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Capillary Action....?
ok well doing a write up about capillary action
And would just love to get some clarification.
I'm testing how density of the liquid affects how far it rises in the capillary tube.
Basically is Adhesion would be applied when the substance is staying together by iteself and cohesion is when the tube is placed into the beaker and the cohesion is when the substance clings to the wall.
Also I do not understand surface tension at all. Can somebody please explain in simple terms?
And a capillary tube is open at the bottom right?
Some more info on capillary action would be appreciated
oh haha in my report I had cohesion and adhesion the right way just worded it wrong here.
Thanks for that it does clear things up a bit more for me!
1 Answer
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
oooh how fun :D
I'm not very good at explaining things so i apologize in advance...but surface tension is basically how strong the surface of a liquid is? I guess you could say it like that if that makes sense. you know how some bugs can walk and glide on ponds and such? That's because water has a very high surface tension due to the covalent bonds which stems from the H2O polarity from within a single H-O-H bond. which means, it's hard to break though the surface of water. With me so far? :)?
and a capillary tube does have an opening on one end. and also you have your two terms intermixed. Using H2O as an example again, the water binding to other water molecules would be considered cohesion. and when the water creeps up a glass tube, that's considered adhesion. Adhesion is basically the water binding to anything with a charge, ie the glass capillary tube.
Source(s): ochem and mcb bio class :)
