Introduction
In order to identify new materials, scientists use a variety of chemical and physical methods to determine molecular masses. One of these methods includes the Dumas method for determining the molecular weight of a volatile liquid. This method, which was proposed by John Dumas in 1826, makes use of a volatile liquid (vaporizes at a relatively low temperature) and allows this liquid to be heated in a water bath to a known temperature and escape from a flask through a tiny opening (Giunta, 2003). In this situation, vapours are assumed to be obeying the Ideal Gas Law, which is PV = nRT. P is the current atmospheric temperature, measured in atmospheres, V is the volume of the flask, n is the moles of the gas and T is the temperature of the water bath, measured in degrees Kelvin (Weisstein, 2007). R remains a constant, which is
0.08206 L atm/K mol (Weisstein, 2007). The equation used to solve for n (mass/molecular weight) is substituted into the Ideal Gas Law and then......

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Title: Dumas Method
Approximate Word Count: 1943
Approximate Pages: 8 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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