles, it doesn't matter what their 77 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:26,000 mass is, have the same energy. So, all particles at 78 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:30,000 degrees Kelvin have a Maxwell-Boltzmann energy 79 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:35,000 distribution that looks like this. 80 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:39,000 There is a very rapid rise in that distribution function, 81 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:42,000 unlike the velocity distribution, 82 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:45,000 which increased as v squared. 83 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:48,000 It peaks rapidly, and then there is an 84 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,000 exponentially decaying term in the energy. 85 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:56,000 At 1500 degrees Kelvin, the energy distribution looks 86 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,000 like this. The energy of the molecules has 87 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:04,000 increased. Since this is a probability, 88 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:07,000 and the area under these curves has to equal to one, 89 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:11,000 if the energy goes up, that is we have more molecules 90 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:16,000 out here with higher energies, well, then this maximum value 91 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:21,000 for the probabilities has got to go down because we have to keep 92 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:25,000 the area under that curve equal to one, since this is a 93 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:28,000 probability. What we see here, 94 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:33,000 as we raise the energy, is that we have more and more 95 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:38,000 molecules with high energies. There are not a lot of them, 96 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:42,000 but there are some. And they are going to be really 97 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:47,000 important in the example I am going to show you in just a 98 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:51,000 moment. Average energy at 600 Kelvin, 99 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:55,000 just three-halves RT, is 7.5 kilojoules per mole. 100 00:06:55,000 --> 00:07:02,000 Average energy at 1500 Kelvin is 18.7 kilojoules per mole. 101 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:07,000 But now, I want to show you an example of the importance of 102 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:12,000 this Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution function for 103 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:18,000 energies to chemical reactions, the importance of it in making 104 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:23,000 some kinds of chemical reactions actually work. 105 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:29,000 And so the example is going to be this reaction. 106 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:32,000 This reaction is called steam reforming of natural gas. 107 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,000 It is the reaction of methane plus water. 108 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:39,000 Natural gas is mostly methane. But this reaction of methane 109 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:43,000 and water makes CO and hydrogen. It 110 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:47,000 turns out that this reaction does not work in the gas phase. 111 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:51,000 That is, if you have a methane molecule and water molecule 112 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:56,000 collide, they are just going to collide, bounce apart and go in 113 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:59,000 their opposite directions. They are not going to make CO 114 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:04,000 and hydrogen. And so what you have to have in 115 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:08,000 this reaction to make it go is a catalyst. 116 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:11,000 That catalyst is going to be a nickel surface. 117 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:17,000 A catalyst is something that will lower the activation energy 118 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:21,000 barrier by changing the mechanism of a reaction so that 119 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:24,000 the reaction can proceed. In this case, 120 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:29,000 what happens is that the methane and the water impinge on 121 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:35,000 this nickel metal catalyst. And the methane and the water 122 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:38,000 decompose. They fall apart to their 123 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:43,000 elements on that nickel surface. And then, once you have carbon, 124 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:46,000 hydrogen and oxygen on that nickel surface, 125 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:50,000 the atoms rearrange and come off as CO and molecular 126 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:53,000 hydrogen. So, that nickel surface is a 127 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,000 catalyst. We call this the catalytic 128 00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,000 reaction. In particular, 129 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:02,000 we call it a heterogeneous catalytic reaction. 130 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:08,000 It is heterogeneous because the catalyst is in a different phase 131 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:12,000 than the reactants. The catalyst here is a solid. 132 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:16,000 The reactants are gases. A homogeneous catalyst is one 133 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:21,000 in which the phase of the catalyst and the reactants is 134 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:24,000 the same. This is a heterogeneous 135 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,000 catalytic reaction. It turns out that this reaction 136 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:33,000 here is really an important reaction from the standpoint of 137 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:39,000 the production of hydrogen. All of the hydrogen that you 138 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:42,000 use, you know, if you are doing a laboratory 139 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:47,000 experiment and you go get a tank of hydrogen, that hydrogen is 140 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:51,000 made by this reaction, by reacting methane and water 141 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:55,000 to form that hydrogen. All of our commercial sources 142 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:00,000 of hydrogen come from carrying out this reaction. 143 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,000 For example, if you are in the business of 144 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:08,000 ammonia synthesis, which is taking hydrogen and 145 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:13,000 nitrogen to make ammonia, which is also carried out on an 146 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:17,000 iron surface, another heterogeneous catalytic 147 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:19,000 reaction. And ammonia, 148 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:24,000 of course, is the starting material for lots of chemicals, 149 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:30,000 in particular fertilizers. If you have an ammonia plant, 150 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:35,000 right next to the ammonia plant you have a steamer-forming plant 151 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:39,000 to make the hydrogen to feed into this reaction. 152 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:44,000 And another place where this is useful is in methanol synthesis. 153 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:49,000 That is, you can take hydrogen and CO on a copper zinc oxide 154 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:54,000 heterogeneous catalyst and make methanol, the starting point for 155 00:10:54,000 --> 00:11:00,000 gasoline, which now is certainly economically feasible. 156 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:05,000 But it turns out that this reaction here is really a hard 157 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:09,000 one to carry out. Despite the fact that nickel is 158 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:15,000 a catalyst for the reaction and makes it go, the reaction still 159 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:20,000 has to be carried out at very high temperatures. 160 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:24,000 1500 degrees kelvin is a very high temperature. 161 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:29,000 It also needs very high pressure. 162 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:33,000 And one of the reasons why we don't have a hydrogen economy is 163 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:36,000 because it is so difficult to make. 164 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:39,000 Hydrogen can be done, and it is done in all of the 165 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,000 commercial processes that I mentioned to you, 166 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,000 but it is still hard. 1500 degrees kelvin, 167 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:48,000 high pressures. The question is, 168 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:52,000 why is it so hard? Why is there this barrier here? 169 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,000 Why do we need to raise the temperature of the gas in order 170 00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:02,000 to get this reaction to go? Well, let's take a look at 171 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,000 that. What there exists here in this 172 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:09,000 problem is what is called an activation energy barrier to 173 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:13,000 making the reaction go. It turns out that this 174 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:18,000 activation energy barrier is really in the very first step of 175 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:22,000 the reaction, which is pulling the methane 176 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:27,000 apart, pulling that first hydrogen atom off of the methane 177 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,000 molecule. What I represent right here is 178 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:36,000 the energy of the reaction as a function of the reaction, 179 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:40,000 and the reaction here is just the first step. 180 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:45,000 It is taking methane gas, pulling the hydrogen off so 181 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:50,000 that you have a methyl radical stuck to the surface and you 182 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,000 have a hydrogen atom stuck to the surface. 183 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:59,000 It is just breaking that first C-H bond. 184 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:04,000 What you can see here is that you have to put 50 kilojoules of 185 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:08,000 energy into that reaction in order to make it go. 186 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:12,000 You have to put that 50 kilocalories of energy in first, 187 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:17,000 before you get any energy back. You can see that this is 188 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,000 exothermic. But you have to put this energy 189 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:23,000 in, in order to get that reaction to go. 190 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:29,000 Well, how do we know that? Let me back up a minute. 191 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,000 Here is where the Maxwell-Boltzmann energy 192 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:35,000 distribution is important. What I did was I took those 193 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:39,000 Boltzmann energy distributions that I plotted for you at 194 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:43,000 Kelvin and 1500 Kelvin and turned them on their side. 195 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:47,000 This is essentially equal to the probability of finding a 196 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:51,000 molecule at a particular energy versus the energy. 197 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:55,000 Here is the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution at 600 degrees 198 00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:57,000 Kelvin. It is peaked to very low 199 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:01,000 energies. And, if you look here in this 200 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,000 Maxwell-Boltzmann tail, there are not very many 201 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:10,000 molecules that have enough energy to get over that barrier. 202 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:14,000 However, if we raise the temperature of the gas to 203 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:18,000 degrees Kelvin, then now you can see that there 204 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:23,000 are more molecules here in the high energy part of this tail. 205 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:27,000 And it is these molecules at these high energies that 206 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:32,000 actually can get over this barrier to dissociation of the 207 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:36,000 methane molecule. They are not many of those 208 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:39,000 molecules with high energy, but there are some. 209 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,000 And that is important, because what happens is when 210 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:45,000 they have enough energy, they react and they leave. 211 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:49,000 And then this Boltzmann distribution re-equilibrates. 212 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:52,000 If the high energy molecules leave, then there are lots of 213 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:56,000 collisions here that kick some more molecules up to the high 214 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:00,000 energy part of the tail, and they react. 215 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:04,000 And so it works. That is why it is important. 216 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:09,000 How do we really know that there is this barrier here to 217 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:15,000 the dissociation of methane, and why is there this barrier? 218 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:21,000 What is the physical origin of this barrier to pulling this C-H 219 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:25,000 bond apart? Well, one way we could know 220 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:30,000 that there was this barrier there for sure is to do the 221 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:35,000 following. If we had a way to take methane 222 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,000 gas and make it have just a single energy, 223 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:41,000 not the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of energies that 224 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:46,000 have lots of different energies, which have lots of different 225 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:49,000 energies in them, and you saw how broad those 226 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,000 curves were. But if we had a way to make 227 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:56,000 methane gas with just say energy E sub 1, whatever that is, 228 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:59,000 we could then take those molecules with just those 229 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:02,000 energies, aim them at this nickel surface, 230 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:06,000 and see if the methane fell apart. 231 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:09,000 And, if it didn't, then we would prepare molecules 232 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:13,000 at some higher energy and see if they fell apart. 233 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:16,000 If they didn't then we would go to higher energy. 234 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:20,000 We would keep going until we got to the top of the barrier. 235 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:24,000 Well, how do you do that? How do you make molecules with 236 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:28,000 a particular energy? Because I just showed you a 237 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:32,000 Maxwell-Boltzmann energy distribution at 300 Kelvin, 238 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:37,000 600 Kelvin. There are a lot of energies 239 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:41,000 present. How do we make molecules with 240 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:46,000 just one energy? We have a way to do that by 241 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:52,000 using some beam techniques and high pressure adiabatic 242 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:57,000 expansions. Basically, the way it works is 243 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:01,000 this. What we are going to do is take 244 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:07,000 a tube here, which is going to have a high pressure of methane 245 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,000 in it. Then we are going to punch a 246 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:14,000 little hole in that tube. This tube is actually sitting 247 00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:19,000 in a vacuum, so we are going to expand the methane from that 248 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:24,000 tube into the vacuum. We are going to squirt it out. 249 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:29,000 It is going to become a beam of molecules. 250 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:34,000 But when you expand a gas from high pressure to low pressure, 251 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:38,000 this expansion is called an adiabatic expansion, 252 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:42,000 which means the gas cools. I will explain that in a 253 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:47,000 moment, but the adiabatic expansion you are going to talk 254 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:50,000 a lot about in 5.60. And, if you are a chemical 255 00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:55,000 engineer, you will talk even more about it past 5.60. 256 00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:59,000 Here is how it works. You take these molecules and 257 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:04,000 squirt them out. Because the pressure right here 258 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:08,000 is so high, what happens is there are lots and lots and lots 259 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:11,000 of collisions. And so, you can imagine, 260 00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:15,000 if you have some slow molecule just kind of lumbering along and 261 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:20,000 a fast one comes and hits you, what is going to happen is you 262 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,000 are going to speed up, and the fast one is going to 263 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:26,000 slow down. And, if you keep doing that 264 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:30,000 again and again and again, all the molecules are going to 265 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:35,000 end up with the same energy or the same velocity. 266 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:39,000 If you have so many collisions, after a while they are going to 267 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:44,000 all have the same velocity or the same energy because one gets 268 00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:48,000 sped up, one gets slowed down. They are all going to end up 269 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:51,000 with the same energy. That is what happens. 270 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:56,000 That is how we make a beam of molecules, a source of molecules 271 00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:00,000 with the same kinetic energy. And basically, 272 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,000 what is happening then is that before the expansion, 273 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:07,000 just look at this curve, here is an actual Boltzmann 274 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:10,000 distribution of velocities. It is broad. 275 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:14,000 But after this expansion, here is the distribution. 276 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:18,000 It is really pretty narrow. If you put a temperature to 277 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:21,000 that distribution, you might find that at one 278 00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:24,000 degree Kelvin, you can really make molecules 279 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:30,000 with a single or very narrow distribution in energies. 280 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:33,000 That is what we do. We make those molecules with 281 00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:38,000 this energy E sub 1. Then we have some more tricks 282 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,000 for changing those energies in a controlled way. 283 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:46,000 And we just keep cranking those energies up and watch to see 284 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:51,000 when the methane falls apart. And so, you get data that kind 285 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:54,000 of looks like this. This is a dissociation 286 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:58,000 probability of a methane as a function of its energy. 287 00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:02,000 This is in kilocalories per mole. 288 00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:05,000 At some point, say right about here, 289 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:10,000 15 kilocalories per mole, the dissociation probability 290 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:13,000 skyrockets. All of a sudden, 291 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:18,000 you are at a high enough energy to get that methane to fall 292 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:22,000 apart. This tells you exactly where 293 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:26,000 that barrier is. But now, the question is, 294 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:32,000 why is there this barrier? Physically, why is there a 295 00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:38,000 barrier to pulling the hydrogen off of the carbon when that 296 00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:43,000 methane molecule comes close to the surface? 297 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:48,000 Well, the reason is this. In order to break the 298 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:54,000 carbon-hydrogen bond in methane, in order to have enough energy 299 00:20:54,000 --> 00:21:00,000 to break that bond, what you need to do is you need 300 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:05,000 to simultaneously form a nickel-carbon bond and a 301 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:10,000 nickel-hydrogen bond. In other words, 302 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:17,000 when this methane molecule here comes into some nickel surface 303 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:23,000 very slowly, because that methane is tetrahedral and the 304 00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:30,000 carbon is kind of hidden in the center, the hydrogens interact 305 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:35,000 with the nickel. But the carbon does not get in 306 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,000 close enough to the nickel to start to form a nickel-carbon 307 00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,000 bond. Now, if you speed that methane 308 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,000 molecule up and you really ram it into the surface, 309 00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:49,000 upon collision of the molecule with the surface, 310 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:54,000 the hydrogens are pushed back, the carbon gets in close enough 311 00:21:54,000 --> 00:22:00,000 to the nickel to start to form, here, this nickel-carbon bond. 312 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:05,000 You form a nickel-hydrogen bond, and now you can break that 313 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:09,000 C-H bond. We call this black chemistry. 314 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:12,000 The barrier, there, to that reaction 315 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:18,000 physically is the amount of energy that you have to put into 316 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:22,000 the molecule to push those hydrogens back, 317 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:30,000 to bend those hydrogens back to distort this methane molecule. 318 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,000 Once you do that, the reaction goes. 319 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:35,000 You are on a roll there. It goes. 320 00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:39,000 So, that is the physical origin of this barrier, 321 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:43,000 here, to the dissociation of methane. 322 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:47,000 You need to put enough kinetic energy into those methane 323 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:51,000 molecules in order to get over that barrier. 324 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:56,000 And we do that on a practical scale by raising the temperature 325 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:01,000 of the gas. And on a microscopic scale, 326 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:06,000 this is what is happening. You can imagine that my 327 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:11,000 students and I did this experiment 15 years ago. 328 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:16,000 But then, we said if this barrier here is the energy 329 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:22,000 required to deform that methane molecule, then we should be able 330 00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,000 to do this experiment. This experiment is the 331 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:31,000 following. We are going to take our nickel 332 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,000 surface, here, and lower the temperature of 333 00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:38,000 the surface to 47 kelvin. At that temperature, 334 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:42,000 what we can do is we can freeze a layer of methane on the 335 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:44,000 surface. We call it fizzy-sorb, 336 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,000 a layer of methane on the surface. 337 00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:51,000 It will just stick there. And then, if this barrier is 338 00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:55,000 the energy required to deform or to start the molecule, 339 00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:59,000 then in principle I could take a hammer and pound that molecule 340 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:04,000 into the correct shape for the transition state that leads to 341 00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:09,000 dissociation. It sounds like a simple idea, 342 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:14,000 and it is, except that we cannot really take that hammer. 343 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:19,000 But we can take an argon atom. We can freeze the methane onto 344 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:23,000 the surface, and now we come in with an argon atom. 345 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:27,000 That is just a big ball. Or, a xenon atom or a krypton 346 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,000 atom. And we know how to accelerate 347 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:35,000 xenon or krypton. We don't accelerate it too 348 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,000 much, 50 kilocalories, 70 kilocalories per mole, 349 00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:42,000 something like that. And then we can bring it in. 350 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:47,000 What happens is that the impact of the collision on that methane 351 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:51,000 causes that methane molecule to compress, distort, 352 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:56,000 gets it into the configuration of the transition state that 353 00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,000 leads to the methane falling apart. 354 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,000 And so, you get the same result. 355 00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,000 The question, there, is just getting the 356 00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,000 energy into the molecule to actually distort it, 357 00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:14,000 to deform it so that you can make the nickel-carbon bond and 358 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:18,000 the nickel-hydrogen bond. That is the key. 359 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:22,000 My students and I, after we had spent many years 360 00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,000 doing this experiment and spent a lot of money on this 361 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:31,000 experiment, said we have proven for sure that when a bug flies 362 00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:36,000 into the windshield of your car, you do get the same result as 363 00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:41,000 if you hit the bug on the windshield of your car with a 364 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:46,000 bug swatter. That is what we get. 365 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:51,000 This is an example of one chemical reaction for which we 366 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,000 know the physical origin of the barrier. 367 00:25:55,000 --> 00:26:01,000 There are very few chemical reactions for which we know 368 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:06,000 anything about the physical origin of a barrier to a 369 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:11,000 reaction. Now, what I want to talk about 370 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:18,000 is go back to kinetic theory, because the kinetic theory is 371 00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:25,000 going to allow us to calculate a couple of more quantities that 372 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:31,000 are of interest to us. And one of those quantities is 373 00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:37,000 the collision frequency. And let me just write that on 374 00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:41,000 the board here. What I am going to want to 375 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:47,000 calculate is something called Z1, or I am going to call it Z1. 376 00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:53,000 It is the number of collisions that a molecule makes in a gas 377 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,000 per unit time. And our unit time is going to 378 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:06,000 be seconds. This is the collision frequency 379 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:13,000 of a single molecule in a gas. 380 00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:29,000 How am I going to calculate the quantity using the kinetic 381 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:30,000 theory approach that we have been talking about? 382 00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,000 What I am going to do is this. I am going to take some gas, 383 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,000 and the molecules in that gas are represented by these blue 384 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:42,000 circles right here. They have a diameter D. 385 00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:47,000 And then, within that gas, I am going to imagine this 386 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:52,000 lighter blue cylinder. That cylinder is an imaginary 387 00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,000 construct. We are going to use it to 388 00:27:55,000 --> 00:28:00,000 calculate this collision frequency. 389 00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:04,000 What it is going to be is the collision volume. 390 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:09,000 I have set the diameter of that cylinder to be equal to two 391 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,000 times the diameter of the molecule. 392 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:17,000 I have set this upright. And the bottom line is that all 393 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:22,000 of the molecules that instantaneously happen to be in 394 00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:26,000 this cylinder when a molecule comes through, 395 00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:32,000 all of those molecules are actually going to be hit. 396 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:37,000 They are going to suffer a collision with another molecule. 397 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:42,000 And I am going to use that, the number of molecules in this 398 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:46,000 volume, to calculate this collision frequency. 399 00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:51,000 That is what I am going to do. Snapshot in time, 400 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:56,000 those molecules are frozen there, except there is one 401 00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:02,000 smart-alecky molecule that comes cruising on through. 402 00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:04,000 Here he comes. Bam, bam, bam. 403 00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:10,000 Hits these three molecules, here, because they are more 404 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,000 than halfway into that collision cylinder. 405 00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:20,000 What I know is this smart-aleck was moving at some average 406 00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,000 velocity, which I am going to call vbar. 407 00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,000 In a time T, this molecule, 408 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:32,000 since it is moving with an average velocity vbar, 409 00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:36,000 in a time t, it is traveling a length vbar 410 00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:41,000 times t. 411 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,000 Velocity times time, that is going to give you a 412 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,000 length. And so, I am going to set, 413 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,000 for convenience, this time equal to one second 414 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:53,000 because that is going to be my unit of time. 415 00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:58,000 I want to do this per second. I am going to set this equal to 416 00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:02,000 one second. Therefore, this molecule is 417 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:07,000 going to travel a length vbar in one second. 418 00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:13,000 And that is the length that I am going to make the collision 419 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,000 cylinder. I am going to make that 420 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:22,000 collision cylinder be vbar long. That is the distance traveled 421 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:28,000 in one second by this smart-alecky molecule. 422 00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:34,000 Now, all I have to do is I have got to take the volume of the 423 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:40,000 collision cylinder and multiply it by all the molecules that 424 00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:45,000 happen to be at the volume at that particular time. 425 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:51,000 Because that volume represents the volume swept out in one 426 00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:55,000 second by this smart-alecky molecule. 427 00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:00,000 What is the volume of the cylinder? 428 00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,000 I set the diameter to be equal to 2d. 429 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:08,000 The volume of the cylinder is the cross-sectional area times 430 00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,000 the length. That cross-sectional area, 431 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:16,000 then, is pi r squared, but r here is equal to d, 432 00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:21,000 just to make it confusing. The area is pi d squared. 433 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,000 The length is vbar. 434 00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:28,000 That is the volume of the cylinder, pi d squared vbar. 435 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:34,000 So, we have the volume of the 436 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,000 cylinder. Now what we are going to need 437 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:42,000 to know is the density of the molecules in this cylinder, 438 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:46,000 which is the density of the molecules in the gas. 439 00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,000 The cylinder is not special. The cylinder is an imaginary 440 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:55,000 construct that I put in there to help me calculate the collision 441 00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,000 frequency. I need the density of the 442 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:03,000 molecules in the gas or in the cylinder. 443 00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,000 The density of the molecules I am going to set as equal to N, 444 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,000 the total number of molecules in this volume, 445 00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,000 divided by the volume of the gas. 446 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,000 I am going to call that rho. N over V is going to be equal 447 00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,000 to rho. That is the number of molecules 448 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:25,000 per cubic meter. That is the density of the gas. 449 00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:29,000 This is the symbol that I am going to use from now on for 450 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:34,000 density defined as molecules per cubic meter. 451 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:39,000 Then the collision frequency is simply going to be the density 452 00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:43,000 of the molecules times the volume of the cylinder. 453 00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:47,000 The collision frequency Z1, here, is this volume of the 454 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:52,000 cylinder, pi d squared vbar times the density. 455 00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:53,000 Why? 456 00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:58,000 Because I set it up so that every molecule in that cylinder 457 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:04,000 would suffer a collision. And that cylinder is the length 458 00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:08,000 that a molecule travels in one second. 459 00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,000 There is the density times the volume. 460 00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:16,000 The meters cubed disappears. What I have left is rho, 461 00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,000 the density, pi d squared vbar. 462 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:24,000 This is collisions per second. 463 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,000 So, I have my collision frequency. 464 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:33,000 This is the single-molecule collision frequency. 465 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,000 This is the frequency of collisions that one molecule 466 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,000 makes with the other gas molecules. 467 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:44,000 That is important. We are going to do a different 468 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,000 kind of collision frequency in just a moment. 469 00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:52,000 But now, it turns out that there is another factor here 470 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:57,000 that I had left out because I haven't done as sophisticated of 471 00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:02,000 an analysis as I could. And that is that I made the 472 00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:07,000 assumption in my picture before that all the other molecules 473 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:11,000 were frozen in time and that there was only one smart-aleck 474 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:15,000 that was moving around, cruising through. 475 00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,000 The reality is they are all moving. 476 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:23,000 And what I really have to do is I have to take into account the 477 00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:27,000 relative velocities of the molecules, the relative speeds. 478 00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,000 I can do that. There is a little more 479 00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:36,000 sophisticated analysis in doing that, but I could do that. 480 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,000 And, if we do that, this makes a difference of the 481 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:44,000 square root of two. I am just going to put that 482 00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:49,000 square root of two in there right now, and later on you will 483 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:54,000 be able to see where that comes from, in a later course. 484 00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:59,000 That actually is the collision frequency of a single molecule 485 00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,000 in the gas. 486 00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:12,000 I am also interested in another quantity, which is the total 487 00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:16,000 collision frequency. That was the single collision 488 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:21,000 frequency, but I am also interested in knowing how many 489 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:26,000 collisions are occurring in the entire gas per unit time, 490 00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:32,000 the total collision frequency. You know why I am interested in 491 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:36,000 that number? I am interested in that number 492 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:41,000 because that is going to be the upper limit to any reaction 493 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,000 rate. A reaction in the gas phase or 494 00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:49,000 in solution cannot happen any faster than the molecules 495 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,000 collide. They have to collide before a 496 00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:57,000 reaction is going to occur. The total collision frequency, 497 00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:03,000 the importance of that number is that it is the upper limit to 498 00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:08,000 a reaction rate. Let's calculate that. 499 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:13,000 Z is going to be equal to the collision frequency of one 500 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:17,000 molecule, Z1, times the total number of 501 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:21,000 molecules in the gas, N. 502 00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:25,000 That is what N stands for. But since each collision 503 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:31,000 involves two molecules, I am going to have to multiply 504 00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:36,000 this by one-half. Otherwise, I am going to over 505 00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:41,000 count the number of collisions because each collision involves 506 00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,000 two molecules. The total collision frequency 507 00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:48,000 here is one-half times N times Z1. 508 00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:52,000 Therefore, if I go and plug in my expression for Z1 and N and 509 00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:56,000 simplify things, my total collision frequency 510 00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:01,000 here is one over the square root of two times N times rho pi d 511 00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:06,000 squared times the average speed. 512 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:11,000 That is my total collisions per 513 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,000 second. This is not rocket science. 514 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:20,000 This is easy. What I want you to realize is 515 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:26,000 that you do have to understand what N is, what rho is, 516 00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:32,000 what d is, what vbar is. And I am always surprised on an 517 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:38,000 exam, when we are going to give you this equation, 518 00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:43,000 that students don't actually know what rho is, 519 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:48,000 or N is, or v is, or d is. 520 00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,000 This is easy. You do just have to understand, 521 00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:54,000 this is the total number of molecules in the gas, 522 00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:58,000 this is the density of the gas in molecules per cubic meter, 523 00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:02,000 the diameter of the molecule, the average speed. 524 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:07,000 That was just a helpful hint. This is the upper limit to the 525 00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,000 reaction rate. When somebody tells you, 526 00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:15,000 the rate of this reaction is so and so many molecules per cubic 527 00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,000 meter per second, what you can do is a 528 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:24,000 back-of-the-envelope calculation to see whether or not they are 529 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:30,000 telling you the reaction rate is greater than this number. 530 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:35,000 If it is, you can say ah-ha, got you, it cannot possibly be. 531 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:40,000 Really important. If a reaction has this rate, 532 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,000 it will mean that the probability of the reaction 533 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:49,000 occurring is one. If the reaction has that rate, 534 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,000 we call that the gas kinetic rate. 535 00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,000 That is a term that we also use. 536 00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:59,000 Then, finally, one other quantity from the gas 537 00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,000 kinetic theory. Yes? 538 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,000 She asked, what velocity, here, would you use? 539 00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:17,000 You actually are going to, in that particular case, 540 00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,000 have to take the average of the average velocities. 541 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,000 In other words, if you had two different 542 00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:29,000 molecules that were reacting for this average velocity here, 543 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,000 you are going to have to use the average of the average 544 00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:38,000 velocity. And then your error bars on the 545 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:44,000 experiment will always be large enough to take that into 546 00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:47,000 consideration. Good question. 547 00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:52,000 One other quantity, something called the mean free 548 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,000 path. What I want to know, 549 00:39:55,000 --> 00:40:00,000 here, is on the average, how far does the molecule 550 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:07,000 travel in the gas before it suffers a collision? 551 00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,000 That is what a mean free path is. 552 00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,000 A mean free path in solution. Sometimes you will do a solid 553 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:17,000 state physics course and will hear about the electron mean 554 00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,000 free path. A mean free path is always the 555 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,000 distance traveled between collisions. 556 00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,000 That is what that is. And we are going to call it 557 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,000 lambda. This is not wavelength anymore. 558 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,000 We just changed our definition of lambda. 559 00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,000 Lambda, here, is the average distance between 560 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:40,000 collisions. How are we going to calculate 561 00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,000 that? What we are going to do is take 562 00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:47,000 the average distance that a molecule travels per unit time, 563 00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:52,000 per second, and are going to divide it by the number of 564 00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,000 collisions that occur per second. 565 00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:59,000 And you are going to see that the per seconds are going to 566 00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:03,000 cancel here. We are going to have the 567 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:08,000 average distance per collision. That is what we are after. 568 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:13,000 This is easy to do because the average distance traveled per 569 00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,000 second is simply the average velocity. 570 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:20,000 It is meters per second. The average distance traveled 571 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:24,000 per second. The number of collisions per 572 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,000 second that happened, we just calculated that. 573 00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:33,000 That was Z1. We can substitute in Z1 vbar, 574 00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:38,000 vbar cancels, and what we are left with is 575 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:46,000 one over the square root of 2 rho pi d squared. 576 00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,000 That is meters. 577 00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:56,000 That is the average distance the molecule traveled per 578 00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:01,000 collision. This is another general generic 579 00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:06,000 quantity useful in many cases, also in other kinds of cases 580 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:10,000 that I just mentioned in solid state physics. 581 00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:16,000 What I want to do now is that we said we were going to start 582 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,000 talking about the motions of molecules. 583 00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:24,000 We have taken care of, now, the translational motion. 584 00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:29,000 Now I want to start talking about the internal degrees of 585 00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,000 freedom. And let's do that. 586 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:38,000 Let me just see if I have something, here. 587 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:43,000 Let me raise the board, here. 588 00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:02,000 We have talked about this molecule, which is a set of 589 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:07,000 atoms that are bonded together. And, as we always say, 590 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:12,000 they are bonded together for the mutual comfort of their 591 00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,000 electrons. And we saw that it is not 592 00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:17,000 frozen. It moves. 593 00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:20,000 It has kinetic energy. It has velocity. 594 00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:25,000 The velocity generates this macroscopic property of 595 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:30,000 pressure. But molecules also jiggle. 596 00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:33,000 For example, we are going to take here 597 00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:39,000 nitrogen, triple bond. That triple bond actually 598 00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:44,000 functions like a spring. We can think of that bond as a 599 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:49,000 spring between the two atoms. That spring can stretch, 600 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:54,000 and that spring can compress. When we tell you the 601 00:43:54,000 --> 00:44:00,000 equilibrium bond length of some molecule is some number, 602 00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:05,000 it is the equilibrium bond length. 603 00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:09,000 It is not the bond length when the molecule is stretched. 604 00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:14,000 It is not the bond length when the molecule is compressed. 605 00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:19,000 This motion is the vibrational motion of the molecule. 606 00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:30,000 So, we have that kind of internal motion in a molecule. 607 00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:33,000 Molecules also tumble. For example, 608 00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:38,000 let's take our nitrogen molecule, again. 609 00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:45,000 It rotates around an axis. Going through the center of the 610 00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:49,000 mass, it rotates around this axis. 611 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:54,000 This nitrogen molecule also rotates around an axis, 612 00:44:54,000 --> 00:45:00,000 here, perpendicular to the board. 613 00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:06,000 It rotates in that direction. This is the rotational motion 614 00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:11,000 of the molecule. The different ways in which we 615 00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:15,000 can have this motion are called modes. 616 00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:21,000 This is a rotational mode. This is vibrational mode. 617 00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:28,000 We did not use the word before in talking about translation, 618 00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:33,000 but those are translational modes. 619 00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:40,000 Sometimes, we also call these modes degrees of freedom. 620 00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:49,000 A molecule has translational modes or degrees of freedom, 621 00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:57,000 vibrational degrees of freedom, and rotational degrees of 622 00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,000 freedom. Now, in general, 623 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:10,000 if you have an N-atom molecule, you have 3N total modes. 624 00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:17,000 When I say total modes that means the sum of translation, 625 00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:24,000 rotation and vibration. Of those 3N total modes, 626 00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:30,000 three of them are translational modes. 627 00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,000 Why do we have three translational modes? 628 00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:43,000 We have three translational modes because we are operating 629 00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:48,000 in a three-dimensional space. If we have a molecule here, 630 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:53,000 that molecule has motion in the x direction, in the y direction, 631 00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:57,000 and also in the z direction. Those are the three 632 00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:02,000 translational modes of the molecule. 633 00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:08,000 What that means then, if three of the modes are used 634 00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:13,000 up for translation, then we must have 3N minus 3 635 00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:20,000 internal modes. 3N minus 3 must be the number 636 00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:27,000 of modes that is leftover for the internal degrees of freedom 637 00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:33,000 for rotation and also for vibration. 638 00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:39,000 And what we are going to see, next time, is that these 639 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:46,000 internal degrees of freedom, these internal modes are going 640 00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:51,000 to be quantized. That is, this molecule is going 641 00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:59,000 to be able to vibrate with only certain amounts of energy. 642 00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,000 There is going to be a ground vibrational state. 643 00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:07,000 There is going to be a first excited vibrational state. 644 00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:12,000 A second excited vibrational state, just like we talked about 645 00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:17,000 the energy levels of a hydrogen atom, where the electron was 646 00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:22,000 bound with different amounts of energy dictated by a principle 647 00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:26,000 quantum number. The vibrational degree of 648 00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,000 freedom is also going to be dictated by a vibrational 649 00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:33,000 quantum number. In addition, 650 00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:38,000 the rotations of the molecules, they are also quantized. 651 00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:43,000 A molecule is going to be able to rotate with only one energy, 652 00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,000 or another energy, or another energy, 653 00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,000 but not any energies in between. 654 00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,000 There are discrete rotational states. 655 00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:56,000 We are going to be talking about another kind of quantum 656 00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,000 number. In that case, 657 00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:04,000 a rotational quantum number. That is where we are going to 658 00:49:04,451 --> 00:49:07,000 pick up on Monday. See you then.