Chemistry Honors Project Presentation.

1. The Chemistry of
Hot Air Balloons

2. QUICK HISTORY
● The Hot Air Balloon has been around for ages, since 1783 when the first
hot air balloon was launched by Pilatre De Rozier.
● Hot air balloons are large carrier balloons, they travel using the chemistry
behind rising hot air.
● The hot air balloon has been remastered and put to the test of time, it has
been perfected to modern standards by the scientist, Ed Yost.
● The hot air balloon has been a valuable asset to the world of Chemistry
and is still being perfected to this day.

3. Flight of an early Hot Air Balloon
This is an image of one of
the earliest hot air balloons
tested and put into flight.

4. Chemistry of:
● Hot air balloons travel can basically be summed up by the
“Ideal Gas Law”, the balloon is lifted by the “increased
temperature on the motions of molecules of a gas, and thereby
on the density of the gas”.
● Hot air balloons are able to stay afloat in the air for so long
due to the difference in temperature between the heated air on
the inside of the balloon and the cooler air on the outside, the
difference in temperature causes an effect of buoyancy.

5. Chemistry of:
● The buoyant force acts upward on the balloon, but it is
constantly being challenged by the gravitational pull.
● Hot air balloons work like this: the balloon is first assembled
out in the field, putting together the smaller pieces and
finishing off any last stitchings. Then the balloon is filled
with cold air from a small fan, which is later turned to hot air
using the large burners installed into each balloon.

6. Implications:
● Hot air balloons are a mystery that only God can fully
explain. It’s a mystery how man went from once struggling to
travel by land across the United States to now just simply
being able to blow up a large balloon and fly.
● God really has given us so much such we have yet to
discover.

7. Image of Pilatre De Rozier
One of the first scientists
to experiment using the
Ideal Gas Law and
employing it into the idea
of flight.

8. Works Cited:
Davenport, Derek. “How the Right Professor Charles Went up in the Wrong Kind of
Balloon.” Chem Matters 14 Dec. 1983: 12-15. Print.
Eballoon. eBalloon, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2013. <http://www.eballoon.org/history/history-
of-ballooning.html>.
Mattson, Barbara, ed. Imagine NASA. Dr. Barbara Mattson, 6 Jan. 1997. Web. 11 Apr.
2013. <http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970106a.html>.
Weller, Mark. “How Hot Air Balloons Work.” Helium. Helium Inc., 18 June 2011.
Web. 11 Apr. 2013. <http://www.helium.com/items/2179085-hot-air-balloons-
and-how-they-work>.