Determining the Activation Energy of Glucose Syrup Using the Arrhenius Equation

Math Study Area

This experiment finds the activation energy of corn syrup using the Arrhenius equation. This was done through a simple experiment of dropping a ball into corn syrup and measuring its terminal velocity. From this, the viscosity could be derived, through the use of rearrangement of Newton’s First Law. The temperature of the corn syrup was also varied through the use of a microwave by raising it to 50 degrees Celsius. It is known that the more viscous a liquid is, the greater the activation energy for the liquid, which is essentially the energy barrier that a molecule has to overcome to travel, and thus the slower the liquid travel. Through linearization of the equation, it can be seen that graphing the inverse of temperature against the natural log of the viscosity, the equation of the slope would be equivalent to the activation energy over the universal gas constant. After conducting the experiment, it was proven that corn syrup has a very high activation energy, and thus is a very viscous liquid.