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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2005  > February  >
In the Classroom
JCE DigiDemos: Tested Demonstrations
A Methane Balloon Inflation Chamber
Curtis J. Czerwinski and Tanya J. Cordes
Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, La Crosse, WI 54601

checked by Joe Franek
Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Cover
February 2005
Vol. 82 No. 2
p. 248

Abstract
While several lecture demonstrations are possible using methane-filled balloons, it is often inconvenient to prepare these balloons since the pressure from standard laboratory and lecture hall gas nozzles is too low. As a solution to this problem, a methane balloon inflation chamber, prepared from a translucent 3.5-gallon pail and an aspirator or house-vacuum, provides an inexpensive and convenient method for inflating balloons in laboratories or lecture halls. Prepared in this way, methane-filled balloons can be used to demonstrate the effects of vacuum, the lifting power of low-density gases, and the explosive combustion of methane.
Supplement

Video: An explosion of a balloon containing pure methane
and an explosion of a balloon containing methane and oxygen.

*  Contents
*  Download
More Information
*  Citation
Czerwinski, Curtis J.; Cordes, Tanya J. J. Chem. Educ. 2005 82 248.
*  Keywords
Alkanes / Cycloalkanes; Calorimetry / Thermochemistry; Demonstrations; First-Year Undergraduate / General; Gases; General Chemistry; High School / Introductory Chemistry; Introductory / High School Chemistry; Oxidation / Reduction; Reactions
*  History
Created:
Last Updated:
January 4, 2005
January 14, 2005
  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2005  > February  > Page 248



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