Okay so I'm taking chemistry and I can't seem to figure out surface tension and vapor pressure.
Like if I wanted to list liquids in increasing surface tension, how would I do that, and why does it work that way?
Same question for increasing vapor pressure??

I have an example problem in my book, that has no answer but asks to list it. The liquids are 1-fluoropropane, butane, and 1-propanol.
For surface tension I have Butane as the lowest tension and 1-fluoropropane as the highest.
For vapor pressure I have Butane as the lowest VP and 1-propanol as the lowest.
Am I anywhere near close??

I'm kind of worried this will be on my test on Friday, and my teacher has been no help :-(

It seems like a trick question without enough information to allow an accurate answer.

You can find the vapor pressure of materials at various temperatures from any good handbook such as Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook, the Chemical Rubber Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Lang's Chemical Handbook etc.

I believe that only liquids can have surface tension. Without the confining pressure and temp. specified, you cannot tell if the listed chemicals are a liquids or gas.

It seems like a trick question without enough information to allow an accurate answer.

You can find the vapor pressure of materials at various temperatures from any good handbook such as Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook, the Chemical Rubber Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Lang's Chemical Handbook etc.

I believe that only liquids can have surface tension. Without the confining pressure and temp. specified, you cannot tell if the listed chemicals are a liquids or gas.


It's based on intermolecular forces, by looking at the formula and the diagram you can see what bonds with what and which vander wahl force is at work, some of vander wahls forces are stronger than others which affects surface tension (the stronger the forces the higher the surface tension) and vapor pressure, (the stonger the intermolecular forces the lower the vapor pressure)
So no it's not a trick question and yes this chapter was on liquids, I didn't think that was relavent when I wrote the post.