Question

Academician E. Lenz in his experiments on the investigation of the heating effect of current took as his unit, a current which, in passing through acidified water, released 41.16 cm³ of gas in an hour at a pressure of 760 mm of mercury and a temperature of 0°C. Express Lenz's unit of current in amperes. Take the density of oxygen at a pressure of 760 mm of mercury to be 0.00143 g/cm³. Faraday's constant is 9.6 X 10⁴ coulombs

Answer 1

Answer:  Lenz's unit of current is equal to 0.065 amperes.

Explanation:

From the laws of electrolysis it follows that the mass released at one of the electrodes is M = Alt/Fn, where F is Faraday's constant,I is the current in amperes, t is the time in seconds, A/n is the gram-equivalent of matter. The volume of oxygen at 760mm of mercury released by the current consists, by Avogadro's rule, of 1/3 the volume of the mixed gases, and is equal to 13.72cm³. Hence the mass of oxygen released is M = dV = 0.0196g. The current corresponding to Lenz's unit is I = MFn/tA