How do I find the density of pentadecane?

1 Answer
Feb 10, 2016

If you have an account on scifinder or if you can get one as a student, you would find the density listed as:

#"0.7687 g/cm"^3# at #20^@ "C"#

I use this as a university student and I find it useful and reliable, especially since they even give melting point and boiling point ranges determined by multiple sources, not just singular values.


Alternatively, looking up the "MSDS" (more recently changed to just an SDS) is always a good idea. Besides on Sigma Aldrich, I found an SDS for pentadecane here. It shows:

#"0.769 g/cm"^3# at #20^@ "C"#

And remember that it's a good idea to check multiple sources to see if their densities agree. I found other sources that had "relative" densities like #0.77# and #0.66#, and I just don't trust that that's correct because it can be known to greater certainty than that.