Ethane (data page)

This page provides supplementary chemical data on ethane.

Material Safety Data Sheet

The handling of this chemical may incur notable safety precautions. It is highly recommend that you seek the Material Safety Datasheet (MSDS) for this chemical from a reliable source such as SIRI, and follow its directions.

Structure and properties

Structure and properties
Index of refraction, nD	?
Abbe number	?
Dielectric constant, εr	? ε0 at ? °C
Bond strength	?
Bond length	?
Bond angle	?
Magnetic susceptibility	?
Surface tension	21.16 dyn/cm at −119.9 °C

Thermodynamic properties

Phase behavior
Triple point	91 K (−182 °C), 1.1 Pa
Critical point	305.3 K (32.2 °C), 4.9 MPa
Std enthalpy change of fusion, ΔfusHo	9.76 kJ/mol at −182 °C
Std entropy change of fusion, ΔfusSo	6.46 J/(mol·K) at −182 °C
Std enthalpy change of vaporization, ΔvapHo crystal I → liquid	14.703 kJ/mol at −89.0 °C
Std entropy change of vaporization, ΔvapSo crystal I → liquid	79.87 J/(mol·K) at −89.0 °C
Std enthalpy change of state transition, ΔtrsHo crystal II → crystal I	2.282 kJ/mol at −183.3 °C
Std entropy change of state transition, ΔtrsSo crystal II → crystal I	25.48 kJ/mol at −183.3 °C
Solid properties
Std enthalpy change of formation, ΔfHosolid	? kJ/mol
Standard molar entropy, Sosolid	? J/(mol K)
Heat capacity, cp	? J/(mol K)
Liquid properties
Std enthalpy change of formation, ΔfHoliquid	? kJ/mol
Standard molar entropy, Soliquid	126.7 J/(mol K)
Heat capacity, cp	68.5 J/(mol K) at −179 °C
Gas properties
Std enthalpy change of formation, ΔfHogas	−83.8 kJ/mol
Standard molar entropy, Sogas	229.6 J/(mol K)
Enthalpy of combustion, ΔcHo	−1560.7 kJ/mol
Heat capacity, cp	52.49 J/(mol K) at 25 °C
van der Waals' constants[1]	a = 556.2 L2 kPa/mol2 b = 0.06380 L/mol

Vapor pressure of liquid

P in mm Hg		1	10	40	100	400	760	1520	3800	7600	15200	30400	45600
T in °C		−159.5	−142.9	−129.8	−119.3	−99.6	−88.6	−75.0	−52.8	−32.0	−6.4	23.6	—

Table data obtained from CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 44th ed.

Ethane vapor pressure vs. temperature. Uses formula ${\displaystyle \ln P_{\text{mm Hg}}=}$${\displaystyle \ln {\frac {760}{101.325}}-5.381564\ln T-{\frac {2626.728}{T}}+46.39131+1.601858\times 10^{-05}T^{2}}$ (with T in kelvins) obtained from CHERIC^[2]

Melting point data

Mean value for acceptable data: −183.01 °C (90.14 K).

Sources used, from ONS Open Melting Point Collection:^[3]

• −183.33 °C^[4]
• −182.85 °C from CHERIC^[5]
• −182.78 °C^[6]
• −182.79 °C from PHYSPROP^[7]
• −183.28 °C^[8]

Values considered "outliers", not included in averaging:

• −172 °C from Oxford MSDS^[9]
• −172.15 °C^[10]

Spectral data

UV-Vis
λmax	? nm
Extinction coefficient, ε	?
IR
Major absorption bands	? cm−1
NMR
Proton NMR
Carbon-13 NMR
Other NMR data
MS
Masses of main fragments