A student is trying to run some experiments for a project to explore how the concentration of CO2 affects the temperature of air. For this, she:
- Drops different ammounts of dry ice (between 0 and 2.5g) in a 0.5l conical flask ans seals it.
- Waits until the CO2 has volatilze and the temperature has stabilized in a water bath.
- Places the flask in front of a IR incandescent lamp.
- Records the temperature every 10 seconds during one hour. She does this by placing a thermometer inside the flask.
She is always obtaining a nice heating curve that increases quickly for 10 min and then stabilizes (sorry, I don't have the data).
The problme is that there is no correlation between the amount of CO2 and the final temperature.
There are still a few variables that she needs to control, but I am wondering if this experiment can work at all. Will the ammount of CO2 be enough to make a difference? Would you advice any changes in the setup?