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Heat capacity question

How many vibrational degrees of freedom are there in the CO2 molecule? What is thevalue of the molar heat capacity Cv for temperatures low enough that the molecularvibrations of CO2 do not need to be considered?

I've calculated the degrees of freedom but I'm not sure about the second part, would anyone be able to explain please? :smile:

Reply 1

BJack

You can calculate the heat capacity using the equipartition theorem. You probably want to explain (briefly) why it's reasonable to assume that rotational and translational modes are fully activated even at lower temperatures than vibrational modes.