Hess’ Law: Investigating the Significance Enthalpy Differences
Hess’ law, or the law of constant heat summation, states that the total enthalpy change in a chemical reaction is the same regardless of the pathway taken. German chemist Dr. Gottlieb Wilz-Leibniz proposed this law in 1841. Later, Dr. Julius Robert von Mayer formulated it (Rockwood 2016,). Hess’ law was based upon the belief that the enthalpy of a reaction can be determined independently of its mechanism and only by its starting and end states (Tripathi & Pandey 2017, 2017). The implications of Hess’ law are that the sum of all enthalpy changes for a reaction, whether calculated individually or in combination, will always be the same. The significance of Hess’ law is that it can be used to calculate the enthalpy of a reaction without having to carry out the entire reaction. The law of constant heating summation, combined with multiple enthalpy fluctuations, can calculate the enthalpy variation of the desired react (Rathore, 2021). This can be especially helpful in situations where the reaction is too complicated or expensive. Hess’ law permits you to evaluate different routes of a reaction and determine which one is the most thermodynamically advantageous (Kumar, et al.2020). Cont…..