Question

State three advantages of alcohol over mercury for using it as a thermometric liquid.

Answer 1

Advantages of alcohol over mercury:
(a) Freezing point of alcohol is $-{117}^{\circ }C$ and hence can record very low temperature For example in Arctic and Antarctic regions temperature may fall below $-{80}^{\circ }C$ which cannot be measured by mercury thermometer because mercury freezes at $-{39}^{\circ }C$
(b) The expansion of alcohol per degree rise in temperature is much more around six times more then that of mercury and hence is more sensitive
(c) it can be coloured brightly by adding some dye in it and hence is easily detectable